In
the 1994/95 school year my friend-colleague and I
asked ourselves: "How can we get the children to play
in a creative and constructive way with a machine: the
computer? How can we present this "object" to children
who don't know it? Would this type of experience be
useful?"
So we began to read and study and search for news and
information. We were more and more convinced that
there shouldn't be just a computer in the classroom -
it had to be accompanied by something simple,
spontaneous, creative and easily accessible.
And so this was our first idea for a project, with the
title, "From patchwork to machine",
which summed up our approach towards the children. The
approach we planned involved experiences in class
which emphasized perception, representation and
symbol.
These experiences could be obtained both through
leftover materials (such as pieces of cloth and
cardboard) and through structured materials (for
example logic blocks and rulers), eventually bringing
them together into a first acquaintance with the
computer. In the early years we only had an old IBM
model available, which the children called Luca
Corrente. Luca Corrente, however, didn't "know" how to
do much. With him the children were only able to play
a little DOS game, using the arrow keys, or type out
their names.
Then the father of a little girl in our class lent us
his PC (christened "Luca Corrente's brother" by the
children). This model also "knew", as the children put
it, how to draw thanks to Paint software, with lots of
tools (paint tins, scissors, rubber, brush...) and
colours with varied shades.
So the children learned to use the mouse for drawing,
as well as the usual brushes, paints, coloured
pencils, chalks and wax crayons. Lots and lots of
stories grew out of the drawings.
The following year, stimulated by the enthusiasm of
the children and their parents which resulted from
this initial experience, we tried to take the analysis
of a work of art as our starting point. For this we
chose a Kandinsky painting: "Points in the arch".
Patrizia and I continued very cautiously, step by
step, to propose new ideas and experiences. Thus,
moving on from looking at the whole image, the
children chose various fragments of the work to copy,
using both felt-tip pens and the paint program. Each
fragment led to the invention of a story. As time, and
the school years, passed we all grew more confident in
handling the "machine", which offered us enormous
opportunities for expression and development.
In the meanwhile the computer in use was no longer an
object on loan. We now had two of them in class,
complete with scanner and printer (purchased thanks to
a contribution from the Multilab National Experimental
Pilot Project).
Using an educational CD, "The castle of the imagination",
we continued to combine experiences with the "machine"
and work in class. Things that were first tried out
using the CD were then rediscovered through play
experience using coloured patches, cardboard, plastic
bags and drawings on the floor. But the computer also
made us feel nearer to children and teachers in other
schools. And so there emerged the first ideas for an
exchange with a nursery school in Udine through the journey of a postcard.
From the computer that provided us with off-line games
we could now, thanks to the Internet, make use of
another way of communicating. The idea was, therefore,
to create a chain story by joining up with other
schools in different cities: Udine, Cosenza, Milan,
Treviso...
E-mail messages and postcards
were read out in class, followed by exchanges of
ideas. This led on to drawing parts of the invented
story on the computer to send to other schools.
Children and colleagues from the primary school also
began to express a wish to work together with us. And
this was how the project "The child between science and
creativity" began, designed to involve pupils
right up to the academy of fine art.
Combining experiences of both a scientific and an
artistic nature through the four elements of life
provided us with an ever-greater stimulus to go on and
formulate new ideas. It was therefore possible to
create transversal programmes cutting across schools
and communicating through "Reality, fantasy and
virtuality". In each case we met and discussed
communication media and levels.
http://www.descrittiva.it/calip/tutto98_99.html
http://www.descrittiva.it/calip/tutto99_00.htm
http://www.descrittiva.it/calip/g_racconto_mare.htm
http://www.descrittiva.it/calip/99_00_giornale.htm