[Its.an.education.project] untangling constructionism

[forster at ozonline.com.au]

> Although I don't want to impose my own view of what is relevant to this
> list, I think discussing the validity of constructionism is not on-topic.

I hope we can discuss constructionism here. Its an Education Project. That means we should discuss why Sugar is better for education than Windows or Sugar on Windows.

The justification that is given is that Sugar is specifically designed for learning and that it is a constructionist view of what makes good learning.

A loss of Sugar to OLPC is a big blow to open souce, but what are the educational implications? A greater range of powerful learning applications will be available to kids but there may be losses in terms of collaboration , individual agency and other areas supported by a custom designed OS.

The question "what is lost" can only be seriously evaluated through a deep understanding of how children learn, constructionism, constructivism, social constructivism, cognitivism, connectivism can all give an insight into learning processes.

What I would have liked Bill to mention is constructionism's roots in constructivism. That is that we construct our own individual understandings, that we build our own mental models, that we need to be able to turn ideas over like Lego bricks and examine them from all aspects, trying them to see where they fit together.

In this context, why exactly is Sugar better than Windows and if we have to accept some kind of OLPC compromise, where will we get the greatest benefit for the kids.

Tony