[IAEP] [Olpc-open] Constructionism

[Alex Belits]

Tomeu Vizoso wrote:

> I think there's a misunderstanding here. Eben and Bert are talking
> about children being able to engage other people (not just other
> children) in learning, Alex (in my opinion) talks about the more broad
> role of a teacher as those in conventional schools.

I meant, regardless of the model being used it's teacher's 
responsibility to provide direction, to make sure that students 
understand the goals of their study, and to keep them from abandoning 
the study out of frustration or because they lose interest. It's a hard 
task, and if teacher fails to perform it, other students, no matter how 
bright, are not in a position to fill his role -- they usually still 
lack sufficient knowledge of the "bigger picture" of the subject, can't 
realistically evaluate others' ability and willingness to absorb and 
process knowledge, and often are not in a proper social position to deal 
with frustration of their peers. Trying to force them into such a role 
does no good, and only deepens the "drama" I have described.

I am not questioning the fact that when kids are interested and 
motivated, provided with sufficient materials and help with genuinely 
hard to understand concepts, and adults do not artificially place them 
in positions of each other's enemies or oppressors, students co-operate 
and enhance each other's learning. However it's teacher's responsibility 
to provide necessary elements for this environment -- if it wasn't, and 
large groups of people were naturally inclined toward co-operative 
self-education, the most popular online activity would be reading and 
editing Wikipedia instead of playing World of Warcraft or posting 
nonsense on Myspace.

-- 
Alex