YUAN William Connection and Interaction within multiple environment

I guess this would be my first academic post in life, I have written post before, yet they were just about life experiences back in many years ago, I hope someone in the class would maybe someday sit together and give me some guidance of how to write a real academic post. I would truly appreciate that. (Here I like to thank Keith and Ruth who have provided some tips on writing a post)

After reading the 4 journals or chapters of books, one important word that has been imbedded in my mind is “interaction”. And personally speaking, the readings are kind of related and connected within each other based on the emphasis on “interaction” among students who are the “programming designers” and also among the fundamental tools (the turtle etc.)in each programming language mentioned. 

Thanks to R.Keith Sawyer, I finally are clear with names the experts related to constructivism, as well as beginning to think and understand the differences between constructionism, instructionism, and constructivism. R.Keith spends most of the paragraph in Chapter 3 discussing Logo, mainly indicating to the readers that it is not only a way to write programs, but helps students learn math and science in new ways in which they can learn more independently based on their own existing knowledge. (I would appreciate it if we can spend a bit time discussing reflection and metacognition). On page 40 of R.Keith’s book, I can literally understand the meaning of “Although sociocultural researchers emphasise the social dynamics of learning cultures, constructionists focus on how the social context provides opportunities for making connections to what is being leaned.” But I still got puzzled why suddenly mentioning culture here, and also I don't truly understand the using of the example of the samba school in Brazil. I am not very sure, but in the conclusion part, the writer mentioned “Constructionist theory challenges us to consider individual and sociocultural aspects in the design and investigation of the learning sciences.” I hope someone could give me some clues on this particular part about”culture”.  At last , I was impressed by the last part talking about software design for learning, because I was thinking about the steps or the processes if I were asked to conduct a class of programming, and I can not think of a very logic classroom practices until I came to the specific part on Page 42. 

My most favourite reading of the 4 is Thinking in Levels, because I got intrigued by the idea of “level”, since this is a word I use almost every day. I was particularly interested in the cases. They were utterly refreshing and inspiring to me (call me outdated). Truth to be told, as I was going through the first paragraph , I had no idea what the writer is trying to say, but gradually with the examples used, I guess I got the picture : the understanding of “level” here is an interactive part/whole relation in which we must consider them as a whole, but meanwhile, the parts have to be considered based on some inner interaction. This makes it more interesting because we can not only solve simple , one-fold problems on computers. So the writer in again, is trying to emphasise interaction or connection.   I hope in the class tomorrow , we could talk about the star logo. 

I have to admit as a student who’s not good at physics, I am frequently lost in Gordon Simpson’s writing. Especially on collisions. I am still not sure if I understood it correctly. Is he talking about the physical collision or the abstract collision? I would love it if someone could help me with the three related ideas that underpin the domain of collisions.