Don asked,
> Isn't "efficiency" a value? I'm not clear how we can
> avoid values. Maybe we're using the word differently.
I don't think that "efficiency" is a vlaue by itself. However, I agree that
some social groups make the slogan of "efficiency" a part of their ideology
based on the transmission of knowledge teaching model (in education). It is
exactly because the notion of "efficiency" is value-free, the ideology
exploiting it is so successful in masking its values as "objective"
criterion of quality in general.
> Divergence doesn't inevitably lead to relativism. To say
> there is no best (most efficient, most interactive, most
> engaging, most __________) practice requires that we
> commit to a particular practice, understand the implications
> of the choice we have made, and take responsibility for its
> consequences.
I want to clarify my position a bit. I don't mean that I reject the notion
of "the best practice" per se although there is some danger to substitute
"practice" as dynamic, distributed, contextual, and emergent process to
"practice" as a thing or a tool or even a mechanism. I reject the notion of
"the best practice" as unspecified term like "fifty is a big number".
> This moves the matter of sustainability to
> the practicing professional(or better yet, the local community
> of practicing professionals), not (or not only) the
> researcher/developer.
>
Sounds good, but the problem starts when values changes and/or participants
disagree or unclear about values.
What do you think?
Eugene