[Olpc-za] A Journey into Constructivism
Ronald Wertlen
ronald.wertlen at gmx.net
Sun Aug 26 12:57:14 EDT 2007
1) In support of better-is-worse
I like considering biological models, as they have often been developed
over millions of years, and they work. In nature "worse-is-better" has a
prettier name - it is "good enough" and that is what evolution favours.
Through natural selection "good enough" has come to mean jewels of
wonder like an eagle's eye. People tend not to understand evolution
because they don't naturally understand large numbers.
2) In support of debates based on facts
I don't have any facts to add from the educational side, except personal
anecdotes. However, I hope to soon change that. I am learning from the
University of Fort Hare Dwesa project and am about to embark on some
experimentation of my own. If the debate is slow enough I may be back
with some facts in time to make a difference.
3) In support of debates that are to the point
As Leone says, we are all busy people. Verbosity tends to obscure the
point. It also makes it more difficult for future generations to go back
and see what the cause of current problems may be (as far as something
like that could be read in a mailing list archive). I hope list
submissions are kept to the point and do not ramble on too long.
4) In support of constructivism and OLPC
The hole-in-the-wall project [1] supports the constructivist notion of
recursive bootstrapping in intelligent systems. We should treat children
as intelligent and make learning an active pursuit.
[1] http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com/
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