Papertexplores the complex underpinning of constuctionism and the importance of choice and passion. In this article Papert tells the story of how as a young child he was fascinated with gears, through his obsession Papert discovered a lot about how cars and gears work, he learnt about cause and effect, he was able to create his own simple models. I think we can all relate to this story, the idea that if learning is pitched in an area of interest it is a fun and exciting task rather than an onerous, dull workload.

When I was in school my mother was a quilter, she used to always ask me any maths questions to do with her latest project. I would draw, cut and calculate trying to work out exactly how much fabric she needed, what shape would fit together or how to create an interesting pattern. For a recent maths project we were asked to create a video that shows maths in real life, when I started putting sylabus outcomes to the things I learnt with my mother in the sewing room  and I was shocked, it never seamed like work!

Papert connects these experiences to e-learning by summarising

‘”What the gears cannot do the computer might. The computer is the Proteus of machines. Its essence is its universality, its power to simulate. Because it can take on a thousand forms and can serve a thousand functions, it can appeal to a thousand tastes. This book is the result of my own attempts over the past decade to turn computers into instruments flexible enough so that many children can each create for themselves something like what the gears were for me.”

Source The Gears of My Childhood. Extract from Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas
Papert, S. (1980). The Gears of My Childhood. Extract from Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (Basic Books, 1980).Retrieved March 16, 2007 at: 

I hope my comic really speaks for its self. Today the students in my prac class used the website makebelief comix, all but one student was highly engaged. In fact all were concentrating so hard on their stories that the teacher reminded them they could discuss their ideas if they wanted too! Comics are a great text type and they get students to think creatively, using langauge and telling stories.  

It seams the research is in! Incorporating ICT into other Subjects has been found to be strong motivators for students and can help keep them on task (Becta 2003).  

Contrary to popular belief ICT was not found to prevent students working things out themselves  (Resnick, 2006) instead it was found to increase the time they spent on academic pursuits outside the classroom and to broaden their knowledge. Students were also found to take more care writing drafts and gained self-confidence from the higher quality of work produced with the aid of spell-check and publishing programs.  This provides more examples of the need to integrate subjects and to increase use of technology as a tool rather than a stand-alone subject.

What the research says about ICT and motivation
Becta (2003). What the research says about ICT and motivation
http://www.becta.org.uk/page_documents/research/wtrs_motivation.pdf

In the article Listening to the Natives, (2005) Prensky Looks at the gap between students that are born in the digital age, who he calls digital natives (2001) and teachers (and parents)  who often are  ‘digital immigrants’ .  Part of the solution to bridging this gap includes collaborative learning on the teachers part and teachers changing their mindset about the purpose of education and how we learn.

Also we must listen to the students and teach in a way that caters to how they want to learn. I think we could take this further than just being about technology, if students interests and learning styles (including how they happily learn and explore out of school hours) were considered in all subject areas we would have students wanting to learn and readily engaged in school. That’s where schools need to be heading in the future.