Design: The Jan Brady of the Three Themes

At first blush, the design segment of the course seemed like it got the shaft.  We were asked to finish the Wenger segment on design, but didn’t have the opportunity to really debrief on it as a group in class as we had with community and identity.  We certainly had a field day talking in class about community, and identity has seen a great deal of action on the blog as well.  As another indication, “design” is also the smallest of the three main themes in the 597 Tag Cloud on Pligg.  Is it that the other two themes are more compelling?  Are the parents of these three themes having to listen to a whining Design in the den like this?   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yZHveWFvqM

Upon further reflection on my blog posts, however, it’s clear that design has played a role throughout the content during the semester, even though we haven't necessarily labeled it as such.  

Throughout the semester, we have discussed design in terms of purpose and appearance of each of the tools that we reviewed.   With Twitter, for example, I discussed in this post about the fact that the design  of Twitter required me to think in very short & sweet phrases, and exercised my brain in a way that regular blogging and emailing did not.  I also wrote in  this post about Pea’s references to design way back in January when he wrote about the evolution of learning tools over time and how 2.0 tools will do the same. 

Believe it or not, I actually thought Wenger’s thoughts on design were the most palatable and practical parts of his book.  I agree with his statement that learning cannot be designed, and that teaching does not cause learning (p. 267).  It’s kind of like being the host of a dinner party.  You can plan the menu, arrange the seating and set the table, but you can’t orchestrate the outcome.  Things burn, wine spills, friendly differences of opinion turn into arguments, etc.   You do your best to anticipate what might be an impediment to a fun evening, but once the first doorbell rings, it’s pretty much out of your control.  The same is true to some degree with learning.  We as educators can do our best to plan, to utilize the tools and resources that we feel are the most appropriate for the level of education and experience, as well as the goals of the participants in our class, but countless other factors will play a role in whether or not we are successful.