Mike,
I'll respond to the issues I think I can contribute to, my comments are
preceeded by ***:
2. I believe there are more effective ways to use xmca for more generations
(along several time dimensions) but it requires wills as well as ways.
*** agreed, xmca is simply a tool at our disposal
I keep thinking we ought to be able to create real courses where people
get credit at their own isntituitons, but the teaching/learning occurs
on combinations of interactive video, streaming video plus web pages, etc.
That is a project I would be happy to get actively involved in.
*** I would also be interested in getting involved. Maybe we could start by
offering a 'course' (workshop/seminar) where we don't have to worry about
offering credit (although by offering credit that also means that the course
creator/moderator would more likely be renumerated for their effort). I am
willing to go so far to say that there are at least 12 PhD students would
would jump at the chance to take such a course. On a similar note, I have
created a yahoo group for the Chaiklin-Seeger group and we are talking about
working through Leont'ev chapter by chapter. It would be great (at least in
my opinion, I would want to make sure others were ok with it) to open this
up to others interested- I certainly don't want to mirror xmca though and
would want to keep the focus on assisting PhD students.
The
constant imputation of expertise (an expert being defined by my son,
cleverly, as a drip under pressure-- ex-spurt for non-native speakers)
is a real barrier to growth for us all.
*** I'll be more careful with my dry humor... I spent my master's degree in
IT wrestling with 'expertise' and intelligent tutoring systems (and lost
which is the main reason I came over to CHAT- I saw the futility of it all).
but my impression remains that most of the posts xmca from a core group of
participants. the point being that other activities might be considered
(related to #2 above)
So, Jim. How, concretely, might wem, collectively, be of help to you.
**** hmmm, the 60,000 dollar question. here are a couple of issues I am
wrestling with now. I'll pose these as issues rather than questions as
there are no answers
theoretical
- How 'far' back do I need to go to have an understanding of AT? I'm
reading Marx now (German Ideology, Grundisee, Theses, as well as Carol
Gould's "Marx's Social Ontologies") are there other good Marx sources I
should read? do I need to go back to Hegel? Spinoza? Aristotle? What other
'key' texts are there (besides the classics: Vygotsky, Leont'ev, Engestrom,
Cole, etc..)? You might think that there is no way to answer this
question but remember you are talking to someone who has finished his PhD
coursework yet took no courses related to AT (maybe my second Qualitative
Methods course came close as it was taught by one of Rogoff's students.. who
has sadly moved to another university).
Maybe a place to start is simply a list of lists on the XMCA website of
different people's 'must read' texts in CHAT with a short explanation of
each text. That way I could decide which texts would be most appropriate to
my interests.
Practical
-I am interested in learning in an on-line course (a second year English
Composition course) and especially how various on-line tools (e.g. a
discussion thread) mediates learning. A methodological/philosophical
dilemma I am faced with is how do I understand the students' various
activities without actually observing what they 'do'. I have their on-line
artifacts (homework, discussion threads, papers), I can interview them and
ask them what they do or why, but I never see them 'doing' any of these
activies (or even actions and operations). Is it possible to 're-create' an
activity without observing it?
I look forward to more discussions not only on the issues I am facing but on
general issues related to reaching multiple generations in the xmca. note:
I going out of town tomorrow morning so will be unable to respond until next
monday.
jim
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