Part of my Action Research revolves around my drive to tell my own story.

We are the first generation bombarded with so many stories from so many authorities, none of which are our own. The parable of the postmodern mind is the person surrounded by a media center: three television screens in front of them giving three sets of stories; fax machines bringing in other stories; newspapers providing still more stories. In a sense, we are saturated with stories; we’re saturated with points of view. But the effect of being bombarded with all of these points of view is that we don’t have a point of view and we don’t have a story. We lose the continuity of our experiences; we become people who are written on from the outside. —Sam Keen

email to MR


If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.
—Barry Lopez, in Crow and Weasel


Stanley Kubrick take two: “I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.”

Good questions from 665

Mar 23, 2010 Publicly Viewable

I wanted to keep these close to my chest.  My responses for some questions asked in 665:

From your experience in MALT so far, what design practice has resonated with you the most? Why?

Design practices that resonate with me are rooted in pedagogy involving constructivist theory, project-based learning and applications of technological tools in collaborative environments.

That’s my short answer.  And if you pried it open you would see contrasting strands of Vygotsky and Piaget, a colorful controversy leaving me wishing I could read both Russian and French (Homegrown scholarly pontifications involving chapter headings entitled,  “The Unity of Diversity and the Diversity of Unity,” have left me more confused than enlightened.) Following the same thread, I enjoyed discovering how Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development led to modern day re-workings in activity theory and distributed cognition.

For some time, I was mired in seemingly straightforward questions such as how does a ship make it safely to harbor or a cockpit crew stay in the air?  In Cognition in the Wild, Ed Hutchins elucidates his part of the answer through complex computational forms of collective intelligence.  Next, I became inspired by the distilled brilliance found in the works of John Dewey and Seymour Papert. Ultimately, they are all parts of the synergistic whole and regardless of my particular route I am left with the same existential challenge as when I began.

We know today that our technology affects our collective cognition.  Thus, as a global community how should our collective cognition affect our technology?  That is to say, what are the best design practices needed to catalyze our best human nature?  Simple right?

Hardly.  Despite our tangle of hermeneutic theory, social phenomenology and ethnographic research our academic musings seem to produce lukewarm results in greater society. This is why these design practices are important to me.  I am finished with the pedantic navel-gazing and am ready to let my Action Research fly.  True change-makers need to lead the way and DEMONSTRATE how we can bridle human potential through action.  Life is not about assessing and achieving but about learning and growing.

That’s my personal experience anyway.

#8 –Engagement

In your ARP, are your learners engaged in their learning? Why or why not?

Yes.  My community of practice is more than engaged.  But they are waiting for me to give them more.  However, I am reluctant to give more as my end-goal is to empower the learners.

Part of my holistic educational theory borrows from the classical age of antiquity.  The great philosopher Plato revealed in the Socratic dialogue Meno that educational virtue is an instinct.

Instinct is not taught.  It is employed.

Thus, I am trying to find ways that opens learners eyes to the ways they can manifest their own creative instinct.

Let’s get specific.  I have a community organizer in Pandytown who wants to empower women with a purse-building project.  I could design an e-commerce site.  I could contact the local artists.  I could run the business.  I could make it happen.  In fact, I have all these resources in place.  However, I am waiting for the community organizer to delegate  this chain of events to me, not vice versa.

It’s a delicate thing to work to empower a culture that is different than your own.  My studies in cultural anthropology have taught me the perils of well-intentioned ethnocentrism.

Thus, I was happy to receive an email from my friend today.  It read:

“we believe that people should be help to help them self  , and that God wont the best for His people every where
I am thankful that I was able to share my idea with you and that you are trying to implement it
here is what I think you should do
is to help the people start there own business”

I nearly cried when I read that.  It feels like patience has paid off and that we are now all working together for the greater good, rather than one devout person on some “helper’s high” mission to save the indigenous people of so-and-so.

#7- Technology

For your ARP, how did you select the technologies that you are utilizing? How have your learners responded thus far?

One of my favorite literary quotes is as follows:

H. D. Thoreau:
“Simplify, simplify…”

Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“One simplify would have sufficed.”

It is with this wisdom in mind that I selected the technologies for my Action Research.  The best tool is often the most simple one.

To be sure, I am completing the Action Notebook offered by the authors of Digital Habitats; stewarding technology for communities, by Etienne Wenger, Nancy White, and John D Smith.

This practical manual assists me in my role as a technology steward in cultivating my community of practice.  The Action Notebook guides me through technology: what is it, why should I use it, where are my capabilities and limitations therein, how do I start and where do I find help if I need it?

The Action Notebook raises pertinent questions such as, why spend time, money and resources to build an independent collaborative social website if Facebook will be more effective?

To this end, I must remind myself that my goal in this program is not to impress others but to serve and empower them.