[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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