Re: [xmca] Thoughts on ISCAR.... disappearing

Mike,

My gmail routinely puts you into my spam box, so I only catch what you say
when somebody replies. This is irritating in the *extreme*. Is there any
remedy for this that any of my learned colleagues know of? I nearly missed
your message about thinking through ISCAR, which is imperative since we
missed nuggets of gold from each other. There was a good spirit though, I
felt.

Carol

2008/9/22 Goncu, Artin <goncu@uic.edu>

>
>
>
> Thank you, Mike. This is very helpful for those of us who were not able
> to attend the meeting. I am very interested in hearing more about these
> insights such as attributions to activity theory.. ag
>
>
>
> On Sun, September 21, 2008 5:39 pm, Mike Cole wrote:
> > Having been buffeted by events leading up to and surrounding
> > ISCAR, and then having disappeared for a week, I am just starting
> > to get near catching up with myself.... and xmca.
> >
> > I went first to the polling page to see if we are done voting for a paper
> > to
> > discuss
> > and of course found that the page that is there allows you to read
> > abstracts, but not
> > vote.... again. The lchc gremlin was busy while I was away. I will go
> > hunting for anti-gremlin
> > ointment in the morning; then we can finish up the voting and get on to
> > discussing.
> >
> > I note Jonna's comments re the stimulating nature of the meetings and the
> > frustrations of
> > coinciding talks and uneven attendance. One of my big frustrations was
> > that
> > I was teaching
> > part time at another uc campus while ISCAR was going on and had one big
> > non-ISCAR evening
> > event to worry about and ended up being able to talk to too few of the
> > people I really was hoping
> > to have a chance to talk to and missed several talks I wanted to hear. I
> > assume everyone experienced
> > some version of those problems too.
> >
> > I do not think I am alone in being interested in what people found most
> > interesting at the meeting. Might those
> > who attended put up a few "favorite ideas encountered" since no one could
> > take it all in and many on xmca
> > where not there.
> >
> > For example.
> >
> > In the discussion of social construction of CHAT, Volodya Zinchenko
> > commented that in his experience, in the
> > dance of activity and culture, too often activity gobbled up culture,
> > that
> > there was something "aggressive" about
> > activity (or activity theory, not sure which). I was not sure to what
> > extent
> > this reflected his experience in the USSR
> > and since in Russia. But upon reflection, I could see how this might seem
> > the case in my own interest in
> > interventionist strategies of research. A crucial issue in such research
> > is
> > to organize it so that one is in the position
> > of mediator, not "I know the right answer, do this" agent. Very difficult
> > to
> > arrange for.
> >
> > Another interesting thought was evoked by Alex Kozulin's talk on
> > psychological tools and education which had a title something like "the
> > idea
> > factory" (at least factory was in the title). Yrjo was a commentator and
> > he
> > remarked on the Taylorist implications of the factory metaphor, but what
> > most interested me were two things. First, Alex commented that he uses
> the
> > term "self control" rather than "executive function" but the two terms
> > really mean the same thing.
> > I think he's right. But coming from an American tradition where we have
> > blockological models of memory with
> > an "executive block" I had not fully realized that American and Russian
> > developmentalists were as close as I had thought in this regard.
> Secondly,
> > he introduced work by Galina Tsukerman which illustrated how a curriclum
> > could
> > be implemented that promoted "reflective thinking," another term closely
> > related to the first two. Galina was not
> > at ISCAR, but her work has appeared in the Journal of Russian and East
> > European Psych, and it is quite terrific.
> > Having all of that put together in a nice example of theory/practice
> > research was nice to see.
> >
> > Vera John Steiner's plenary talk had a great definition of mutual
> > appropriation in it that I have to get a hold of.
> >
> > At the symposium about research at LCHC over the years there were several
> > interesting talks picking up different
> > LCHC themes. Denis Newman who now heads up an educational research
> > evaluation company talked about the
> > problems of ecological invalidity of reseach assessments... a new context
> > in
> > which to think about dilemmas of
> > testing, at least for me. Ray Mc Dermott drew parallels between the
> > cultural-historical contexts of Dewey's lab
> > school and LCHC's out of school research that were provoking as Ray can
> > always be, James Joyce and a
> > leprechaun always dancing in his prose. There was also an interesting
> > symposium on research inspired by Dewey
> > and that topic always yields new insights.
> >
> > The entire event was about diversity and wow was there a lot of it. how
> > much
> > came through the distance media is
> > hard for me to judge. But it was there in the ideas, the faces, the
> dress.
> >
> > What did others encounter that seemed of more than personal interest?
> >
> > If anyone, like Jonna, was at an event, either as speaker or as audience,
> > where the material seemed worthwhile
> > for discussion but only one person turned up, perhaps they can get the
> > power
> > points or printed talks and send them along to xmca for distribution and
> > discussion. And there is a moodle somewhere where some, if not all, of
> the
> > talks
> > are stored that we could use for access.
> >
> > I hear that winter is coming in Northern Europe. Its still summer here in
> > San Diego and we still need rain. Feel
> > free to share.
> >
> > mike
> > _______________________________________________
> > xmca mailing list
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
> >
>
>
> Artin Goncu, Ph.D
> Professor and Chair,
> Educational Psychology
> College of Education M/C 147
> 1040 W. Harrison St.
> Chicago, IL 60607
> (312) 996-5259
>
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>

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