Re: LOGO-L> Papert at the 92nd St. Y

[KERRB@Magill.UniSA.edu.au]

Ihor wrote:-
>Boy is this making a mountain out of a molehill. Who doesnt enjoy a good 
>lecture? Many of my most interesting adventures were inspired by a 
>"lecture". One of those was by Seymour Papert back in 1980 at Teachers 
>College. That talk changed my life. (I stopped arguing for BASIC.) 

 The constructionist approach is described by Papert as minimalist with regard 
to overt instruction, such as the lecture. Its important to hear this message 
in a world where the pressure is on teachers to produce more "high powered" 
instruction as a solution to what is perceived as low literacy rates etc. 
Instruction is valuable but if a teacher can help students construct 
environments where self directed learning occurs natually then that might be 
more successful. There is far too much lecturing in schools compared with the 
more difficult and risky endeavour of creating constructionist learning 
environments.

Why did you stop arguing for BASIC? Because Papert, the "expert" said so or did 
you own experiences of using Logo compared with BASIC convince you that Logo 
was better? In today's world many more people use Visual Basic than Logo, I 
wonder why that is so?

-- Bill Kerr

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