[Its.an.education.project] Ivan's latest blog entry on OLPC

[Edward Cherlin]

2008/5/15 Bill Kerr <billkerr at gmail.com>:
> ivan said:
> As far as I know, there is no real study anywhere that demonstrates
> constructionism works at scale. There is no documented moderate-scale
> constructionist learning pilot that has been convincingly successful; when
> Nicholas points to "decades of work by Seymour Papert, Alan Kay, and Jean
> Piaget", he's talking about theory.
>
> javier responded:
> I agree.  But... there is a huge place to test how construccionism has work
> in the last 8 years: Peru.
>
>
> I think ivan's challenge here is important - why hasn't constructionism
> scaled? - but the proper foundations to have that discussion still have to
> be made - in terms of what is it and its history

It doesn't surprise me at all that we don't have answers when we don't
know what the question is. I defy anybody to write down a definition
of Constructionism or Constructivism that the others here will agree
with. We have never had even the beginning of that discussion.

> ivan's history is v selective (Senegal, Project Headlight and then a "fast
> forward" NN's Kampuchea experiment)
>
> Javier's response does not help to clarify the meaning of constructionism.
> eg. in my state (South Australia) the official department curriculum is
> described as "social constructivist" but that is just jargon for fuzzy
> process skills delivered in obscure language (edu-speak).

Social Constructivism has little to do with Educational
Constructivism, or any of the other ideas that share the name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructivism
Constructivism
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Constructivism may refer to:

    * Constructivist epistemology, the philosophical view
    * Constructivism in international relations
    * Constructivism (mathematics), a view on mathematical proofs
    * Constructivism (art), an artistic movement in Russia from 1914 onward
    * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia
from 1919 onwards
    * Constructivism (learning theory), a theory about how learning happens
    * Social Constructionism, a sociological theory of knowledge
    * Social Constructivism (Learning Theory), a theory about the
social nature of learning
    * Constructivism (psychological school), an approach to
psychological research and therapy
    * Constructivist teaching methods

Constructivism may also be:

    * Approach to language acquisition in linguistics


> Without further
> detail the information from javier that "8 years ago (aproximately) the
> peruvian goverment decide to follow the constructionist method for the
> education" doesn't mean very much.

Walter knows somewhat more about this issue. Perhaps he can tell us
something factual and helpful.

> The particularly point I'd contradict ivan on is his use of the word
> "theory" in the above quote. The work of Seymour Papert, Alan Kay, and Jean
> Piaget includes a lot of theory *and* practice.
>
> Some very good PhD studies, supervised by Papert and others, did come out of
> the Media Lab. eg. the Instructional Design Software Project by Idit Harel
> was one outstanding contribution to educational theory and practice. Work
> such as this did have a big influence in Australia, it became the framework
> of some schools here (eg. Methodist Ladies College circa 1990 - there are
> other examples)
>
> Ivan has made a valid point about constructionism not yet scaling but I'd
> seek clarification on his use of the word "theory"

Instructionism doesn't scale, and yet it has been practiced almost
everywhere for centuries. Well, I take that back, partly. In its
purpose of social control, it scales quite well. As education it
doesn't scale at all.

> There are a number of issues arising that could be dealt with more fully:
>
> a more detailed and fair history
> the need to clarify what constructionism actually is (it is not just making
> and doing)
> discussion of the scaling issue

Illinois proposes a fair, public test of various laptops against each
other and against no laptops. It is up to the community to explain to
them what questions they might try to answer, and the importance of
setting up trials that can be compared to yield valid, meaningful
results. (When my mother was a Ph.D. candidate, she complained
frequently about other Ph.D. candidates who asked her somewhat
desperately for help with statistical analysis of their painstakingly
gathered but inherently meaningless data, due to lack of a valid
experiment design.)

[snip]
-- 
Edward Cherlin
End Poverty at a Profit by teaching children business
http://www.EarthTreasury.org/
"The best way to predict the future is to invent it."--Alan Kay