Epimetheus

A bit more about Vygotsky.

Here's the link I was talking about. It's funny how when you are reading a journal article, you tend to forget that academics write in a political/historical/cultural climate as well.

Thought No. 3 p. 18 of Glen's notes

- In the section headed Interdependency, Glen (or the note writer) writes: “The creation of a community of learners requires a process of democratisation. If the more traditional power relations between teachers are replicated online, then the community of learners may not develop or may be dysfunctional.” Thinking about Wenger’s use of the term “community of practice”, I’m not sure that there really IS an assumption of democracy. Or more precisely, a community of practice can exist within, and in spite of, a completely Undemocratic environment. Workplaces are not democracies: there’s all sorts of power games and ranks, but the community of practice almost subverts these. Perhaps communities of practice in educational settings should not have teachers in them at all? Or perhaps the teacher should be there as one of the constraints, one of the “work-arounds”, and the community of practice is amongst the students themselves. Perhaps in the USQ environment, our Bloggers Anonymous group is the community of practice, and the formal discussion forums are just part of the furniture in the environment we’re working in?

Thought No. 2 p.17 of Glen's notes

- “access to the boundaryless sources of information”. Yes- the online environment really fosters this boundarylessness. For example, the question on the discussion board about referencing discussion posts- there is a certain incongruity between the free-flowing nature of web-based information (ie. mixture of anecdotal and researched; not necessarily permanent; uncertain authorage with the use of cut and paste) and the tied-downness of academic research which gives information some of its authority.

Not that this is only true of online information- for anything, where does the “knowing” lie? Is it in the written words of a document? In your perception of what you read (which may not necessarily be the same as how someone else read it!) In what someone else said about what you read? In the way that you shaped it when you were trying to express it to another person, or to tie it into your own pre-existing knowledge. I often find that I can come away from a session browsing the internet, even though I had a real purpose for my searching, finding that I really can’t pin anything I read or took from my reading to any one source. It just blends into one amorphous mass.

This probably isn’t as bad as it looks- I have been writing stuff into my blog, but not necessarily work related! But on the other hand- it’s not too good either. I’m a bit lost with where I’m supposed to be up to, and the next assignment is breathing down my neck. I’ve lost my study planner document (must print another one off tomorrow) and don’t know where I’m supposed to be up to in terms of the reading. In fact, does the reading impact on the assignment at all? Added to this, my trip up to Armidale has taken its toll fatigue-wise. So this morning, I’m spending some time finishing off the reading for Module 2 before I move onto the assignment.

A few thoughts about the Community of Practice Perspective notes provided by Glen.

Thought No. 1

- (And here I go launching off on another wild-goose-chase already….). I read Edmund Wilson’s FANTASTIC book “To the Finland Station” while I was away- definitely a 10/10, which talked about Michelet (who wrote about French revolution history), Marx and Engels and Lenin and the relationship between writing about and writing for history, and acting history. Wilson made the point that it has been later academics who have taken Marxism and applied it to disciplines beyond economics and history, and that it has been this re-application and reworking that has kept Marxism alive.

As part of this, I was looking at a website about Marxism, and its different applications, and there –of course- was Vygotsky, one of the 1920s Soviet psychologists. His work, and that of other Russian academics only became commonly available in the West during the 1960s. I might go back again and look at the site, but reading Hung and Chen’s article, I was struck by the Marxist political/theoretical assumptions (that are, of course, no longer exclusive to Marxism- or is it that Marxism has become mainstream?) about mind as an aspect of person-environment interaction, and a transaction of interactional cycles between the two. (Can I feel thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis coming on? After reading Wilson’s book I actually UNDERSTAND what these are now!) I just found it interesting to think that a pedagogical approach itself stems from a political approach.

And while I’m out chasing the geese, I wonder if the recent emphasis on genetics as a determinant of everything under the sun (for example, in Steven Pinkers book The Blank Slate) has implications for the importance of the community of practice and its role in learning?

Back again after a week travelling up to Armidale for Steve's graduation. Nice town- if I had to live in a country town, that's the town for me! The university there added a lot to the flavour of the place- spawning bookshops, coffee shops, nightclubs (yeah, sure, Janine, you went there!), live theatre and music.

We arrived on the Tuesday after leaving Monday lunchtime. On Wednesday we went to see some Aboriginal rock art, but unfortunately the 2.5 km walk was too far for me, and stuffed me completely for the next two days. Bummer!

We drove to a little ghost town on Thursday (where we could drive around without leaving the car), then went that night to see Philip Adams who was great.

On Friday, still shuffling, we went to Samaurez Homestead, the family home of the White family (of Patrick White fame; although he was a cousin and not particularly enamoured of his Samaurez rellos). The tour guide was fantastic- we were the only people on the tour of the house- you had to wear those surgical "jiffies" over your shoes in the house. Are any of you old enough to remember Jiffies? My mother always had a collection of them in the front cupboard, and whenever her friends came to lunch, they always took their shoes off and wore Jiffies- gold lame ones; ocelot ones. God- think of it- I'd NEVER ask my friends to take their shoes off before they came in the house!!!

Saturday was graduation day, outside, on the lawn in front of Booloolimba- yet another White house (I think) donated to the University of New England. It was a beautiful day but deceptively "sunburny". Steve looks like an owl, because he's burnt everywhere except where his glasses were! There was a graduation dinner that night, and Steve got to meet some of the people from his course. He did it through distance ed (paper based)- little evidence of instructional design in the whole thing from my perspective- and had absolutely no contact with anyone.

Sunday- home again, home again, jiggety-jig. No jiggety-jig for me- I felt terrible and dozed most of the day, ate a souvlaki at Narrandera, then fell asleep. Monday was better, and we arrived home to find the doggies happy to see us, the cats supercilious as usual, my wisteria in fabulous bloom, and the house all neatened up by my beautiful daughter.