[squeak-dev] Dynabook and teaching approaches, final words

Hilaire hilaire at drgeo.eu
Wed Sep 12 12:57:43 UTC 2018


Hi,

I end up my thinking on looking at the Dynabook from the perspective of
teaching approaches. The truth is there is no such things as an unique
teaching approach, teachers blend the way they teach with various
approaches. A successful Dynabook could/should allow that.

http://blog.drgeo.eu/post/2018/Dynabook-and-learning-models%2C-final-words

In this conclusion I try to see which pedagogical features will be
valuable to allow that. It is not easy to keep balanced though.

Another point of view to take is the pedagogical artifacts. I like this
word artifact, although it conveys several meanings. It is here
understood as "any object made by human beings, especially with a view
to subsequent use."

Looking at the Dynabook from the pedagogical artifacts point of view
needs to think from the teachers point of view, and their respective
fields of teaching. A geography teacher and math teacher think about 
their field with different perspectives. A geography teacher may think
geography map, a math teacher geometry sketch. These two artifacts can
be thought as simulation or micro-world. On the Dynabook, the later
turns as DrGeo canvas, the former as interactive geography map.

Most pedagogical artifacts can be expended as computerized and/or
simulations in respect with the inherent laws of the artifact domain. A
geometry sketch expend to a geometry simulator where the rules of the
euclidean geometry are observed. The artifact expend to a
multi-parameterized computerized form. The etoys tools gave a taste of that.

When you examine the contents produced by teachers for their students
(at least mine for sure). It is still mostly text with included
graphics, tables, equations. Those elements are static and could be
replaced by computerized artifacts, if this is easy and not time
consuming to do. The reality is it is very difficult for a teacher to
produced computerized teaching document with more than text and static
elements.

Whatever should be a Dynabook dynamic media document, I am convinced it
will be centered around text and Smalltalk/Morph. Text is part of our
culture since 6000 years and Smalltalk+Morph are the brick for
computerized visual pedagogical artifact.

Hilaire

Thanks to Chao-Kuei Hung, Michael Davis, John Pfersich and David Lewis
to review the texts, it was very kind.

Thanks Ron for your valuable insights, I was impressed how clearly you
articulate it.

-- 
Dr. Geo
http://drgeo.eu




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