Welcome to CONSTRUIT!
Making construals as a new digital skill for creating interactive open educational resources
CONSTRUIT! is a three-year Project with six partners, led by Warwick, that is part of the EU Erasmus+ Programme. It began in October 2014 and you check progress and events along with many more details at the links from the official website and local resources.
What are construals? And what can you do with them?
Your construal of something (X) is 'how you think of X', it includes anything you might associate with X. Because you can visualise it, and interact with it, you can also 'make' it on a computer. In fact we think that making construals is a new way to use computers: one that is simpler, yet in some ways more powerful, than programming.
What is significant is that although construals are close to being 'thought-stuff' they can be constrained to behave like programs - but in an unusually open and flexible way. In particular, making construals is especially well-suited to applications for learning in an engaging, personal fashion.
What will CONSTRUIT! do?
CONSTRUIT! is building an open, online course to enable students and teachers to make their own educational resources (collaboratively if you like). We need people to help us develop, and trial, this course, then to evaluate its effectiveness. We also need help to evaluate the effectiveness for learning of making construals.
Examples of construals and resources
Our computing environment for making construals is at the url: http://jseden.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/construit/ A guide to this environment, called JS-EDEN, is in preparation.
Copy-and-paste this file into the JS-EDEN Input Window and press Submit for a brief introductory account of a basic construal to do with shopping. (There are also some further construals and resources based on the same theme.)
Where did the ideas for making construals come from?
The thinking, the methods and the software, associated with making construals all derive from the work of the research group in Empirical Modelling at Warwick. The large website includes publications and software downloads as well as extensive materials used in teaching over many years. The group continues to be active - mainly with this Project at present - under the leadership of Meurig Beynon.
How can I participate in CONSTRUIT! ?
As a maker or reviewer (of construals and resources), and as an evaluator of the course, and associated learning. In the first instance please email to Meurig Beynon (w dot m dot beynon at warwick dot ac dot uk) or Steve Russ (s dot b dot russ at warwick dot ac dot uk). Also email us with any other questions you may have.
