Constructivism and Constructionism

These are two words I'm having a tough time getting my head around - mostly I guess because they are so similar. I've heard constructivism before - and wasn't really sure what it quite meant. So a little Google work turned up this http://www.cc.gatech.edu/edutech/LBD/constructivism.html which compared the two terms. It was very helpful and descriptive, but I still have trouble and wish the creators had chosen words that were a bit more . . . different.

Constructivism is about how people create knowledge in their own minds - the construction of knowledge - a Piagetian idea. In education - it's the notion that "each students [sic] constructs their own, unique meaning for everything that is learned." of course, it seems to me that there are a LOT of nearly identical
"own unique meanings" of things in the world - otherwise how would we share knowledge or ideas or information and many people agree on the same thing? (Or at least it seems so - unless it's all a charade and we only want to think that we think the same thing). But I certainly do believe that each of us brings our own load of knowledge and experiences to bear on all new things we encounter in order to make meaning - and that's what can lead to new insights and solutions to long-standing problems. But somehow, in many things, we all appear to come to know the same thing in the same way.

Constructionism may be seen as the "legos" of education - that students will learn better (retention, too, I hope) the concept they are learnig (constructing in their heads) if they are using a method of education that includes making (constructing) something that others will see or use. This makes me think of the old adage that we never know something better than when we try to teach it to others.

When applying these notions to multiliteracies - I see that students make their own meaning of information/concepts/ideas being learned out of the act of creating web pages, putting their thinking into their own words, writing blogs, eMail, documents, and sharing them with others. At the same time, their knowing is being shaped by the input of others through their active searching for knowledge, and interacting with others. That knowledge formation will be quite different than that of not even a generation ago due to students' ability to interact not only with their geographically close peers, but with people from around the world (if they like), from different language, cultural and religious backgrounds previously not so easily (and instantly) available.

Literacies and Anarchy

Friday night and been spending some time on our course. Two readings - the article on drawing an analogy between multiliteracies and the multiple literacies of thru-hikers on the trail at http://www.readingonline.org/newliteracies/lit_index.asp?HREF=rush/index.html. I like what this piece offered - a good analogy to what multiple literacies are. Thru-hikers on the AT develop their own community, shared stories and (probably) fables, and the development of a community which, by definition is exclusive, isn't it? I mean, they talk about how they despise (in some cases) those people who are "playing" at hiking the AT. Those folks, the day-trippers I'll call them, pay to enjoy the AT and keep some creature comforts. The community of thru-hikers seem to dislike them and cast them in the role of auslanders. Rather than being viewed as people who are differently motivated in their desire to be on the trail, they are viewed, it seemed, as interlopers because they are having a different experience. I liked the article because it gave me ideas about how I could help students relate to the importance of learning the multiliteracies I'm trying to impart to them - my attempt to bring them into the electronic community. But at the same time, the article leaves mea bit sad, because rather than welcoming the day-trippers into the community of those who love and value the AT, the thru-hikers, at least based on my interpretation of what I read in the article, wish to keep them at bay and perhaps wish they would disappear altogether. But - who among them knows what kind of resources those people may be putting into the AT, or who is differently abled that this is what they can manage.

I also had a read of the Stephen Downes PowerPoint http://www.downes.ca/files/utah.ppt presentation. I hope to listen to it as well. I can connect with the desire to make information open, free and accessible, but it also carries with it an air of anarchy. Everyone gets everything and no one pays anything. Free for all. But I wonder - at some point someone has to pay the bill. Who will do that? If everyone donates everything - where is the incentive to create? Where is the incentive to take risks. It's easy to say someone took risks, made a bundle (and then perhaps descended into predatory practices as it seems MicroSoft has done) but then look at what they have brought to us. Would anyone have totally and completely freely created those products and then just given them away? I doubt it. They would have been paid, or they wouldn't have done it. There has to be some incentive that puts bread and butter on the table. Who can just sit in front of a computer screen all day long and pound out code, articles, books, etc., and give it away. Where will their bread and butter come from? It seems a naive view of the world to think that people will give away any and all intellectual property rights.

There also seems to be an underlying assumption that everyone is as open and honest and as trustworthy as everyone else - all at the level of honesty and integrity of Mr. Downes. Hello! I don't think I need to take this one any further.

Mr. Downes has some wonderful ideas, and some wonderful ideals. They work - to a point. But we have to figure out what that point is.

The World By Me

The World By Me

Lilia - I am in your page, and saw a button at the top called "Blog This" - so I'm trying it. I had to log in, and then it opened a new little html box to write in with your url in the first line. It appears as though whatever I write will not appear on your page, but back on my own. So this is an experiment to see what happens - will this message appear on your blog, or on mine - and when it does, what form will it take? We'll see! Mark A.

Multiliteracies in the ESL/EFL Classroom

As a student in a TESOL http://www.tesol.org professional development certificate course on being an on-line instructor, I've enjoyed expanding my knowledge of - well - teaching online. A lot of this has seemed intuitive to me, with 20 years of teaching under my belt, and many years of CALL work and study. A lot of things I've done intuitively, but it's nice to know there's support for intuition. Today I read an article, "Defining Literacy in the Age of Information: Implications for the ESL Classroom," by Loretta F. Kasper, a teacher at Kingsborough Community College/City University of New York. The article appears to be a paper she presented (TCC '99 Papers) - and I couldn't figure out what TCC '99 is. The URL is http://members.aol.com/Drlfk/TCC99.html.Loretta describes how she uses the notional of multiliteracies in her ESL classes to prepare her students for college life in the USA as well as for professional life in the 21st century - the age of digital information. Students need to have not only functional skills in manipulating a computer and applications (keyboard, Internet search, typing/word processing), but critical reading and assessment skills in order to achieve literacy in an age of electronic information. A citation from her introduction on the definition of multiliteracies:The New London Group (1996) uses the term "multiliteracies" to describe this broader set of literacies, and holds that today's definition of literacy must take into account the nature of communication that takes place through the growing "variety of text forms associated with information and multimedia technologies."The balance of her paper describes a semester-long course she has developed in which students work on developping multiliteracies in groups, working on topics of their choice, to prepare three papers. In her conclusion, she notes remarkable success not only in course achievement, but in the development of language proficiency that far exceeded students in other classes of the same program - all of which she (and her students) attribute to their work online. As I develop a self-access computer course at the American University of Sharjah, this reading is going to have an impact on my class. I want my students to leave me after 4 weeks with a much higher comfort level of working online, doing research, and in general, being prepared for life as a university student in an age of digital research and literacy.