Discussions > Is sharing knowledge on learning design a question of words or more
Is sharing knowledge on learning design a question of words or more
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Nicolas Balacheff
123 days ago |
"Supporting an open culture of design for technology enhanced learning" is one of the Stellar Grand Challenge Problems (GCP n°4). It starts from the recognition of “the lack of appropriate representation of design knowledge in education, and the tools to manipulate such representations” (Yishay Mohr 2011), and that despite decades of development and progress on several aspects, it still miss “a common language” and “[make] this language accessible to the widest possible audience” (ibid). Actually, this is not exactly true. There have been attempts at specifying representations of design knowledge in education, for example the IMS LD for a representation of “learning design knowledge” (Koper 2005). Hence, the GCP should build on the knowledge coming from the success and failures of such attempts: what are they? Actually, the core of this challenge is likely to be on understanding and ensuring the conditions for the accessibility of such a language “to the widest possible audience” (e.g. designers, teachers, researchers and policy makers). To a certain extent it was also the objective of these other attempts (e.g. emphasis on interoperability and independence from pedagogical models). Learning from the past, this GCP could attempt at opening the challenge on issues beyond the vocabulary, which is the challenge of sharing concepts and models in learning design. The language issues may be a symptom of deeper difficulties at a conceptual and theoretical level. Right? Have you examples to share?
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Christian
123 days ago |
Hi Nicolas, it’s not only the conditions that would ensure accessibility – though a very important question – also what kind of knowledge is actually needed when it comes to a specific design challenge. The degree of generalizability of design knowledge is still an open question, one that needs to be solved before we could aim for ‘common language’. I think design knowledge is pretty much a constantly moving target. I found design patterns a promising direction of investigation as they can handle the fuzziness of the knowledge TEL aims to represent. An early reference to design patterns and their wider application (e.g. as part of an educational framework etc) - http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet21/goodyear.html; there is also a book on design patterns Yishay and many others contributed to: Peter Goodyear & Simos Retalis, ed., Technology-enhanced learning: Design Patterns and Pattern Languages, Sense Publishers.
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Nicolas Balacheff
123 days ago |
Knowledge... you say "knowledge", but what is this knowledge like? I agree with you, this is the core question, the one which I target via the reference to conceptual and theoretical difficulties. There is a kind of contradiction in the expression "The degree of generalizability of design knowledge". Knowledge by "construction" has a kind of generality otherwise... May be it is clearer to refer to the domain of validity of a piece of Learning design knowledge. How can we characterize it, validate it?
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Joshua Underwood
112 days ago |
Maybe there is something wrong with trying to construct a language (appropriate forms of representaton) for communicating (creating) design knowledge? Perhaps bringing together a community of "designers, teachers, researchers and policy makers" around shared motivations for action will enable the community to create and evolve the appropriate language (and forms of representation)? Maybe the requirements are for tools to help create, capture and accelerate the production and use of this language (and other forms of representation)? In that sense things like the TEL thesaurus would be part of the effort - does the thesaurus reach the right kind of community?
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Nicolas Balacheff
111 days ago |
This is an interesting comment which starts by "there is someting wrong with trying to construct a language", but which later suggests to bring together a community "to create and evolve the appropriate language". Indeed there is no contradiction, as long as we understand that what is at stake is a question of methodology. Instead of a bottom up approach following which computer-scientists (for example) would propose a language (or means of representation), let's designers work together and record the language they have to construct in order to be able to efficiently achieve their project. The best tool for this may be... language. I mean, a modest approach could be to systematically record the (epistemic) discourse used in a shared project, and analyse this discourse and take note of the key concepts and related representations. So a collaborative platform, with shared documents, forum and blog, could be enough provided that somebody takes care of analysing the discourse, and feedbacks the community with it. Keywords (thesaurus), related concepts, commonalities and differences should appear very fast.
btw: does the thesaurus reach the right kind of community? I must say that I don't know, but what is explicit is that it targets the research community and should if successful go beyond.
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Joshua Underwood
103 days ago |
Thanks Nicholas, you have probably expressed what I wanted to say much better than me. I also think a relevant comparison may be the difference between compiling natural language dictionaries through analysis of actual usage or through some kind of Real Academia style committee that decides what words and phrases are, or are not part of the language and what they mean.
While I think the kind of bottom up approach I am interested in (and the development of tools to support this) would be interesting I'm not so convinced it would have useful output?
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Nicolas Balacheff
103 days ago |
@Joshua: you make me think that we are confronted to a real difficulty. We are using actually two different types of language in our research area. On the one hand a language to think and reason, and on the other hand a language to communicate and persuade. The distance between both became thinner with the urgent need to find money to support research and hence convince decision makers... if we focus on the first type of language, then I am sure that your approach will have a useful output.
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