Papert: "It is easy enough to formulate simple catchy versions of the idea of constructionism; for example, thinking of it as "learning-by-making." One purpose of this introductory chapter is to orient the reader toward using the diversity in the volume to elaborate--to construct--a sense of constructionism much richer and more multifaceted, and very much deeper in its implications, than could be conveyed by any such formula. My little play on the words construct and constructionism already hints at two of these multiple facets--one seemingly "serious" and one seemingly "playful." The serious facet will be familiar to psychologists as a tenet of the kindred, but less specific, family of psychological theories that call themselves contructivist. Constructionism--the N word as opposed to the V word--shares constructivism's connotation of learning as "building knowledge structures" irrespective of the circumstances of the learning. It then adds the idea that this happens especially felicitously in a context where the learner is consciously engaged in constructing a public entity, whether it's a sand castle on the beach or a theory of the universe. And this in turn implies a ramified research program which is the real subject of this introduction and of the volume itself. But in saying all this I must be careful not to transgress the basic tenet shared by the V and the N forms: If one eschews pipeline models of transmitting knowledge in talking among ourselves as well as in theorizing about classrooms, then one must expect that I will not be able to tell you my idea of constructionism. Doing so is bound to trivialize it. Instead, I must confine myself to engage you in experiences (including verbal ones) liable to encourage your own personal construction of something in some sense like it. Only in this way will there be something rich enough in your mind to be worth talking about. But if I am being really serious about this, I have to ask (and this will quickly lead us into really deep psychological and epistemological waters) what reasons I have to suppose that you will be willing to do this and that if you did construct your own constructionism that it would have any resemblance to mine? I find an interesting toe-hold for the problem in which I called the playful facet--the element of tease inherent in the idea that it would be particularly oxymoronic to convey the idea of constructionism through a definition since, after all, constructionism boils down to demanding that everything be understood by being constructed. The joke is relevant to the problem, for the more we share the less improbable it is that our self-constructed constructions should converge ..." - Situating Constructionism <a href="http://www.papert.org/articles/SituatingConstructionism.html">http://www.papert.org/articles/SituatingConstructionism.html</a> <div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 1:42 PM, Bill Kerr <<a href="mailto:billkerr@gmail.com">billkerr@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> I can see different ways of approaching the problem of coming to grips with constructionism: a) try to define it in words -> this is tricky because if we learn by making and doing (part of the definition but not sufficient) then is thinking and writing words down a sufficiently insightful means of making and doing (it might be part of the solution but some more strategic making might also be required, eg. making using etoys in a partly guided project about exploring falling objects is different from making by reading, thinking and writing - not necessarily better but different) I can see the argument that *defining* constructionism is not sufficient - that making is different from defining b) talk about projects and learning without using the actual C_ word (alan kay, Yoshiki Ohshima) c) acknowledge that C__ is useful but there are other useful ways of learning as well (eg. spoonfeeding, some parts of training dogs) I've been reading Marvin Minsky's The Emotion Machine. It's available on line at his mit site. <a href="http://web.media.mit.edu/%7Eminsky/" target="_blank">http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/</a> He says that many words used in learning are suitcase words - that they are not very useful because they have multiple meanings eg. he argues that "consciousness" is a suitcase word (Ch 4) I'm thinking that constructionism has become a suitcase word - nevertheless I don't really believe that we can do without such words or at least talking about the place of such words I think all of the above approaches have value (a, b and c) btw I can't see the word "constructionism" in the index of Minsky's book <div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c"> <div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, May 16, 2008 at 2:01 AM, Bill Kerr <<a href="mailto:billkerr@gmail.com" target="_blank">billkerr@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Edward Cherlin's challenge: "I defy anybody to write down a definition of Constructionism or Constructivism that the others here will agree with" </blockquote></div> </div></div></blockquote></div>