I didn't say the technology makes good things happen, Randy (I hope). But
it affords creation of settings where children write to satisfy motives
that are genuine for them and acceptable, at least, to the adults. When
Margaret Riel was running her "mental gymnasium" at Field Elementary
school in the early 1980's and she and Jim Levin got their kids in interaction
with kids in Alaska. The shift in motivation depended crucially on the
reorganized social relations. The kids were committed to a joint newspaper.
When they got "stories" from the Alaskan kids, they got excited about
things like blood and blubber, but they found that the stories were hard
to understand. So they had to act as editors and send back suggestions
of what more they needed to know. Then they had to read what THEY had
written and now they were horrified to find that THEIR stories were
hard to understand. So they started asking to stay in the computer room
uring the recess so they could work on their stories.
But oh what a lot of work to organize. It was pre-internet days when
we used a commercial service that often didn't work so at times dics
were simply mailed. In that respect, times sure have changed!
mike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Mar 07 2000 - 17:54:01 PST