The Learning Situation in the Computer-Oriented Centers for Children in Tunisia, Interchangeability, and Interdependence: Contexts, Challenges and Experience’s Building Ethnographic Approach

Abstract

There are several non-formal learning experiences related to the use of computer technologies. Tunisia presents one of these experiences that merits study. I have devoted part of my research to this matter, non-formal education. In this chapter, I have studied the experience of the computer-oriented centers for children. The study was conducted in the educational year 2002–2003. The importance of the data in this study remains reliable to this day. The goals of this chapter is to examine (1) the impact of elements of non-formal learning situation to the informatics project realized by children in its centers, and (2) the impact of the problem situation to social reality shaping, and (3) the impact of the use of computer technology in a learning situation that is different from the formal learning. I consider that a careful constructivist analysis is required to achieve this objective. The results show that an organizational context that operates according to a logic in which social knowledge is interconnected. So, to attain these results I proceeded with an ethnographic approach. I observed 60 children in 67 sessions; each session lasted 1h: 30 mn. I analysed interactions between children and between children and their educators, its are the product of a cognitive and affective commitment, that oriented by the principle of reciprocity.