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 For example, since we have no chance of researching an innovation before it's out of date, the only way to hold on to some sense of purpose is to ground the project in a deliberate philosophy of education and work forward from there.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

TILT blog

It was a pleasure to meet the Accelerated Graduate Programme students this morning. This programme is designed for students who already have a degree and want to become a nurse. We had a chat about the role of IT in nursing and then went on to classic induction stuff. Just before the session I suggested the following to the programme manager and got a warm reception. I set up a CampusPack blog and called it 'Things I Learned Today'. I told the students that they would be writing a single entry per month, and they were all given a number (there are less than 30 students). I explained how that a key engine for learning was writing, or framing discourse, and that assessments were often just a way of getting students to do that. Here we have a different audience completely but still the learning process potential with blogging that could benefit the individual and the cohort.
The introductory post went like this:

Please post an entry on your allotted date. Write something that you learned today, even if you do not think it was very significant. Something that struck you on the radio, in a session, and why. You can write about anything you think you and your group of students might be interested in. You can be controversial, but please stay within the bounds of 'polite'. Keep the language conversational and succinct. Don't feel you have to write more than 75 words.  Make sure you add some tags to help us all find what you wrote. Feel free to add a (helpful) comment to an existing post. The list of 'dates' and names is below - best to stick to that for the first time around. That way everyone gets the same opportunity. I'm not going to be holding people to their date although I reserve the right to listen in occasionally: I've clicked 'Subscribe' to get an email notification of new posts (you should too). 

I hope you make a go of this because it has great potential for your own learning and that of your peers. If I can be of any assistance, including moving to a different blogging platform, please get in touch.

I then asked for volunteers to go first, listing the first few.... But then I noticed a few looking uneasy so I carefully asked if everyone was ok with this. I was able to address their concerns about whether staff could read what they wrote, for example. The answer to that question was 'yes'. So I offered that, if they wanted to, I'd help them set up a blogger/wordpress blog and shut us out. In the event, they were more than happy to start out using our University platform. My role here was clearly to facilitate the process.
I've also posted an example post as follows:

I don't want to steal Amy's [not real name] limelight (yes, this is your day ;) but I did say I'd share that link to the report this morning on Radio 4 about the NHS failing the elderly. The radio broadcast can be heard again over at the BBC 'listen again' site. If you want to add a link to a post just get the URL, highlight the text to hyperlink and then click the 'chain' button on the far left of the bottom toolbar.

This report attracted my attention for a number of reasons, firstly because I know someone who suffered quite a lot of neglect and negative culture, which the NHS seemed unable to deal with. The second reason is because the key to this in the report is 'leadership'. How will you go about unpicking the tightly knit cliques that exist and resist positive change? (hmmm... that was 145 words)

Nothing really new here... but it does emphasise the role of the teacher in terms of designing and facilitating networked learning. Someone has to be in there 'promoting connections'. That reminds me, I probably should give Amy a reminder that today's her day... or should I?

Where to put this wiki...

Students are working in groups to produce a page of evaluated links to resources around a certain topic in healthcare. Where do I put the wiki?
In their own VLE module? Sadly, this limits the audience and thus the students' awareness of that audience.
In their programme-level VLE module where all students on their programme can access it? As this task is run twice a year, it's soon going to get hard to navigate and muggins is going to have to maintain it. At least building one per cohort keeps it manageable with no overhead of maintaining it.
Somewhere all of our students can see it? This would mean farming them out to a different wiki-space not normally associated with learning and teaching.... politically sensitive! Plus the need to do all the 'gardening' implied in '2' above.
Sigh - looks like I stay with option one. It's, as ever, a trade-off between wanting to do the right thing educationally and yet keep it manageable...