What is Constructionism? - some videos + text

What is Constructionism?

- 3 minute video that helps!

 Why do we have robots etc?

In the move from Piagetian beliefs to the alternative suggested by Seymour Papert, robots played a significant role. It so happened that at the time when coputers were just becoming available, people generally thought that Piaget had taught the world that children start life only knowing 'concrete' things. For this reason everything hd to be tangible, like concrete as most people knew it. Papert suggested that children related to ideas if they were offered in a form that connected to what children knew - for example that they might have to turn around to see something. That is, the 'reality' of 'concreteness was in the relationship, the syntonicity ias an example. Syntonicity was said by Papert to be the relationship between what children did with their bodies. This means children could perhaps deal with more difficult topics if only those topics could be presented in a way that children could understand - it was not about simplifying the topic but expressing it in a comprehensible way.

So, the turtles came into existence after a vacuum cleaner was linked up to a computer and driven remotely by the children.

Now, for many years, a debate followed between those who thought the children needed a solid object to drive around to come into contact with geometric ideas and those who were quite content to use a triangle on a computer screen, called a 'turtle'.

See also 'social constructionism' - 

 and see what Vygotsky offered:

 and how is this relevant to education?

See