I agree that this thread has probably outlived its usefulness (but glad that these issues were raised). I'd just like to record my appreciation of Steve's contributions to moodle.org forums and his presentation at UK Moodlemoot 2005. I met him socially there and enjoyed the experience.
Unfortunately, he won't be picking up this message as he is no longer enrolled. I, for one, am very sorry that he is no longer on this course/forum.
It's quite a challenge for this community to sustain critical debate about the direction Moodle takes. Let's keep working at it.
Frances Bell
Posts made by Frances Bell
Isn't the issue more about what Chinese googlers can see from China, rather than what googlers from outside China can see?
I have been away and just read this thread in nested (not time sequence) order so apologies for lateness. I also started to read the paper but stopped once (like others) I realised that it was based on a premise that constructivist learning is synonymous with minimal guidance. I agree with the points that others have made about mixing approaches to teaching and/or learning support.
The example I think of is helping young children to be safe on the road. Parents protect their children but at some time have to 'let go' a little. I also suspect that even fully committed social constructivists may be heard to 'instruct' - "You must NEVER EVER walk across the road unless you know it is safe". One case where experiential learning should be used with caution
BTW, I don't agree with you Chris about professional plagiarism. Some very useful and scholarly work is a 'construction' of the work of others, and is anything but plagiarism. There can be novelty and creativity in constructing an argument.
This is analogous to social constructions in learning. As learners, we can learn from direct experience, from observing the experiences of others, from thinking about these (including writing about them) and from thinking about what others have written about these. 'Good' learners learn to balance these activities to suit what they are learning and 'where they are at', and 'good' teachers help to support this by providing structure and flexibility, and by encouraging 'thinking about learning'.
The example I think of is helping young children to be safe on the road. Parents protect their children but at some time have to 'let go' a little. I also suspect that even fully committed social constructivists may be heard to 'instruct' - "You must NEVER EVER walk across the road unless you know it is safe". One case where experiential learning should be used with caution
BTW, I don't agree with you Chris about professional plagiarism. Some very useful and scholarly work is a 'construction' of the work of others, and is anything but plagiarism. There can be novelty and creativity in constructing an argument.
This is analogous to social constructions in learning. As learners, we can learn from direct experience, from observing the experiences of others, from thinking about these (including writing about them) and from thinking about what others have written about these. 'Good' learners learn to balance these activities to suit what they are learning and 'where they are at', and 'good' teachers help to support this by providing structure and flexibility, and by encouraging 'thinking about learning'.
I don't really disagree with anything that is said in this thread but to counter such 'propaganda' it might be useful to talk about ways of implementing Open Source software that minimise the problems mentioned in this report. Some readers of the report may have experienced problems when an enthusuiast has left a school or college with an undocumented, unmaintainable system. Problems can be with the implementation not the software itself.
There are different 'ways' of implementing OSS, say Moodle, that are more or less suited to different circumstances. For example, a large organisation with significant resources may make large contributions to the OSS development (and thereby influence its direction?) whereas a small organisation may sensibly choose to configure rather than customise so that updates are cheap and easy.
Am I allowed to say that there are probably orgs around who have had 'bad' experiences with Moodle because of the implementation strategy adopted (or because no thought went into implementation)?
There are different 'ways' of implementing OSS, say Moodle, that are more or less suited to different circumstances. For example, a large organisation with significant resources may make large contributions to the OSS development (and thereby influence its direction?) whereas a small organisation may sensibly choose to configure rather than customise so that updates are cheap and easy.
Am I allowed to say that there are probably orgs around who have had 'bad' experiences with Moodle because of the implementation strategy adopted (or because no thought went into implementation)?
ITFORUM is interesting, as is IFETS at http://ifets.ieee.org/
and maybe has a more international feel.
and maybe has a more international feel.