Here is the first meeting type,
done by creating a simple circle
and asking the children many questions
aimed at creating a connection between things they know
about concrete life and these concepts,
memory, Google, computer, internet,
which have substantially flattened everything
... kind of a Russian salad.
At one point we brought out an old computer
which they were free to explore.
They got excited, we put in on a table
and the objects got taken apart and commented,
always in the same questioning approach.
Spontaneous groups appeared,
aiming at investigating some aspects in depth.
After about an hour, the children were invited
to sit in a circle,
which they speedily did, to my amazement
because they were really enthusiastic about what they were doing
and we suggested making a survey.
They all volunteered to go to the blackboard.
Fortunately, the teachers made the selection
because I wouldn't have known how to do that.
The survey was about their habits, video games
the computer they use, tablets, etc.
In the following clip, we see the second meeting type
where the children are offered the four computer kits
and the four video cameras.
Children are divided into four groups of 4 people
and roles get assigned:
one child makes video recordings, one writes the story,
one draws and one works
at building the computer and will command it afterwards.
Then they move to building
and the meaning of the various parts is explained to the children.
The children build, write, document,
and as you can see, this is a slow approach.
We also suggest that they use the instruction booklet
that they must try to follow.
The booklet is written in English but the illustrations are very clear.
This also allows us to discuss the meaning of some English words.
They get help if they ask for it
but always according to the principle of minimal intrusion,
just showing them
then letting them enact what is shown,
actually do the work.
Always, or almost always, they achieved the goal,
and with great concentration, as can be seen with this little girl.
Collaboration is great too: hands helping one another,
not clashing, collaboration between different roles.
I was deeply impressed
by the diligence of these children.
Nothing like the idea I got from public discourse
on bad manners, restlessness, superficiality.
I felt that if children are respected as persons
and if they are offered things related to their own reality,
they are also, to my mind, very, very disciplined.
As to the myth that digital natives will not use instruction booklets,
it depends: if they are put in a situation where the booklet helps, they use it
as, for instance, towards the non-trivial action
of attaching correctly the fragile jack
of the audio loudspeaker to the computer's small card:
a delicate operation.
Roles were managed informally:
for instance, if a child got tired of making video recordings
and another -- like this little girl -- asked to take over,
we let her do it.
Once the computer was built, time was over, or almost over,
so it was time for reading the texts.
As it was late, I had offered to disassemble the computers myself.
To my surprise, the children asked instead
if they could disassemble them themselves.
And they did it with impressive accuracy.
I found some boxes -- they all put everything back
but some but all parts back
exactly as they had found them, with all wires coiled
and each part at the right place.
In the last part, the narrations were read
the drawings were shown.
The monitors only got connected during the following meeting.
Computers got built more quickly
because the children already were somewhat expert in that
and then the monitors got connected, and thus they were able to
start exploring them.
They immediately found a game, Minecraft,
with which they obviously started at once to play
and in this case we let them play freely
so that they could find a link with the world they know.