When we make things out of fabric, we know the strengths and limitations of the material and work with them. Even more interesting, we turn the limitations into strengths. We emphasize linen’s creases and felt the wool. The other day I read about Orsola de Castro’s take on clothes moths – she leaves a ‘sacrificial lamb’, feeding them with their preferred fibre so they leave everything else alone. I wonder, where am I short a perspective shift, where I am fighting against nature to no avail?
In online teaching, and in a lot of other systems in post-secondary, I am reminded of a tiny glimpse into J. Habermas, from a professor in grad school: Does the system support the lifeworld, or has it colonized the lifeworld? I might be told, design your activity like this, because this is what the tool can do. In order to win against the system, I must know it better than our institutional experts, well enough to design around it, to make it elegant… and I resent it.
I remember in high school music class, learning the ways instruments were designed for the human hand. What would learning management systems look like, if they were designed for human learning?
Toile & Trouble 
Important insights. Learn to know enough to clinch the institutional barriers. I used to coach and ref basketball. One important aspect was for the kids to learn the rules to be able to use them to their advantage during the games. Your argument is somewhat similar and illustrates the importance of not being “a slave” under the system. Paul Feyerabend’s ideas around research methodology and knowledge helps us understand not how to do, but that there is not necessarily a clear cut what to do. Particularly not if someone tells you so :-).
/Lars
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Love this post. I think when we think about eLearning, we leap to a farthest step which is technology. Tools should be means to an end and not the end itself. The idea is to design a good activity and then integrate the tools to refine the process. It is a conversation between the two, and what you get out of that conversation becomes your instructions. Learning outcomes come first.
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I like the word ‘conversation’ to describe this! This makes me think of all the movies that came out when CGI started to be a thing. They used the technology, often, just to use it. Those films look pretty dated now.
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I enjoy your insights and meditations on learning and tools. Why do resent the actions necessary to win against the system? What sacrifical lambs does learning wth and through technology need to support the human element?
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