Cognitive Constructivism: Information Banks

*Content adapted from Wilson, B. (1995). "Metaphors for instruction: Why we talk about learning environments." Educational Technology, 35(5), 25-30. (http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~bwilson/wils95)

Information banks are sources or repositories of information. Traditional examples would include textbooks, teachers, encyclopedias, dictionaries, videotapes, videodiscs, etc. Technology expands the kinds and amount of information accessible and shorten the access paths. Information banks vary from background texts, to on-line databases, to individual experts (including teachers), to videodisks (e.g., the National Gallery videodisk) and to museums.

Information banks are different from other "constructivist" learning environments such as anchored instruction because constructivist ways of teaching and learning are not necessarily "embedded" in the resource. You could, for example, develop a very behavioral way of using the Microsoft Encarta electronic encyclopedia. However, information banks are particularly powerful resources in a constructivist classroom because they can be used by students who are exploring issues, problems, and topics on their own

The sections below explain several popular types of informatin banks. The explanations are, however, very brief. You may want to explore the links in each section that take you to examples of the different types of software. "Playing" with the software will give you a much better feel for what information banks are.

As noted earlier, information banks are not always used in constructivist ways. There are, however, excellent examples of ways information banks can be used constructively. A few are given below.

 
Electronic
Books 
The
Internet
Electronic
Encyclopedia
Gallery/
Museum 
 

Additional Information

Educational Telecomputing Projects: Information Collections

On this web page, five different types of information collections, or educational telecomputing activities that help students to collect, organize, and share intrinsically interesting information, is presented.

URL: http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/Mining/April95-TCT.html

Information Collection Activities for Students of the Information Age

This web page describes the five different educational telecomputing activity structures that can be considered to be within the information collection genre. They are information exchanges, electronic publishing, database creation, tele-fieldtrips, and pooled data analysis.

URL: http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/Mining/March94-TCT.html

Invited Address: Helping children to discover the information hidden in electronic and interactive information systems

On author of this web page proposes that t new skills are required for students to explore the interactive information system (INS). The topics of this web page are as follows: URL: http://www.cowan.edu.au/education/waier_95/Oliver_Invited.html

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