A constructivist approach...

Welcome to our Computer generated world!

Here in Cyber SPACE this BLOG has been created to facilitate my ‘higher order learning’ on the topic of ICT in education. Within this BLOG I plan to start the discussion on the ‘relevance of the constructivist approach to education’ with in the realm of computer technology.

What is a Constructivist learning environment?

“Constructivists believe that knowledge is ‘constructed’, that the thinker is both mentally and physically active in this construction and that the sociocultural context in which knowledge construction occurs provides the thinker with invaluable resources, support and direction.” (Fosnot, 1993; Phillips, 2000; Wells and Chang-Wells, 1992)
From the ‘Education Phycology-Krause, Bochner and Duchesne 2003

At best a Constructivist Learning Environment acknowledges the rapidly changing world we live in, and by doing so allows students to become active learns within the new modern world that they see surrounding them.
This point is illustrated affectively in the realm of ICT in education. As an educator one must be constantly updating ones skills in ICT to keep up with the upcoming ‘Digital Natives’, whose knowledge supersedes most older generations from generation ‘Y’ and below. But even with sufficient skills ICT is still a new realm in which educators need to find the best possible way of facilitating higher learning.
I think the key to using ICT effectively in the classroom is to ensure that as a cognitive tool the computer is used to enhance learning rather than becoming the ‘object of construction’ (McClintock, 1992[From the ‘Educational Phycology-Krause, Bochner and Duchesne 2003])

The Constructivist approach to education “focuses on cognition as a collaborative process”(Rosoff, 1998); computer technologies when effectively used promote both interactivity between machines and user, and between users’. (Pachler, 2001)