[Its.an.education.project] Further training

[forster at ozonline.com.au]

> > There are many powerful ideas
> > that are readily accessible through computation, not the least of
> > which is the concept of debugging. 

Constructivist learning theory holds that we construct our own mental models and that the deep thinking happens when we encounter material which conflict with these models. Mental models are ideally complex, robust and 'runnable'.

The idea of a 'runnable' model obviously applies to physical phenonoma, it even applies to literature texts, our mental model can be used to provide output or predictions in this domain too, eg. What was Macbeth's mental state? What would he have done if....?

Debugging distils cognitive conflict into one of its most concentrated forms. The learner is in a tight cycle of implement-test-debug, with the bulk of the time spent in the debug or cognitive conflict state where the output of the learners runnable mental model is compared with the program output and the learner's model must be adjusted to match reality.

This debug cycle is particularly tight in text free or iconic languages such as Etoys (or Scratch or GameMaker) where the learner does not have to spend time tracking syntax errors and can concentrate on their mental representation of the program execution or their mental model.

So, I agree, debugging is likely to result in generalisable higher order thinking skills with the potential to transfer to a wide range of learning domains. Etoys is a particularly powerful OLPC activity for this reason.

Tony