Dynabook and learning models, final words

The Dynabook was conceptualized under a constructivism learning perspective. Viewing it from other innovative learning model perspectives brings enriched insights that enhance the original vision.

Teaching by competences

What research says

A competence or a skill is the association of a knowledge and a task. A knowledge is an academic resource necessary to perform one or more tasks.

Flipped classroom

What research says

The idea of flipped classroom is to let the learners study the lesson at home, then, once in the classroom, ask the teacher questions on specific points not fully understood and practiced with exercises. The lessons can be a text, but most of the time the flipped classroom is supported with an approximately 10 min. video lesson.

Project based learning

What research says

Students study topics they will not likely learn outside of school. Most of the time, the learned topics are disconnected; students do not see the connection between these different topics or how they are related. Project-based learning tries to address this problem.

Authentic learning

What research says

Authentic or experience learning is based on the idea students may have a better learning experience with documents or situations coming from the "real world", at the least the world outside the school.

Interest based learning

What research says

Getting the students interested or using their points of interest to improve learning seems to be very obvious and it is a very old idea.

Learning in group

What research says

The Russian psychologist Lev Vygostki was the first to elaborate that social interactions are essential to human learning. His work induced a lot of research on collaborative learning.

Learning by doing

Taking a closer look at the often-cited innovative pedagogical approaches helps revisit the design of the Dynabook concept; expanding it from the constructivism approach to a broader and more diverse way of teaching and learning. The writing of this paper, and subsequent writing in the same domain, is deeply influenced by the A. Tricot study, Innovation pédagogique, 2017 on what is considered innovative pedagogy.

The Dynabook and its learning models

On learning-by-doing...

In Alan Kay's Dynabook it is best to learn something kinesthetically, then iconically, and finally the intuitive knowledge will be in place to allow the more powerful but less vivid symbolic processes to work at their strongest(Kay1990).

What said scientific studies on the field of learning by doing and other related pedagogical approaches?

Les trois portes

Un problème classique de probabilité modélisé avec une figure Pharo.

« Un vizir montre trois portes, A, B et C à Sinbad, son mathématicien. Il lui explique que derrière l’une d’elles se trouve une pièce d’or et que rien ne se trouve derrière les deux autres. Si Sinbad choisit la bonne porte, il gagne la pièce d’or.

Sinbad choisit une porte sans l’ouvrir.

A ce moment-là, le vizir lui explique : « Je vais maintenant ouvrir une des deux portes que vous n’avez pas choisie et derrière laquelle il n’y a rien. »

Le vizir, comme promis, ouvre une porte et dévoile un espace vide. Il ajoute : « Je vous offre donc la possibilité de changer votre choix ou pas. Que faites-vous ? »

Sinbad sourit, car il connaît « LA » stratégie pour gagner le plus souvent possible.

Détermine cette stratégie.

Notons bien qu’à chaque partie les choses se déroulent de la même façon : Sinbad a la possibilité de changer son premier choix après avoir vu la porte ne donnant rien. Le vizir sait où se trouve la pièce d’or. »

La figure Pharo, dont le script est donné ci-dessous, simule 10'000 essais dans lesquels Sinbad change systématiquement de choix de porte. La figure se construit devant l'utilisateur au fur et à mesure du déroulement des 10'000 essais.

La simulation révèle enfin que dans ce cas le pourcentage de victoire est approximativement 67%.

|piece portes choixSinbad vizirPossible choixVizir portesVizir n successes  canvas pointG pointP segment|
canvas := DrGeoCanvas new.
canvas centerTo: 0@3; scale: 20.
pointG := canvas point: -1@0.1.
segment := canvas segment: ((canvas point: -1@0) name: 'GAGNÉ') to: pointG.
segment large; color: Color green.
pointP := canvas point: 1@0.1.
segment := canvas segment: ((canvas point: 1@0) name: 'PERDU') to: pointP.
segment large; color: Color red.
successes := 0.
n := 10000.
canvas do: [
1 to: n do: [ :compte |
    portes := { 0. 0. 0.}.
    piece := 3 atRandom.
    portes at: piece put: 1.
    choixSinbad := 3 atRandom.
    "Quel choix de portes pour le vizir ?"
    vizirPossible := #(1 1 1) - portes. "pas la porte avec le pièce"
    vizirPossible at: choixSinbad put: 0.  "pas la porte choisie par Sinbad"
    "On collecte les choix possibles pour le vizir, 1 ou 2 selon"
    portesVizir := OrderedCollection new.
    vizirPossible withIndexDo: [:choix :i| choix = 1 ifTrue: [portesVizir add: i]].
    "Le Vizir choisit une porte"
    choixVizir := portesVizir atRandom.
    "Sinbad choisit l'autre porte"
    portes := {1. 1. 1}.
    portes  at: choixVizir put: 0; at: choixSinbad put: 0.
    portes withIndexDo: [:choix :i| choix = 1 ifTrue: [choixSinbad := i]].
    "Si c'est la porte avec la pièce alors succès"
    piece = choixSinbad ifTrue: [ successes := successes + 1].
    "On actualise les barres horizontales des succès et echec"
    pointG rename: successes asString;
        moveTo: -1@(10 * successes / n).
    pointP rename: (compte - successes) asString;
        moveTo: 1@(10 * (compte - successes) / n).
    canvas update].
pointG
    rename: ((100 * successes / n) round: 2) asString, ' %';
    moveTo: -1@(10 * successes / n).
pointP
    rename: ((100 * (n - successes) / n) round: 2) asString, ' %';
    moveTo: 1@(10 * (n - successes) / n)].