LIDDY NEVILE

Barson Research/Geelong Grammar School

I am interested in the use of computers by children as part of their general educational process. I do not consider that vocational training, or computer awareness as such, are involved in this process. I do however expect that computers can and should be used to enhance the learning process in a significant way.

I believe that if children are to be able to realize the full potential of the assistance which computers can offer, they will need computer environments which are appropriate for their purposes. I believe that children do not learn in a neat sequential way, nor that they can be taught - children who are learning are assimilating fragments of knowledge in an active role, and teachers cannot predetermine those intuitively held fragments, nor assume responsibility for their organization or development.

Stylized computing environments do not offer children the opportunities which can be made available in more flexible systems. UNDERSTANDABILITY is a priority in computational environments and this does not always come from friendly interfaces - if the underlying system is not suitably flexible there is a substantial risk that the interface will intervene as yet another object which needs interpretation. In addition, the management of information is a part of the learning process and when this is prescriptive it can also be inhibiting. The form of information cannot be prescribed either; children do not have the ability to differentiate between different sorts of information and merely supplying 'integrated' software will not overcome this inability in computers.

UTILITY is one aspect of computing which is carefully given priority in the commercial and sophisticated applications areas, yet it is often disregarded in terms of children. For full educational development children must gain epistemological understanding and a sense of the satisfaction which is intrinsic to the learning process. This cannot be expected to arise where the computers are designed with the children's achievement levels taking priority over their intuitive states. The learning process should result in the development of certain skills and attitudes to information, but this is not always achieved by a top-down approach to teaching. The utility of the computing environment to the children should be considered a major priority.

LIDDY NEVILE

Barson Research/Geelong Grammar School

Introduction

Who am I and what are my interests? Why is educational computing different?

What are the educational requirements for maths/scientists?

What qualities are required of the computers if the necessary microworlds are to be created?

What are the qualities which the microworlds require?

Who will programme the computers?

What programmes are required?

Who am I and what are my interests?

I am interested in the difference between students who have the ability to recall formal education when called to do so in exams and tests, and those who display intuitive knowledge which has developed as the result of their formal education. I believe that in most cases the training which is given to students at school , and even in tertiary institutions  does not replace their naive intuitions , but sits alongside it.

If students are to learn in the way suggested, they will need to acquire epistemological skills as well as the discipline knowledge they require. This shift in emphasis from content to process and epistemology has been gaining support in education for some time, and it is believed that the newer computational environments are making it more plausible as a teaching strategy.

Why is educational computing different?

While students are still students, they lack the judgement and knowledge of professionals. Their fragmented knowledge is often conflicting and disorganised, their problem-solving skills are embryonic , and their motivation is generally not intrinsic to the subject-matter or discipline , but related to external forces. These people do not drive computers as computers yet, they are busy acquiring the skills which will allow them to do so in the future.

What are the educational requirements for maths/scientists?

There was once a belief that scientists were people whose minds worked like analysis machines, that students should be taught to think logically, and that certain problem-solving skills were appropriate to the scientific method, and that students should acquire these.Nowadays it is being argued that scientific method is not a cut and dried process, that intuitive knowledge and lateral thinking skills are important. Mathematicians do not spend their time doing sums which have been done  by other people, but they too explore the mathematical territory with new methods and strategies.

An educated scientist of mathematician is defined as one whose relationship with his subject is such that the subject is intrinsically motivating  to him, and that his interaction with the content of the subject reflects an appreciation of the wider context in which that particular topic operates.

The implications for education are thought to be clear: if students can experience the scientific investigative processes, and mathematical enquiry and verification methods, they are more likely to understand the scientist's motivations. Initiation into the educated scientist's world is more valuable than a bank of formal knowledge in a vacuum: the latter can follow the former, but the trained mind is no match for the educated mind in science or any other discipline. Formal knowledge is not the same as functional intuitive knowledge.

What role can computers play in this educational process?

In a world where studcents could only call up[on their natural resources, teachers felt constrained to fill empty vessels (minds),with a supply of formal knowledge upon which they could later develop the educated scientific perspective. This process has not been successful in quantities, and the number of students who have survived to attempt the later stages of development has always been low.

Intelligent computers are thought ot have the potential to offer the missing framework to students to allow them to behave like scinetists before they are scinetists. Investigating complex phenomena is a scientific activity. Let us look at a simple example of how children ccan investigate the intelligence of a worm - a smelling worm.

Worm

Mterials:

A orm with the attributes that it can smell and decide if a smell is fading or increasing, and a faculty which causes it to turn.

Investigation:

What sort of decision-making processes does a smelling worm need to be able to find its way to a scented target?

Method:

Let the worm move about testing the strength of the scent at every few movements , and deciding which way to turn according to the information it has received. Then review the worm's intelligence and heuristics and attempt to improve them.

Discovery:

The role played by decisionmaking processes the amount of information which is required, etc all become relevant topics of exploration by the srudent in this microworld.

Advantages over other ways of learning the same subject matter

The simplicity of the situation is extreme. There is not a varoety of distracting materila which can act as a veil between the student and the topic. In addition, the isolation of attributes of the topic which are more usually .....the student a chance to access these.

But the most significant advantgae is the use of scientific investigative methods, however crude.The active participation of the student in the process is far more likely to result in real learning taking place. The substitution of a rudimentary metaphor for the worm is more likely to arouse the student's model-buiding activity within his mind than the supply of  aperfect model whch does or does not match existing schema within the student's mind.The success as well as the failure of the strategies  chosen to improve the worm's'intelligence' play an active part in the investigative process when students are interacting with the material in this way. The more common success/failure undergraduate model is displaced by a genuine investigative model.