Educational discoveries

Seymour Papert discusses the difference between constructionism and instructionism in an extremely helpful way. This article was enlightening for me, giving me a better understanding of what constructionism is and how learning by doing is an important aspect of the e-learning subject. Skills already displayed in my blog such as the vodcast, podcast and comic strip can all be used within the classroom to carry this constructionist theme. Children can create and publish their own works, using existing knowledge and understandings to construct applications and further knowledge. Papert’s view that children learn best when they are active in the role of designer and constructor makes sense as you examine ther examples on  his website. The examples provided by Papert are definitely exciting, a little intimidating, but exciting. Papert stresses that he doesn’t want teachers to just copy these examples but to create their own examples of constructionism specific to their own students. I will certainly be thinking this through more!

The uses of podcasts within the classroom have never been clear to me. The podcast, prior to this year, was a foreign medium that to be honest intimidated me! However I have been able to conquer that fear and create my own podcast (however rough it is) but I wanted to revisit the subject to gain a better understanding of how podcasts can be used in the classroom. The article How to use Podcasts at your School was the first logical step to thinking this through. The article provide many varied examples of Podcast uses in the school environment, all with educationally supportable uses. In particular I liked the website developed by Mr Mayo, Brandon’s online magazine, as a blogging magazine for his students with the inclusion of podcasts. I loved looking around this site and seeing the pride the students have in displaying their work an thoughts in an online format. I love this Idea!