COMPUTER AS A TEACHER’S TOOL

What are we going to talk about?

- the computer as the teacher’s handy tool

- It can in fact support the constructivist and social constructivist paradigms of learning.

Constructivist

- introduced by Piaget (1981) and Bruner (1990).

- They gave stress to knowledge discovery of new meaning/concept/principles in the learning process.
- Various strategies have been suggested to:
 foster knowledge discovery
 making students engaged in gathering unorganized information from which they can induce ideas and
principles
 Students are also asked to apply discovered knowledge to new situations, a process for making their
knowledge applicable to real life situation.

Social constructivism

- an effort to show that the construction of knowledge is governed by social, historical and cultural contexts, in effect,
this is to say that the learner who interprets knowledge has predetermined point of view according to the social
perspectives of the community or social he lives in.

The psychologist Vygotsky stressed that learning is affected by social influences. He, therefore, suggested the
interactive process in learning. The more capable adult (teacher or parent) or classmate can aid or complement what the
learner sees in a given class project. In addition, Dewey sees language as a medium for social coordination and
adaptation. For Dewey human learning is really human language that occurs when students socially share, build and
agree upon meaning and knowledge.

Learning framework Constructivism Social Constructivism

Knowledge is constructed by the Knowledge is constructed within a

Assumption
individual social context

Students build knowledge

Definition of learning Student build their own learning
influenced by the social context.

Gather unorganized information Exchange and share form ideas,

Learning strategies
to create new concept/principle. stimulates thinking

Students discuss and discover

General orientation Personal discovery of knowledge
meaning

Two alternative job offers

Option 1 – 8 hrs./day for 6
days/week
Example 8’5 – 8 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 8
Option 2 – 9 hrs/day for 5
days/week

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The Computer’s Capabilities

Given its present-day speed, flexibility and sophistication

the computer can . . .

 provide access to information

 foster creative social knowledge-building
 enhance the communication of the achieved project package

Without the computer, today’s learners may still be assuming the tedious tasks of low level information gathering,
building and new knowledge packaging. But this is not so, since the modern computer can help teacher and students to
focus on more high level cognitive tasks.

Based on the two learning theories, the teacher can employ the computer as a/an:

 An information tools
 A communication tools
 A constructive tool
 As co-constructive tool
 A situating tool

Informative tool. The computer can provide vast amount of information in various form, such as text, graphics,
sound and videos. Even multimedia encyclopedias are today available on the internet.

The internet itself provides an enormous database from which user can access global information resources that
includes the latest news, weather forecast, airline schedule, sports development, and features, as well as educational
information directly useful to learners.

The internet on education can be source for kinds of educational resources on the internet.

Along the constructivist’s point of view, it is not enough for learners to download relevant information using the
computer as an information tool. Students can use gathered information for composition or presentation projects as
may be assigned by the teacher. Given the fact that the internet can serve as a channel for global communication, the
computer can very well be the key tool for video teleconferencing session.

Constructive tool. the computer itself can be used for manipulating information, visualizing one’s understanding and
building new knowledge. The Microsoft word computer program itself is a desk =top publishing software that allows
users to organize and present their ideas in attractive formats.

Co-constructive tools. Students can use co-constructive tools to work cooperatively and construct a shared
understanding of new knowledge. One way of co-construction is the use of the electronic whiteboard where students
may post notices to a shared document/whiteboard. Students may also co-edit the same document from their home.

The Computer Supported International Learning Environment. (CSILE) is an example of an integrated environment
developed by the Ontario Institute for studies in education. Within CSILE, students can either their ideas in notes and
respond to each other’s ideas. Manifest in the student-generated database are higher level thinking processes-
explaining, problem solving/finding, expertise and development, literacy improvement.

Situating tool. By means of virtual reality (RS) extension systems, the computer can create 3-D images on display to
give the user the feeling that are situated in a virtual environment. A flight simulation program is an example of a
situating tool which places the user in a simulated flying environment.

Multi-user domain or dungeons (MUDs), MUD object-orientation (MOOs) and multi-user shared
hallucination (MUSHs) are example of situating system. MUDs and MOOs are mainly text based virtual reality
environments on the internet. When users log on to a MOO environment, they may interact with the virtual reality (such
as by writing on a noticed board) through simple text based commands. A school to school or classroom to classroom
environment is possible whereby the user can choose to walk around the campus, talk with other users who are logged
to the same site.

To caution users, the computer as a situating tool is news and still undergoing further research and development.

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