[Its.an.education.project] untangling constructionism

[Walter Bender]

The key point behind Sugar in my mind has been simply that we want a
learning environment that will skew the odds that the teachers and
children will engage in a culture of learning that involves both
personal expression and a culture of critique. It was never intended
that "learn through doing" be the only way of learning and certainly
is not anti-teacher.

The one point that Seymour and I argued about quite a bit was the role
of collaboration. Tools such as Microworlds tend to be solo
activities--although there can be a culture of sharing around the
activity. With Sugar, we strive to add additional affordances for
communication and sharing so that it would, again, be more likely that
children and their mentors would interact.

As Bernie points out, the connection to FOSS is a cultural one more
than a technical one.

-walter

On Fri, May 2, 2008 at 5:15 AM, Bernie Innocenti <bernie at codewiz.org> wrote:
> Bill Kerr wrote:
>
>  > It can be important to know what words really mean and to use them
>  > correctly. I think the word "constructionism" is being thrown around
>  > carelessly at the moment. These trends should be avoided IMO:
>  >
>  >     * that constructionism is the best or only good learning theory
>
>  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.
>
>  If we are here, it's because we want to continue our educational effort
>  and Sugar in the way it was conceived.  And it was conceived by people
>  with strong belief in constructionism theories.
>
>
>  >     * that constructionism is just learning by doing and making
>
>  I think most people on this list recognize that "learn by doing" or
>  "learning learning" are gross oversimplifications to give a quick
>  definition to the press.
>
>  >     * that constructionism means much the same as freedom
>
>  It may not mean the same, but it can easily seen how each one is a
>  prerequisite of the other, and critical thought glues them together.
>
>  /Please/, let's not re-discuss constructionism and freedom in this list.
>  Sugar is an educational environment built around constructionism and it
>  also happens to be free software.  Let's take this assertion as a matter
>  of fact and discuss how it can be improved.
>
>  --
>    \___/
>   _| o |  Bernie Innocenti - http://www.codewiz.org/
>   \|_X_|  "It's an education project, not a laptop project!"
>  _______________________________________________
>  Its.an.education.project mailing list
>  Its.an.education.project at tema.lo-res.org
>  http://lists.lo-res.org/mailman/listinfo/its.an.education.project
>