Re: Pea & Rogers
One of the points that periodically surfaces in debates surrounding social networking tools and similar types of disruptive technology is that people have been engaged in the practice of social networking since time immemorial. So what’s the big deal? Why all the attention? We would offer two: Design and Affordability. The tools have been designed in a way that make them accessible to ordinary people. And second, most of them are very affordable to a large percentage of consumers, and many are even free. These two, comparatively recent changes have enabled social networking to occur in many different, sometimes unpredictable ways. Even more important is how they have made the forms, paths, and manifestations visible to all that live within that web-based community. This visibility is what gives Roy Pea’s work special significance as he prompts us to think about the underlying design of these networks. By foregrounding the design element of these networks, educators can begin to think about them as tools with specific affordances that can support learning goals. Yet doing so, requires a change in thinking, a change in how a teacher sees the classroom, the role of the students, and the role of him or her as the teacher. Acknowledging the role of social, disruptive technologies necessarily requires acknowledging that the impact of its application in the classroom. So how does this change happen? Rogers points to different enabling conditions or characteristics that facilitate its emergence: Relative Advantage, Compatibility, Complexity, Trialability, and Observability (p. 15-16). By seeing change as a series of characteristics such as these, teachers and designers develop a vocabulary for talking about the change in ways that help avoid overly simplistic binaries such as “for” or “against”, or “early adopter” or “laggard.” As we all remember from our Psych 101 texts, resorting to derisive labels tends only to induce defensive postures. If we turn back though to Roy Pea, we can point to the potential for these technologies to augment a learner’s intelligence in a variety of different ways including computing, guided participation, inscriptional systems, and situated cognition (p. 58). Guided participation seems particularly appropriate because of its recognition of the fundamentally social nature of learning (e.g., Vygotsky’s Zone of Proxmial Development) and the potential for these technologies to facilitate collaborative learning.
Another challenge in adopting this change quite understandably centers on the wide divergence of opinion of how it should be implemented. But it’s not just about the output that is delivered by way of the implementation, it’s also important to get at how the different individuals involved define and conceptualize that change. Bringing this out helps those involved see the heterophilous nature of these definitions and conceptualizations (Rogers p. 19) and how the attributes identified with these differences tend to extend across a pretty wide spectrum. Moreover, many of these differences are rooted in long-held views about the way in which teaching should be done and how students should demonstrate evidence of learning. Rather than getting mired in ideological battles based on rigid adherence to a right-wrong polarity, stakeholders should approach them with a designer’s perspective and see them as a series of tradeoffs. Two important sets of tradeoffs that Pea calls our attention to are (1) access versus understanding and (2) static definitions versus evolving concepts. In a hypothetical education context, the first tradeoff might emerge in a debate that positions access to technology (e.g., iPads) and deep conceptual understanding as polar opposites. On the one hand, there are those who advocate the urgent need for technology and on the other are those who see it as a distraction to deep, purposeful learning. All too often, this is played out as an either-or scenario in which firmly held ideological views obstruct any possibility for seeing nuance. The second tradefoff emphasizes how thinking can become reified to the point where its relevance and purpose is no longer examined, but just accepted as virtually immutable. So, for example, learning is defined as how the teacher experienced when he was a child and the child sees learning the Periodic Table as completely irrelevant to her world of texting and Facebook. Needless to say, both of these underscore the importance of applying two fundamental maxims: context and purpose. What are the specific details of this learning context? What are the details related to socioeconomics, demographics, attitudes, technical infrastructure? What is it that we want these technologies to do? What demonstrable needs are they being designed to address? Overall, what Pea and Rogers do is help give us a vocabulary for describing these challenges in more nuanced ways.
ROI KAWAI says
It’s intriguing how the concept of design in technology does, as I’m sure we’re going to unpack, overlap with identity. I do wonder how much of the resistance, acceptance, apathy, etc. toward innovation/web 2.0 is influenced by what people perceive their stance/identity ‘supposed’ to be – e.g., like you mentioned in this blog, “for” or “against”, or “early adopter” or “laggard.” I would assume some of this identity is constructed by time, place, and culture — “I’m not a technology ‘native’, therefore I see technology as dangerous” — but also by changing paradigms in design. Like you mentioned, since people must adapt to change in both identity AND design, I can understand why diffusion such a complex and often long process.
Laura March says
Like Roi, I’m also intrigued by the overlap of design and identity (big shocker coming from the girl with a degree in studio art, I know). I am very amused by how a fad (in fashion, technology, learning style, etc.) is killed when it reaches a critical mass. How many times have you heard friends groan about Facebook being “over” after their parents joined? Now that Portlandia has a sketch on this topic, is calling something “over” over?
MJ says
Thanks for sharing the Portlandia sketch, Laura. The cycles keep rolling and change occurs for so many different reasons, doesn’t it?
One piece that I’m especially interested in is the trade-offs that Pea talks about. On one hand, we struggle so often in math education to make sure that students are given the opportunity to think about math conceptually. Teachers are hesitant to move away from teaching instrumentally, or procedurally, which in the long run is easier, but obviously not as thoughtful. Some of those procedures have been built into designs that don’t allow for thinking. Hopefully technologies won’t limit how students interact with the concepts. Often the shortcuts are very useful, but it’s important to make sure the student doesn’t still need to develop an understanding of the concept before it’s simply done for them. It should be possible to have it all in a design that is efficient, but doesn’t impose limitations to complex thought at developmentally appropriate times.
Phil Tietjen says
Portlandia is hilarious; some great satire. (esp as a guy who lived in Seattle for many years).
MJ says
I wondered about the “over” over idea as well. 🙂
SCOTT P MCDONALD says
I think MJ gets at a central piece of Pea here that bears thinking about. He calls it distributed intelligence for a reason. You have moved some part of your thinking “out of your head” and into the environment. This can happen via technology in the form of notes or an iPad, but it can also take the form of a social technology such as a mathematics algorithm. When you stop thinking about the process, because you have distributed it into an algorithm that you just have to know when to use it you have changed your thinking. You are now thinking about different things. Modern biology tells us that thoughts actually reshape the brain, thus it is not an overstatement to say that all distribution of intelligence is reshaping us on a biological as well as cultural level. What does this mean for definitions of intelligence?