Talk:Cognitive tool

Firstly, thank you very much for your work in this topic. It is quite useful for conceptual understanding and discussion in research.

The discussion of 'cognitive tool' seems from two views. One is from the view of Lajoie and Derry, and another is from the research of Jonesson, Kommers and Mayer. The previous one is more related to cognitivism perspective whereas another is by constructivist views. However, I didn't find any papers in distinguishing those two perspectives.

Certainly, monitoring cognitive issues of cognitive processing and providing relative cognitive support will be definitely important in thinking or problem solving. On the other hand, Constructivism approach directly points out or provides the methods / scaffolds for the learners to interact with for constructing knowledge (structure). It seems the later one wants to jump some discussion of specific cognitive processes into the ways of facilitating the cognitive processes, such as by drawing diagrams, using paper/pencil or computer to externalize the internal thinking. Of course, those approaches will definitely solve the cognitive problems such as 'cognitive overloading' or 'organization/elaboration'. But, the question is 'is that still useful to understand the specific cognitive processes which have to be facilitated?'

Nevertheless, I haven't seen many existing cognitive tools except concept mapping. Other tools such as for discover-learing, modelling or simulation/visualization, inquiry-based learning, or collaborative-learning are not so strong that they could affect current learning environment. How to develop the cognitive components or middleware for learning tools or learning objects will be quite attractive in the future.

Jackie, 22th April 2006 yq_qiu@hotmail.com