Society as Knowledge Machine
A lot of knowledge is socially constructed. People learn from interacting with others, reading books where the author has expressed his/her/their thoughts, and learning from the socio-cultural surrounding. One could argue that a child could learn well by interacting with a computer. However, computers and the accompanying application that make learning possible was created by developers who have put their thoughts and ideas into the system. Hence, people are interacting with the developers and constructing knowledge henceforth. Vygotsky puts it beautifully when he says, “Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (inter-psychological) and then inside the child (intra-psychological).This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals.”
If we accept this argument then we can further argue that that a knowledge machine need not be a theoretical machine.The idea of the knowledge machine is to provide learners with the opportunity to explore any situation while engaging the learner completely. A well-designed learning environment that allows students to explore their interests while encouraging participation, providing appropriate scaffolding, and creating several opportunities for formative self-assessment would achieve all the goals of the knowledge machine.
Interest-driven learning is an effective way to keep learners motivated. If we allow learners to work on projects that they care about then the learners would be intrinsically motivated to do well in the work. Rather than forcing projects and work because a syllabus requires it to be covered, we should let students explore the project they want to work on. We could try different methods such as using problem-based activities to spark interest in a particular topic. However, we should allow students to determine the project and subsequently negotiate the learning goals.
Constant feedbacks are important so that students can self-assess and progress further. One big advantage of video games arises because of the fast-paced feedback that the players receive – scores increase (or decrease) continuously, progress over a task is known throughout – which creates a compelling and rewarding experience. More importantly, seeing the feedback, the learner can improve their activities/actions and ultimately achieve “epic wins“. These feedbacks could be used as a tool to support students to learn further as argued in my previous post. We can adapt this pattern of continuous formative feedback while designing our learning environment.
When we think of knowledge machine, we are usually bound to think of a computing system of some sort that allows students to learn on their own and be totally immersed in the learning process. I urge us to think beyond the machine. Borrowing from Dr. Fowler’s note, we should keep in mind that students learn with the machine and not from the machine. It is the surrounding socio-cultural structures that supports the sense of agency in the learner, and the subsequent learning behavior, process and goals. Hence, I feel that, the knowledge machine that Papert envisioned is not a typical “machine” but rather a socially-situated, well-designed learning environment.
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