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Re: [xmca] schools-without-computers-by-choice-and-conviction-that-they-dont-help-kids



Hi Bill--

I have worked with Scratch from time to time in relatively low tech,
marginally connected,
communities where knowledgeable users of Scratch are hard to find, and kids
become
easily discouraged. The philosophy of low entry high ceiling seems just
fine, but how high
you have to climb to get to the threshold, if you are tiny and weak, can be
mis-estimated
be designers.

I would be very interested to hear about various people's encounters with
Scratch. Its a terrifically interesting enterprise that xmca o philes should
a variety of equally interesting
opinions about.

mike

On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 4:37 AM, Bill Kerr <billkerr@gmail.com> wrote:

> The constructionist use of computers in schools as developed by Seymour
> Papert and allies is still a fruitful one. The modern incarnation of the
> software is scratch from MIT http://scratch.mit.edu/ but it remains true
> that to understand its educational philosophy fully you need to read some
> books. One idea is "hard play". Another is "low entry, high ceiling". This
> was modified a little in scratch to "low floor, wide walls".
>
> Moreover, the one laptop per child (OLPC) as developed by Negroponte and
> allies remains a worthwhile experiment to kick start learning for third
> world children.
>
> Peter, all the link shows is that mediocre use of computers leads to
> mediocre results.
>
> On Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 8:24 PM, Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2011/10/26/schools-without-computers-by-choice-and-conviction-that-they-dont-help-kids/?cxntfid=blogs_get_schooled_blog
> > __________________________________________
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