It's Monday here in Georgia, USA. Since this is the last message I've received (pending anything that might come in later today via the Digest format, which is only delivered daily), this will be my last "official" Forum exchange.
[quoting Quinn, 31 May 96] I've read much of this (or representative equivalents). However, I note that they are mostly oriented towards instruction. If the designed environment itself doesn't provide the structure, the instructor designs an activity that then is the basis for organizing information exploration around.
My point in referencing things that shaped my perspective was not that all were open-ended methods (though some are). The point was to frame a view of open learning. Let me briefly describe.
Bransford's work in anchored instruction represents an approach where context and content are tied by design rather than happenstance. Others discuss situated cognition more as an explanatory mechanism to characterize "natural learning" processes, limited transfer, or the role of context in retrieval (e.g., Lave, Rogoff). Bransford's efforts look to make the gist of these approaches operational (e.g., the CTGV (1992) paper in Educational Technology Research & Development (ETR&D) and Young's (1993) paper). So, their approach is not really instruction (defined as externally directed) but resource-oriented, problem-based, generative, and learner-centered. These are four key underpinnings of open learning environments.
A mosaic metaphor...
A few of the references also focused on case studies wherein learning systems were developed using alternative approaches (CTGV (1992); Rieber (1992); Tobin & Dawson (1992) ETR&D should have been included but wasn't) OR alternatives for designing via alternative frameworks (Lebow, Young). Each of these provides a piece of a broader mosaic; none independently is complete and sufficient, yet understanding of the pieces is important to understanding the overall pattern.
Several of the papers I referenced, related to my research, are bigger sections of the mosaic--that is, they described larger relationships among the pieces in shaping a "bigger picture." The full picture, in one sense, is the whole image one gains when viewing the mosaic from a distance--the seamless recognition of form. To create the mosaic (or a process for designing mosaics), one must be aware of and attentive to the part-larger part, and larger-part-to whole relationships. This is what the references (mine and others) attempted to provide.
Where do you start? If you view knowledge as a connected ball of concepts (as Kathy Fisher has with her SemNet product), you realize that any presentation will linearise it with some bias. Even if you support multiple forms of browsing, you want to provide some support. Can you anticipate the desires of people coming at it? Do you come up with some templates of users that have attached structure? Or do you rather try to provide a powerful suite of navigation tools and assume the user can extract the structure "they" desire?
The assumption is that you can induce perspectives to provide ways for individuals to encounter the available tools, resources, etc., or that the individual induces a related perspective on their own. My work is not focused on simply creating electronic databases of stuff for any purpose--it emphasizes supporting individuals' efforts to understand in defined domain(s). As an example, Jasper problems provide an orienting vignette/problem that does more than introduce players, embedded data, etc. It helps to frame the ways individuals engage the problem, leading them tacitly (or explicitly) to generate related problems/sub-problems for which the tools and resources can (hopefully) be utilized. (Similar methods are employed in Science Vision--Tobin & Dawson, 1992 above). The manner in which individual experience and background are brought to bear is implicitly defined by what is attended to, the manner in which he/she frames the overarching problem and sub-problems, the methods selected to proceed, reflections/ interpretations of what is observed prior to, during, after selection and manipulation, etc. A child who has camping experience, for example, has available knowledge and skills that they bring to bear on Jasper's options for the wounded eagle dilemma; anyone who has driven (or been in a vehicle that has been driven) knows about the need to refuel periodically, someone who has flown recognizes the need for an acceptable landing strip, etc. So, the goal is to provide a set of engagement vehicles that varied individuals can relate to, not millions of possible scenarios to account for all possible backgrounds/styles. The orienting problems, in effect, provide the "engine" through which individuals map their background and experience onto the problem and interpret its context. Tools, resources, scaffolding, etc., provide the means through which one can act on these interpretations, refine or test assumptions or beliefs, clarify or revise understanding, etc.
I realize that this is no different from what the author of a book might do (though there always seems to be a market for new twists: Intro to Ed Tech, Ed Tech for Computer Scientists, Ed Tech for Educators, Ed Tech for 'Suits', Ed Tech for Politicians, Ed Tech for Idiots, etc., could all be on the shelves soon or already), but is the role for an OELE to accommodate all? Is the scope to be covered part of the requirement specification? I would assume that the scaffolding provided would be based upon an assessment of the learner.
The role for an OELE is to support the unique ways in which individuals learn. Clearly, there are domain limitations that restrict how much indexing is feasible, but these are practical rather than technological limitations. An example. Using the variations of your textbooks, one could conceptualize the domain of resources as being some core set of organizing concepts, and the "uniqueness" as being specific instances of knowledge, skills, and applications for each text audience. Even the "unique" aspects wouldn't be totally unique, however. Some of the comparative science aspects would likely overlap with multimedia designers, some of the politicians stuff would overlap with the "idiots" (likely a very significant portion?), etc. In the end, there would likely be decreasingly cross-indexed subsets of important knowledge or skills and perhaps some truly "unique" aspects. An open learning system for such a complex domain could enable access to all aspects, but provide engines (i.e., problems) and guidance (i.e., scaffolding, etc.) designed to support the individual in addressing those things of greatest interest, need, and relevance. There could easily be multiple engines that reflect the diverse needs, sophistication, interests, etc., of individual users. The scaffolding, in effect, would be based upon both the sophistication of the learner and the complexity of the problem(s) engaged. In other words, the same environment COULD support a wide array of learners--it would require a pretty significant reorganization of resources, but it could be done.
On a more general level, I'd like to thank those among you who participated in the discussion during the past week. Its a process that can lead to more questions than answers. Asynchronous forums are a great way to promote timely discourse, but they are inherently limited as to how much can be asked, interpreted, and answered and the means for doing each. The questioner has to frame, as best he/she can, the textual essence of a query; the answerer has to interpret the question and formulate textually (within reason) a way to address the question. Without perfect communication, the written question might not fully reflect the questioners intent, the interpretation might shift away from the intent, or the written answer might be a great response (or lousy one) to a misinterpretation of the questioner's intent. Such is the nature of the medium--at least how we exorcise its features. Hopefully some of your intents were addressed (if incompletely). I know more about some of the soft areas in my own thinking and will look to clarify them.
I also want to thank those of you who wrote directly rather than via the public Forum. Some communication is rightly of either a more limited or unrelated nature, and it is good to separate the public goals of the Forum from the private nature of a conversation. I gained a good deal from both public discourse and private conversations.
Finally, thanks for bearing with me. I'm pretty sure that some of the questions you raised would have been better addressed if I'd stuck to a more formal academic approach, but I'm also pretty sure that many of the issues/questions posed would not have surfaced if I'd used a traditional academic approach. I don't know what the best balance is for others, but for my interests, I remain more fascinated with how and why people evolve in their thinking than simply in what they think. This forum may not have shed as much light on the "what's" of my thinking, but hopefully some of the "how's" and "why's" have become clearer.