Lesson 11

The Computer as the Teacher's tool.

    

                Constructivist was introduced by Piaget (1991) and Bruner (1990). They gave stress to knowledge discovery of new meaning/concepts/principles in the learning process. Various strategies have been suggested to foster knowledge discovery, among these, is making students engaged in gathering unorganized information from which they can induce ideas and principles. Students are also asked to apply discovered knowledge to new situations, a process for making their knowledge to real life situations.

                While knowledge is constructed by the individual learner in constructivism, knowledge can also be socially constructed. Social constructivism. This is an effort to show that the construction of knowledge is governed by social, historical and cultural contexts, in effect; this is to say that the learner who interprets knowledge has a predetermined point of view according to the social perspective of the community or society he lives in.

                The psychologist Vygotsky stressed that learning is affected by social influences. He therefore suggested the interaction process in learning. The more capable adult (teacher or parent) or classmate can aid or complement what the learner sees in a given class project. In addition Dewey sees language as a medium for social coordination and adaptation. For Dewey human learning is really human language that occurs when students socially share, build and agree upon meaning and knowledge.

Learning framework	Constructivism	Social Constructivism
Assumption	Knowledge is constructed by the individual.	Knowledge is constructed within a social context.
Definition of Learning	Students build their own Learning.	Students build knowledge influenced by the social context.
Learning Strategies	Gather unorganized information to create new concept/principle.	Exchange and share form ideas, stimulates thinking.
General Orientation	Personal discovery of knowledge.	Students discuss and discover meanings.
Example	8*5-8+8+8+8+8	Two alternative job offers Option 1-8 hrs./day for 6 days/ week. Option 2- 9 hrs./day for 5 days/ week.

The Computer’s Capabilities

              

      Given its present-day speed, flexibility and sophistication, the computer can provide access to information, foster creative social knowledge- building, and enhance the communication of the achieved project package. Without the computer, today’s learners nay still be assuming the tedious tasks of low-level information gathering, building and new knowledge packaging. But this is not so, since the modern computer can help teacher- and – students to focus on more high level cognitive tasks.

                Based on the two learning theories, the teacher can employ the computer as an:

Informative Tool

 The computer can provide vast amounts of information in various forms, such as text, graphics, sound, and video. Even multimedia encyclopedias are today available on the Internet.

The Internet itself provides an enormous database from which user can access global information resources that includes the latest news, weather forecasts, airline schedule, sports development, entertainment news and features, as well as educational information directly useful to learners. The Internet on education can be sourced for kinds of educational resources on the Internet.

Along the constructivist point of view, it is not enough for learners to download relevant information using the computer as an information tool. Students can used gathered information for composition or presentation projects as may be assigned by the teacher. Given the  fact that the Internet can serve as a channel for global communication, the computer can very well be the key tool for  video telecon ferencing sessions.

Communication Tool

The computer has been used in communication as evident by social networking sites as to facebook, twitter and friendster. We can even chat/talk friends and families anywhere in the globe through yahoo messenger or the one in facebook or view them through the webcam. We can send messages and information through the internet in just seconds or minutes.

Constructive tool

    The computer itself can be used for manipulating  information,visualizing one's understanding, and building new knowledge. the Microsoft word computer program itself is a desktop publishing software that allows users to organize and present their dies in attractive formats.

Co-constructive tools. 

  Students can use constructive tools to wwork. cooperatively and construct a shared understanding of new knowledge. one way of co-construction is the use of the electronic whitebaord where students may post notices to a shared document/ whitebaord. students may also co-edit the same document from thier homes.The computer-supported intentional learning environments (CSILE) is an example of an integrated environment developed by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. within CSILE, students can enter their ideas in notes and respond to each others ideas. Manifest in the the student-generated database are higher level thinking processes-explaining, problem so living/finding, expertise and development, literacy improvement.

Situating tool 

          By means of virtual reality (RS) extension system, the computer can create 3-D images on display to give the user the feeling that are situated in a virtual environment. A flight simulation program is an example of a situating tool which places the user in a simulated flying environment. Mulch-User Domains or Dungeons (MUDs), MUD object-oriented (MOOs), and Multi-User Shared hallucinations (MUSHs) are example os situating systems. MUDs and MOOs are mainly text\based virtual reality environments on the internet. When users log on to a MOO environment, they may interact with the virtual reality(such as by writing on a notice board) through simple text-based commands. A school-to-school or clasroom-tocalsrrom environment is possible whereby the user can choose to walk around the campus talk with other users who are logged to the same site to caution users, the computer as a situating tool is news and still undergoing further research and development.