Stirred,+not+shaken

=Assignment One= By: Deb Carter To: Robert Campbell and Mike Minions October 27, 2009

Stirred, not shaken: My accordance and affordance with technology

 * 'There are two ways to spread the light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.’ – //Edith Wharton, Novelist, Designer// **



Technology in my work-life journey

 * 'Moderation. Small helpings. Sample a little bit of everything. These are the secrets of happiness and good health…' - //Julia Child, Chef// **

My Teacher Perspective Inventory (TPI) shows no dominant teaching perspectives and one recessive, social reform. My work-life journey wanders through my generalist aptitudes in media design, management organization, mathematics, sciences and informational databases. My curiosity stirs my desire to expand my trusted learning-teaching-researching community rather than shakes my confidence to resist new educational technologies and knowledge paradigms. My teaching-learning-researching accords, or harmonizes, within memberships connected by common pursuits and social media rather than bounded collectives in space or learner-constructed paradigms ordering practices and experiences in place (Siemens, 2006). Three characteristics determine the affordance, or utility, of new technologies to my practice: My accordance and affordance delineate my technological evolution conjoined in historical and current educational practices as described below.
 * the capacity for communication
 * the character of the economic system
 * the form of social organization (Raskin, Banuri, Gallopín, et al, 2008).

Accordance

 * 'Growth and mastery come only to those who vigorously self-direct. Initiating, creating, doing, reflecting, freely associating [with curriculum and community], enjoying privacy…' - //John Taylor Gatto,Classrooms with Heart//, 1991 **

Into the late 20th century, Western education’s one-flow hierarchical model successfully transformed adult learners into homogeneous units. Education developed within a staid societal and economic system based on the ‘industrial strength’ of a well-defined workplace (Doll, 2008). In the 21st century, global connectivity develops cosmopolitan viewpoints diminishing the predictability of economic and educational initiatives in institutional collectives (Couldy, 2005; Pinar, 2009). A stellar teaching-learning methodology explodes into a panorama of complex multi-flow systems. A flat, distributed network evolves where new media opportunities and personal branding create “ ever-widening, never-ascending circles” (Gandi, 1868-1949) within “six pixels of separation” (Joel, 2009). Institutional academic strategies integrate adult learners’ experiences and goals with disciplined educators’ collective purpose of teaching or researching (Anderson, 2008). Two ideologies transcend these learning-teaching-researching environments: Within these ecologically dynamic, usually chaotic, networked structures, “two understandings of curriculum [reside]: curriculum-as-plan and curriculum-as-live(d)” (Aoki, 2005). With rapidly changing knowledge paradigms and technology experiences, few learning-teaching-researching phenomena repeat within exactly the same circumstances.
 * Instructional design binding learning outcomes and constructing a single classroom ‘snapshot’ within a predetermined institutional time frame (Smith & Ragan, 2005)
 * Collaborative online communities of practice, personal learning networks and/or personal learning environments connecting a digital ‘photo album’ of formal and informal teaching-learning-researching experiences (Siemens, 2006)

Affordance

 * 'If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.' -- //Margaret Mead, Cultural Anthropologist// **

With seemingly endless technological choices, three environmental characteristics determine their affordance to my situation. First, the capacity for communication increases through social media practices, such as slow blogging or discussion forums. These practices reframe and repurpose my ordinary thinking to metacognition where my thoughts comingle with a trusted community’s reflection of experiential learning (Nagle, 2009). Second, the character of the economic system stems from a curricular question of ‘what knowledge is of most worth?’ Three attributes develop a digital literacy that affects and enriches my teaching-learning-researching outcomes: Finally, the form of social organization creates synergistic development and maintenance for an online community of practice. Leadership distributes to all digital habitants through stewardship and mentorship rather than developing and maintaining such a community through standard practices of social presence and co-presence, professional collaborations, universal instructional design, arbitrary pacing or defined static roles (Wenger, White & Smith, 2009).
 * Communal experiential density with technologies
 * Data density within the knowledge paradigm
 * Continuity of technology upgrades and retooling within the membership (Leu & Zawilinski, 2007)