Learning by Living

      -play  \ 
      -study --   all         (and 
      -work  -- together!     alone) 
      -teach /

Life-long learning
Learning by living
(constructionism)

We've been teaching the net quite a lot for teachers, school directors and other people in education.

Our part of the courses that have been organized in different places all around Finland has been really practical. There has usually been a short theoretical part of what the Internet is about, how it was born and what is today and how it works as communication channels and media. Then when the pupils (teachers) have had some idea of the environment we have given them simple assignments like information searches which they have been working on with the help of our assistance. Many (advanced) courses have also included WWW workshops where the pupils (teachers) have learned to build websites by building them.

The other part, usually before ours, on those courses is usually more theoretical, pedagogical. Sometimes we've been listening the discussion too. Quite often the teachers (the pupils, I mean) themselfs have not appreciated those talks that much but I've often found them interesting, All that theory about learning is new to me, that's probably the reason. There I've learned the term and concept of constructionism that seems to be hip&cool.

I think that the world itself is a great open learning environment. Better than the net, even.

"trial, error, understanding"

(the stuff wrote yesterday about education)

Like playing (learning) R.I.S.K.:

• first game almsot straight away, after just a short explanation of what the whole thing is about
• probably not a good game but an important lesson *often for the teachers too* when new points of view come up (she put own troups on the same area where some of the enemy were already)
• understanding and _skill_ in the end (quickly!)
• later more theory as much as needed
• iteration