>I was particularly fascinated by a session organized by David
>Bogen (Emerson College, associated with U Mass), which I only
>heard part of. Title: Discourse communities in the material
>world: shared objects/ shared meanings. His own presentation and
>that of a collaborator (Leslie Jarmon, U Texas - Austin) dealt
>with the uses and limits of Heideggerian phenomenology in the
>conceptualization of situated learning and instruction: "Making
>sense with materials: Object-situations as an emergent order of
>instruction".
I also saw this session and also found it fascinating. Jay, your summary
seems right on target and I can't shed any light on the Winograd/Flores
approach to design. Bogen took the lead on discussing Heidegger. He set
up the discussion with a "riddle" something like: How many people does it
take to hammer in a nail with Heidegger's hammer? The answer eventually
turned out to be: None, if they know what they're doing. His point was
that Heidegger placed too much weight on equipment's ready to handedness
(if that is the term) to establish its own use. Jarmon had done the
videotaped study of the novices (she was looking for a site where informal
teaching and learning occured) and walked people through the videotaped
data.
At the end of the session, I asked if they had thought about how this
microgenesis of the hammer becoming hammer and the novices becoming
hammerers related to ontogenetic and sociogenetic contexts (particularly
focusing on the ways the novices acted cooperatively as workers and
learners and how the institutional context-A Habitat for Humanity
Project-shaped the interactions). Harmon said she had really focused on
this one aspect of the interactions, but that clearly there were other
issues that could be developed (particularly the ethos of cooperation that
participants displayed). Bogen seemed to take a purer ethnomethodological
perspective and noted that another way to approach the issue of tool use
was something like the History of Technology and opposed that to this
ethnomethodological approach that in principle focuses on situated
interaction. Although I don't see the value of opposing microgenesis to
the broader ontogenesis of persons and the sociogenesis of tools,
practices, and institutions, I did find this talk intriguing and useful.
Paul Prior
p-prior who-is-at uiuc.edu
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign