TECHNOLOGY - A CATALYST FOR EDUCATIONAL-CHANGE

In explaining the demise of 'open education', Westbury (1973) identifi ed how the demands and constraints of the conventional classroom conte xt led most teachers attempting open methods to return to whole-class, recitation methods as coping strategies, often against their better j udgement. In this paper we draw parallels between the innovations of o pen education in the 1960s and constructionism in the 1990s. There are considerable similarities between the educational benefits claimed fo r open education then and constructionism now. Our research examines a situation where constructionism and independent learning combine to f orm the philosophical base of a school. However, at the same time that the school embraced this philosophy, it also made an extensive commit ment to computer technology. This was not by chance: the computers wer e seen as strongly resourcing the change and were a central component of the innovation. Here we examine whether computers have enhanced tea chers' capacity to meet the demands inherent in classroom settings. Ar e computers freeing teachers and students from the constraints traditi onal classrooms have placed on their opportunities to pursue more inde pendent and meaningful modes of learning?