XplanaZine

Here’s a summary of ideas and conversations from the edublogging community that have captured our attention in the past 48 hours.Albert Ip picks up on Clark Quinn’s discussion regarding contaminated constructivism, and he argues that structured, formal education need not place limits on the constructivist goals. Referring to simulations created in Fablusi, Ip writes:

“We ask team to play a role - so that players are forced to articulate the reasoning in acting out the role to the team. We also have tasks which are due at time set by the moderator so that the players will be reaching similar milestones at about the same time.”

This is indeed a sound practice but I wonder if this is something Ip and his colleagues do because they are such strong believers in the technology. In much the same way, some teachers use blogs and wikis. They can be integrated into a traditional structure but is the fit really natural and are they simply compromises to a tyranny that cannot be overcome?

Also, Wesley Fryer talks about podcasting and its value in education, and he has some terrific resource links on podcasting on his site.

Miguel Guhlin writes that school is becoming irrelevant. He asks “How are these solutions different from what we’ve done before? These are all
great solutions and what makes them different from other technology innovations
is that they are interactive communications.” Is this really the first generation of technology tools that feature interactive communication? And, even so, is it the tools that are the real differentiating factor? Will Richardson discusses these ideas as well in his post on technology tools. Will writes: “It’s getting to be less and less about the tool and more and more about the
opportunities the tools create, the ‘why’, not the ‘how.’”

Finally, while reading Harold Jarche’s post on valuable tools and lessons borrowed from his time in the military, I couldn’t help but think about Robert Fulghum’s Everything I Needed to Know I learned in Kindergarten.