Design for learning

People talk about 'blended learning' as if it is something worth making a distinct point about. The only thing it is distinct from is 'undesigned' learning... where the 'instructor' (in cases where there is one) has, for whatever reason, not designed it (enough). The T P sea K framework of M ! s h r a & K o e h l € r is, in my view, a typology that introduces unhelpful distinctions (feel free to google it, I'm not linking to it from here ;). The T(=tech) needs to become part of what we do as instructors in the way that it is when we learn to drive or act generally in the world. For me, T  P sea K is basically P - pedagogy.

pensive moi - because every post needs a picture and I was feeling low on creativity

I tweeted a link the other day, the heavily critical one by New Media in Monash. Within the hour, Dr K o e h l € r had favourited it and followed me, little me. That was simply too keen for my liking. I tried to rationalise this as I checked him out... As I viewed his 'trap' from the inside, it occurred to me that I still had a chance to get out. Happy to say, clearly I did escape. What I saw in there disturbed me though. K o e h l € r's actions on Twitter and the decor of his web presence meant just one thing: money. Someone is making money out of these acronyms. It doesn't matter if the theory is shaky, just like the learning styles stuff, there is good money to be made and people will buy it, walking away satisfied customers, thanking you very much. We might take a generous view of all this and say, well, they have to make a living somehow. But the thing that worries me the most is the effect on education research and theory in general. T P sea K is just P. That's the beating heart of it. It's not a new insight and provides us with another niche theory that does not hold much promise for building meaningfully upon. What it has is the potential for meme-like caché amongst those interested enough to care about teaching but in too much of a hurry to really care about building theory with greater explanatory power (e.g. Policy makers with the power to dictate various curricula). So, with more than a glance towards LCT, we get yet another confusing segment along the horizontal plane of the theory landscape (which now resembles a massive sprawling shanty town - sorry this simile is not quite as PC as I would normally align with) instead of something which genuinely has potential to build and be built upon, advancing theory AND practice in education. 
Here is a design principle I think has some reflective power to positively influence practice:

"design for learning networks will normally be improved if attention is paid to the little things that allow participants' activity to shift smoothly between the digital and the material." p270

If you cant do pedagogy then get some help or give up now.

Goodyear, Peter, and Lucila Carvalho. “Synthesis.” In The Architecture of Productive Learning Networks, 259–76. New York ; Abingdon: Routledge, 2014.

On 'educationally driven' interventions

I have an idea for doing something within a module about educational media in terms of learning about the sphere of 'mobile'. Of course the activity has to clearly give the message that starting with the tech is 'bad' for lots of sound reasons. For example, since we have no chance of researching an innovation before it's out of date, the only way to hold on to some sense of purpose is to ground the project in a deliberate philosophy of education and work forward from there. There are any number of solutions out there needing a problem and the only rational angle of attack is to ask, 'what would you like to do'? There is a view that this is the only pure approach to doing learning technology.
For example, "design has to be generated from the learning objectives and aspirations of the course, rather than from the capability of the technology" (Laurillard, 2002, p 145) However, Peter Goodyear (2006) maintains that there is "no great harm in this, it is part of a vibrant process that explores and advances frontiers of application. Solutions should look for problems." (emphasis in the original)
However, if we consider the methods and philosophy behind participatory and/or spiral design approaches and principles, there has to be an ongoing 'conversation' between the problem and the solution, between the designer and those being designed for. One has to inform the other - posh word for this would be a 'dialectic'.

Our knowledge and understanding of and in the world can shape our thoughts and actions without our realising it. An idea may be sparked by noticing something a technology can do differently, but the sparking of the idea will have happened because of the knowledge and understanding of the relationships between the technology and the field it is being applied to. So which way around was that then? Technology first or context/practice/theory first? I'm not talking about some blind determinism that shuts my mind to ignoring and/or conflating all sorts of unintended consequences and factors, or gives way too much agency to the technology. But in what world does any idea begin from a really pure educationally driver, and stay that way for very long? I'm arguing that we should recognise the inconsistencies in ourselves and the world around us and embrace the dialectic, including the distinct possibility that a really good educational technology idea may have come about empirically and it's only afterwards that we can trace the strands of 'good' theory which contributed to the idea. This is not the 'wrong way around', it may be an attempt to side-step the sometimes crushing burden of proof required by the same educationalists, who, in other settings, would be seen fervently espousing the need for ideation and innovation in education.
So, dialectics FTW!

Goodyear, P. (2006). Technology and the articulation of vocational and academic interests: reflections on time, space and e-learning. Studies in Continuing Education, 28(2), 83–98. doi:10.1080/01580370600750973
Lurillard, D. (2002). Rethinking Teaching for the Knowledge Society. EDUCAUSE Review, 37(1), 16–25.Available from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffpiu017.pdf