Welcome to graemesawyer.com.au
 

This site is designed to share information with people about the core areas of interest I have, namely education, technology,biodiversity and the environment. One of my interests is in a technology learning model that we developed during my work as an Education adviser with the NT Department of Education and during my work at QANTM Multimedia Centre.

I call it Constructionist Multimedia, based on the  ideas of Seymour Papert and research work I did about using multimedia technology as a learning scafold in classrooms.

"We understand constructionism as including , but going beyond, what Piaget would call "constructivism".  The word with the "v" expresses the theory that knowledge is built by the learner, not supplied by the teacher.  The word with the "n" expresses the further ideas that this happens especially felicitously when the learner is engaged in the construction of something external or at least shareable",   Leading to the  conclusion that better learning will not come from finding better ways for the teacher to instruct but from giving the learner better opportunities to construct. (Seymour Papert).  Using multimedia technologies to facilitate the construction of a representation of ideas makes it even more powerful.

There are also other ways to use these ideas to help students explore their world and build knowledge and skills.