Customer Reviews

Points of Viewing Children's Thinking

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Goldman-Segall addresses issues and concepts relevant to today's new generation of educators. The context for her research focuses on two very different schools in British Columbia and Massachusetts. Her role as a video ethnographer uncovers some of the social-historical and ethical issues both students and teachers must address in today's post-modern era. Goldman-Segall documents these issues through the use of video and the Internet. In doing so she offers a refreshing medium for discourse and understanding.

This book takes a unique view of documenting a classroom setting through the use of video. I found the interplay between the descriptions in the book and the web site videos an enlightening experience. Ms. Goldman-Segall takes you into the Hennigan school (among other places) and lets you feel what is happening in this experimental educational setting. Her observations of the MIT project give a new and different perspective to the roles of the students and teachers in these settings. This is a book that takes full advantage of the tools of technology that we would like students to be using. This will give teachers a better understanding of their role in implementing technology and how it can make them more effective educators.

The author formulates a community in which you share the learning of two seperate and diverse schools. She invites you into the thinking of the children through digital media and takes you with her as you watch these children develop their understanding of the world around them. Watching this constructivist approach captures the inquiry of the reader and brings out the importance and significance of this type of learning in education.

I am intrigued by the intimacy of Ricki and the young minds in her ethnographic experience. Capturing these moments on video preserves the developmental sketches of their time. Often time, the points of view of children are ignored. However, Josh, an inciteful child,who queries the elements of his environment, brings both the mundane and obvious into an asynchronous focus that creates constructivist dialogue.