olpc

Messages for a community approach in education

Abstract

Within the theme of 'Curriculum, technology and transformation for an unknown future' it seems appropriate to present an image of seeing and doing things differently that comes from outside of formal education. The context for this story comes from working as part of the NGO one laptop per child (olpc) community in New Zealand. The impact of the global olpc movement has been widely accepted as transformative in its mission to enable children‘s agency in learning and participation in knowledge building communities. It is a vision that frames future learning within highly fluid and unstable spaces. In this paper the focus will be on a local community network that supports this project. Members of the NZ olpc volunteer community largely learn through informal means. Their learning spaces are both physical and virtual. They are spread across New Zealand and are connected to diverse global networks, where they can access 'mentors' and co-learners using Web 2.0 internet based technologies.

Using narrative inquiry (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000) we invite readers to draw parallels between the community of practice described, with its rich experiential and informal learning features, to pedagogical possibilities for formal tertiary settings. Roles for teachers and learners are examined with particular emphasis paid to the learner as maker and designer in both the lived physical reality and in the constructivist sense of meaning-making. This raises questions about the nature of knowledge and its relationship to pedagogy. In addition the recount draws attention to sociocultural and co-constructed dimensions, where learning is distributed across the community and knowledge is seen as stretched across the activities and members of the community (Scardemalia, 2004).