so?

From: Mike Cole (mcole@weber.ucsd.edu)
Date: Mon Feb 28 2000 - 20:05:40 PST


So, Dale, what are you working on and worrying about these days? It is
really interesting that your discontinuous experience with xmca should
bring about a sharpened perception of change.

Here we are struggling with the problem of too much money being thrown at
educational problems too fast to enable intelligent usage. Its a really
subtle social control mechanism that allows everyone to feel virtuous
while nothing changes.

I am personally trying to institutionalize afterschool use of the internet
in one of the Fifth Dimensions in a Boys and Girls club as part of their
"educational program." It relates to the issue of authenticity which
we nodded toward a couple of weeks ago.... since we are dealing with
AFTERschool, the best school-oriented practices won't survive, more play
in needed. And more serious self-representation in the form of artifacts
created "for them" (them being peers at a distance, the web, etc, whatever
that is). We have some technical limitations, of course (its a Boys and
Girl's Club founded on philanthropy, and hence always short of resources).
But the really interesting issue is how, routinely, to create development-
enhancing environments with the new tools at hand.... and how not to!

Et vous?
mike



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