By choice I have only 15 computers in my elementary school computer
lab. I always have two students working at a computer. The only time
this is a problem is when I make my token effort to teach keyboarding.
But the learning that is mediated by the computer and expressed by the
interactions of two (or more) children is worth the trouble. I have
been able to resist the pressure to have one computer per child for two
reasons. If I don't ask for more computers, there's money to put in
other areas. And, there is no seperate space on the report card for a
Computer grade. Without these two constraints (I think constraints can
be positive as well as negative) I could not resist the forces that
separate our atomic students and require them to compete for the
priviledges associated with being recognized as an educated person.
And many parents and teachers (and students, too)support the belief
that teachers teach and students learn and some learn more and better
than others and should be rewarded for so doing.
So designing a learning environment by including students, parents,
teachers, etc. that supports cooperative learning may need to be able
to change as the needs and attitudes of the people change. (Hopefully,
they will change. )Maybe the designed environment could constrain
changes that support the acceptance of distributed cognition (or
whatever it's called by then-I avoid using the word, "cognition")
without obviously pushing an agenda.
Kathie
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\\\\\\\\\\\\\You live you learn
\\\\\\\\\\\You love you learn
\\\\\\\\\You cry you learn
\\\\\\\You lose you learn
\\\\\You bleed you learn
\\\You scream you learn////////alanis morissette:jagged little pill
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Katherine_Goff who-is-at ceo.cudenver.edu
http://ouray.cudenver.edu/~kegoff/index.html