Assemblage (Jones, 2015) [...]

Jones, C. (2015). Networked Learning: A New Paradigm? In C. Jones (Ed.), Networked Learning: An Educational Paradigm for the Age of Digital Networks (pp. 225–243). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01934-5_9

== Definition

Jones does not adopt the radical view of ontology of Latour etc which

argues that there are multiple realities constituted by practices and that in some cases the realities that are constituted by different practices although they are related to the same object are incommensurable.....My preferences remain solidly realist in relation to this question about ontology, although my empahsis is firmly on how we come to know, rather than the nature of reality itself.

== Other Definitions

used throughout this book to discuss complex systems composed of humans and machines (p. 231)

Latour's view of assemblage is linked to Deleuze's metaphor of rhizomes with quote on p. 231

Arthur (2009, p. 28) argues that one of the three distinct ways to thing of technology is "as an assemblage of practices and components". Jones argues this is more mundane than Latour's

== Application

It is as assemblages offering various kinds of complex affordances that technologies are most likely to be found in education and learning. A Learning Management System is one such assemblage of various tools and technologies that presents students and teachers with a complex of potenital affordances many of which are interdependent (p. 226)


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Why do you go to University [...]

Blog post from Mark Guzdial with discussions with Alan Kay initially exploring why do students study programming, evolves into broader question of why do US students go to college

50 year reflection monograph from the UCLA HERI Freshman Survey asks a question "why do you go to college"

  • 1971 - 44.5% say "to make more money"
  • 2015 - 85.2%


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When to use accordions [...]

detailed look at when to use accordions


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Moldable first [...]

Glamourous is a toolkit built with Pharo language. Glamourous explicitly lists it's design principles with the first being Moldable first and described as

Software is shapeless. Yet, to reason about it we, humans, need a shape. Tools provide the shape of software. It follows that tools are essential. Moreover, software is also highly contextual. For tools to be effective, they have to take that context into account. It follows that tools must be moldable so that the programmer can adapt them to the current needs, easily and frequently.


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Gramar of learning [...]

From a book PUtting Leanring Before Technology the grammar of learning

  1. Learning requires effort and commitment
  2. learning requires challenges
  3. learning requires positive relationships
  4. learning requires motivation
  5. learning requires surface understanding in order to develop deep understanding


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Intellectually honest versions of it [...]

From a common on this post Alan Kay shares a quote from Jerome Bruner that he is "a bit enthusiast about"

*for every learner you can (and need to) find an intellectually honest version of a subject they can learn if you heed their level of development

This page reveals the following quotes from Bruner

We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development. (ibid.: 33)

Which [this] by Steve Wheeler talks about Bruner's work on the scaffolding of learning. Links Bruner's work with Vygotsky and the Zone of Proximal Devellopment


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CardBox:: nodt [...]


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Understand the user


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CardBox:: Know thy student [...]


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Intellectually honest versions of it Understand the user


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Understand the user [...]

Alan Kay in comment 27 on this post writes

the number one principle in good UI design is to understand the users who are being designed for (this is importantly similar to “the number one principle in trying to teach X to Y”, is to understand Y as well as understanding X).

Which he then connects to attempts to develop a framework for CS that should have started with understanding the children.

Linking to the Know Thy Students stuff.


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Homogenisation – represent processes in machines that can interpret those representations [...]

In comment 11 on this blog post Alan Kay (also has other comments) writes about the "earliest ideas about the 'essence' of computing"

are all about being able to represent processes in machines that can interpret the representations. So this is a kind of “dynamic math and dynamic reading and writing and a dynamic parts of thinking“, and the study of this and making ideas and theories about this is a science. They decided to call it “computer science” as an aspiration for the future.

Link with programming languages

Kay in a later comment mentions

This works well in a Prolog (or a Lisp or.a Logo) because they are all meta in that code is something (a) that can be looked at, and conversely (b) the stuff that can be put together to be looked at can also be interpreted as code (this is a very big idea — quite absent from the Framework’s purview even for high school — this is partly because in their limited view of things they were thinking of current HS AP in Java, and this kind of stuff is not at all straightforward in Java).

Mentioning Logo programming with 12/13 year olds with Paper/Soloman that could turn any English sentence into Pig Latin.

Byte Magazine Issue that contains the article Prolog/Robot that shows some of this.


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