A New Semester

A new semester is starting at my graduate school of education and for a change I'm coming in with a sense of optimism. I am down to my last six credits, which might be a part of that, but I also have a real good feeling about the instructor. She seems to be really on the ball.

The course is a research methods course that is designed for school leaders and administrators more than it is for researchers. Being an administrator I think this is going to be quite helpful. I think it is a course for practicioners who want to both produce and make use of research in an effective manner. So far, so good.

We've been asked to identify three books or articles that have influenced us. Mine are:

Orality and Literacy by Walter Ong
Legitimate Peripheral Participation by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger
Culture and Inference: A Trobriand Case Study by Edwin Hutchins

I'll have to expand on why these books are important to me when I have more time, but basically they all have in common some concerns I have with technology. Ong is something of a determinist who holds that technologies have a decisive impact on us, including our very psychology. I don't quite agree, but the scope and scale of the argument is breathtaking, and as a technologist it is something like a call to arms. Lave and Wenger with their idea of communities of practice and Hutchins with his refreshing immersion in Trobriand culture are a bracing blast of cold water to this perspective. They place technology and related issues of use within culture and community. It is about mutation and evolution of communities, not about destiny and design. Hutchins knows that just as Trobrianders might look stupid to us with our iPods and logical assumptions we ourselves probably wouldn't last more than a few days in Papua New Guinea. Or maybe not a few hours...

More later.