Novel constructivist learning environments and novel technologies: some issues to be concerned with1

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Abstract

Three issues are discussed. One concerns the instructional goals of constructivist environments: Are they to be aimed at the processes of social participation and the joint system's operation, or at more lasting attainments of it? A solution is offered based on conceptions of reciprocal interdependence between approaches. The other issues pertain to the technology's role in constructivist learning environments. One concerns the possibility of a Butterfly Defect whereby students may learn to construct cognitive webs in terms of the casual links typical of the hypermedia they construct. The second issue pertains to the flood of unstructured, fortuitous information students in constructivist learning environments face when surfing the Internet: Might it not debilitate their construction of knowledge? Researchers and designers should therefore beware of being led into a technological promised land that redefines the nature of constructionist learning environments.

Section snippets

Two versions of constructivism

Since the construct of constructivism has various meanings to various communities, it is beyond the scope of a single paper to attempt to describe, let alone define it. Apparently, true to the spirit of constructivism, most everybody constructs his or her own particular meaning for it. Nevertheless, there appears to be a core of common understandings of constructivism in the area of learning and instruction (e.g., Philips, 1995, p. 5). Knowledge is believed to be actively constructed, tightly

Technology and mind

Technology in instruction rarely functions as a silent, unfelt and indifferent servant of constructivist pedagogy; it affects learning and thinking on its own right, and might be doing it in more profound ways than we are willing to admit. Technology, as employed for the realization of a constructivist learning environment can affect minds in a number of principled ways. One of these is the opportunity that it affords of actively constructing knowledge in particular symbolic forms (word, graph,

Technology: from realization to provocation

As already mentioned in the introduction, technology's rapid development affords entirely new usages the pedagogical rationale for which is quite unclear. Suddenly, and perhaps for the first time in human history, education has at its disposal novel and very tempting tools and engines without, in many cases, having instructional rationales and psychological underpinnings to justify their employment. For the first time, education has to chase technology down the classroom aisles and the Internet

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    1

    This paper is based on the author's Keynote Address presented at the 7th EARLI Conference, Athens, Greece, August 1997.

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