MicroWorlds and the integrated brain

• Authors: John Vincent
• Venue: CRPIT '02 Proceedings of the Seventh world conference on computers in education conference on Computers in education: Australian topics - Volume 8
• Year: 2002

MicroWorldsTM is a derivative of Logo, and also belongs to a family of computer tools known as multi-media applications. Such applications have a visual richness that is highly attractive to children with a visual learning preference. Through brain hemisphere theory some would characterise these children as having a dominant right brain hemisphere, or at least as strongly preferring to use the right hemisphere in most learning situations. Certainly, many children with strongly visual expressive and learning characteristics seem to also have language deficits, suggsting that the left hemisphere is playing a lesser part in their learning. A number of the children reported on here, for example, scored very low on verbal reasoning tests, displayed severe spelling deficits and had difficulty writing in conventional non-computer environments. The same children scored very high on a non-verbal test, and continually indulged in visual play (such as constructions, drawings, cartooning, three-dimensional modelling etc.), often to a very advanced level.It has taken neuro-psychology over 100 years to unpack the secrets of brain hemisphere specialisation through the so-called "split-brain" research, but in the last few years of the 20th century neuroscience began to reveal the importance of the integration of the hemispheres for effective learning. This report will examine some cases of Grade 5 children (10 years of age) with a strongly dominant right hemisphere (visual) learning preference who demonstrate considerable advances in language and mathematical skills when problem setting using a visually rich computer medium such as MicroWorlds. It draws on work by Harel and Papert (1991) with Logo and building a constructivist environment, and on the ideas of neuropsychologists such as Ornstein (1997) and Beeman and Chiarello (1998).The initial observations arose after the introduction into a coeducational primary school in Melbourne, Australia, of a scheme of universal notebook computer ownership and the consequent learning outcomes that occurred after the implementation phase. The observations led to a research project involving children's writing, and classroom observations of both writing and mathematical outcomes. It suggests that the unfolding knowledge of brain hemisphere integration should underpin educational planning for the very important role for the computer for children with visually preferred learning styles. The study also suggests that a very strong importance should be attached to the availability of visually rich, creative and open-ended software, and a constructivist environment in the classroom where children are allowed and encouraged to dare to set their own problems within the learning framework.