Another perspective that supports the social nature of education comes from Vygotsky (1978), whose theory of the zone of proximal development proposes that optimal learning is achieved through both teacher’s guidance and peer interaction.  The zone of proximal development is the distance between what an individual can learn on his/her own and the potential for learning with an instructor or a community of peers

we need to work with kids at the outer edge of their reading ability and writing ability so they’re being pushed

das internet hat als eine gewissermaßen eine transzendente tendenz es die in seiner richtung her vom intranet von etwas abgekapselten zum 00:27:11 internet als hatten sich die tendenz alle grenzen zu überschreiten und alles miteinander zu vernetzen alles miteinander in beziehung zu setzen das finde ich interessant das internet besitzt und es auch nicht interessanter 00:27:24 punkt eine epidemische eigenlogik die vor allem mit dem suchen nach informationen

The move toward social constructivist pedagogical models, initiated by researchers such as Piaget and Vygotsky, makes the wiki a potentially useful educational tool. The wiki can provide the medium by which learners communicate and negotiate in their efforts to reach a shared understanding of a problem (Bruns, 2005).

historically accumulated and culturallydeveloped bod[ies] of knowledge and skills essential for household or individual functioning andwell-being

The main conclusions reached by Vygotsky and Luria on the basis of this study were that informants who retain a traditional nonliterate culture and way of life tend to solve problems by using functional reasoning reflecting their everyday life practical experience and reject the possibility of looking at classification, generalization, or drawing conclusions from another; for example, more abstractive point of view.

teractions, his elementary mental functions evolved into his “higher mental functions” or HMF. Unlike elementary mental functions, they are stimulated. They are taught, and they are learned in social settings or environments, and they often come with socia

The process of learning also required him to work closely with other people besides his teachers, such as older students and classmates.

A contemporary application of Vygotsky's theories is "reciprocal teaching," used to improve students' ability to learn from text. In this method, teacher and students collaborate in learning and practicing four key skills: summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. The teacher's role in the process is reduced over time.

The triangle represents the theory that learning is mediated

this contradicts Piaget's view of universal stages and content of development.

Lev Vygotsky

he died at the age of 38

By now I had become quite hooked on experimenting with the system, and lots of questions along the line of “I wonder what would happen if?…” sprang to mind.