Maintaining Local Identity, Control and Ownership while Increasing uses

of Technologies in Schools

Dr. Deirdre Butler

St. Patrick’s College, Dublin City University in collaboration with Media Lab Europe

Difficult Questions

• What kind of future do we want to create?

• What kind of people do we wish to nurture?

• What are the values we want to live by?

• Can digital technology help this happen?

Epistemological Foundations

Principles of a learning environment in the Digital Era

We are striving to develop a learning environment that

is inclusive

ensures equitable access for all

respects the inherent dignity of the individual to realise their potential

enhances the subjectivity of people to become shapers and active construtors of the Digital Age while realising their creative abilities and full human potential

A fundamentally different learning environment

Can immersion in a supportive constructionist learning environment, rich in computationally

expressive materials, empower people to become self-determined learners?

Design of the Learning Environment

• Constructionism

• Immersion

Constructionism

• Materials

• Constructed Artefact

• Learners

Materials

• Capable of reflecting and deepening both learners’ interests and experiences

• Enable, through the properties of the materials and the construction process, engagement with and deeper understandings of ‘big ideas’ and learning processes.

The Learners• The Learners’ needs, interests and experiences

are at the forefront of the learning experience

• Control / ownership vested in the Learner

• The Learner must accept responsibility for setting their own learning goals in order to meet their interests and needs

Constructed Artefact

• “Object to think with” • A means by which others can become involved in

the thinking process as it develops• Iterative design process• The group dynamic is important as the artefact

grows and learners share and reflect.

Immersive Learning Environment

• Computational Materials

• Atelier-style workshop environment

Challenging Addressing personal needs and interests

Conversational Inviting contemplation and negotiation

Connective Supporting personal relationships and ideasthat transcend traditional subject boundaries e.g.engagement with and deeper understandings of computational ideas

and processes e.g., control, feedback and variability.

Computational Materials

Atelier-style workshop environments• Intimate connection between knowledge and activity

• Key features of an Atelier-style of working :– participants engage with complex open-ended problems

over a protracted length of time – collaboration encouraged– reflection explicitly incorporated – heterogeneity of issues addressed.(Kuhn, 2001, p.5)

• Structured, unstructured or self-structured? (collaborations movie)

Local Identity

• Cromdubh and St. Patrick - Stokane N.S.

• Hurling at Kilvemnon

• “Diarmaid agus Grainne” epic

Control & Ownership• Fionn in the stockade - twist in the tale

(teacher’s reflection & movie)

• Recycling

• The Robbery

• Explosion at Springfield

• Motors in Stokane

Self-Determined Learning• Ownership and control vested in the learner [Dignity]

• Equitable access [Equity]

• Democratic decision making [Inclusion]

• Provocative, engaging, and challenging computational materials;

• Challenging learning experiences in sustained, immersive, Atelier-style learning environments;

• Embedding learning in their own experiences (“objects to think with”);

• A support framework that addresses each individual needs, interests and experiences;

• A supportive community with a diverse range of backgrounds;

• Adequate time to allow self directed learning to develop and changes to take place.

Evidence of Learning v’s Traditional Testing

Field notes

Case Study/ Portfolio

Interviews

E-mails Teacher reports

PhotographsVideo footage

Journals

Web-platform Learning stories

Challenges• Teacher Educators

– Preparing a new generation of teacher/learners– Continuum of Teacher Learning – Theory / Practice

• Policy makers– Acknowledge epistemological foundations of policy– Recognise inconsistencies– Reconceptualise current models of schooling– Reassess current models of teacher professional

development

EM’s Constructionist Learning Network

http://empoweringminds.mle.ie