Am sitting in a workshop called “Constructivist Celebration.”  It was billed as “a place to play, recharge, innovate, create, and most importantly, give voice to children, computers and constructivism.”

I’d like to give voice to children, computers and constructivism. I’d like to do it in the way I want to use it with my kids. And, I’d like to do it using not only the tools I will receive today (which is one reason I came) but also with the tools my students have access to daily in their lives.

Children,
Computers
and
Constructivism. . . .

In a place where cell phone usage is BLOCKED (so air cards don’t work), and the internet access is inaccessible to many in the room, since it is limited (and overly saturated), and the room has at least 120-150 people in here.

So how can I use these tools for creativity in ways my kids will be able to if I have no internet access? Why am I sitting in a workshop where the facilitators have set up a situation that is NOT similar to what good educational settings are like in today’s world? Why am I sitting here with a talking head talking at me? How can this be billed as a constructivist when we are listening to someone who cannot make eye contact with the audience, who is not talking in a logical sequence that is easily followed and who is showing examples he has obviously used a lot with the excusing statement of “Some of you have seen it before, some of you have not, but that’s okay—people say they really like it.”

I am sitting in a room with @TeachaKidd, @lnitsche, @zeitz, @smartinez, @bcdtech, @wfryer, @McLeod, @elemenous, @beckyfisher73, @patsylancos, @chrischampion, and many, many other brilliant educators whom I respect and constantly learn from on Twitter AND in real life.  However, I cannot quickly ask a question of these educators online. . .because the physical site was DELIBERATELY set up to NOT allow connectedness across the internet. I will have to stop what I am doing, get up and walk across the room to talk to one person—who may or may not know the answer to the particular question I have.  Then I may have to go to another person, and another, and another until I find one who can help me. In a connected world, I could shoot this question out to my PLN and get a response from someone who knows within minutes. That happens EVERY day for me, and in this paid workshop, I have been deliberately denied access to that network of learning.

Gary Stager says, “The power of the computer comes with the accessibility to the software we have available to us.”  So why are we not using ALL of that, including online tools that are ONLY available when connected to the Internet?

I guess that’s what you get when you pay to go to a workshop that is put on by the people providing the software. . . you get to work with their software only.

Oh, yeah, and it was so constructivist that there was NO direction beyond “pick up your software and be creative.”