LINCOS' educational approach is based on the Constructionst learning and development approach proposed by Dr. Seymour Papert at the MIT Media Lab. Building his proposal upon Jean Piaget´s theory, Papert believes that people learn and develop much better when engaged in a meaningful project. With a constructionist approach, people get involved in two types of constructions: one in the concrete world and the other one in their minds, thus generating more knowledge.

It is within this context that technology is used as an instrument that enables people to solve their own problems.

Presently, modern technology offers the students a more sophisticated building material, which allows the generation of more sophisticated levels of knowledge. Such is the case of the Lego Mindstorms (used to build robots), the programming languages and the design and productivity tools.

A practical example of the above is the use of these applications in the communities to build bridges and roads and to solve other social problems. Some of these technological applications include using word processors to outline the ideas in a project proposal, electronic spreadsheets to prepare budgets, slides and audio-visual media to explain ideas to the rest of the community members.

Also, all the Units have a trained community leader who orients all the people involved in the decision making process. This individual is an educational mediator whose role is to bring technology to the community members, by means of participatory educational techniques, and a constructivist pedagogic approach.

Educational Information Technology (Informatics):

• Computers connected to a network and to the Internet
• Scanner
• Printers
• Photo and video cameras
• Informatics programs and applications oriented to arouse the user’s creative capacity. Science and Technology Labs, which include work in the fields of solar energy, electronics, meteorology, ecology, physics, naturals science, microscopy, etc.