After a period of hard work, I found myself back on my blog. The first thing I noticed, was that there was left a concept-message unpublished, dating from November the 6th (2 weeks ago). I did not publish it, because I had not finished it yet. Now I try to finish this message, and finally publish it. The parts in brackets '[...]' means I adjust the old message today.
[written on, or befor november the 6th]
In order to obtain some 'Content Knowledge', we (Ayoub, Carolin and I) went to the VVV (Tourist information) in Enschede [on Wednesday November the 4th]. At the VVV we didn't received as much information as we wanted, so we went to the city-library. They have a really nice collection of books about the history of Enschede, and we really enjoyed viewing those books. It was also possible to have look at a really old book, with interesting pictures and cuttings from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century (until about the beginning of the 2nd worldwar). For me, as a Dutch person, it was really funny to read those old messages, because the nowadays spelling and grammar differs from the old one. (This fact is not new for me, but I do not read that much 'old-Dutch'.) In the afternoon, we decided to lent some books for our design.
The next day [-November the 5th-], we discussed the material. Our first important finding was that it is important to know the context indeed. In our case, we are able to decide (actually: 'design') our own context. In our first session, we already decided to design a lesson for the primary education in Enschede, with teacher who already have a certain degree of knowledge about the [use of a Social Community]. In this session, we defined our context more precisely, so that it is able to decide which content is appropriate to learn to the pupils. This defined context also limitates us in the use of the technology within education. As mentioned in this meeting, it is not suitable to use the Elgg in 'groep 1' till '3' (Dutch: Kindergarten and first year of primary education; age 4-7), because those pupils lack the skills of reading and writing. Even with pupils from 'groep 4' (second year, age 7-8)the use of a social community may still [be] very limited[, because they may still have not enough experiences in writing own messages and reading messages written by peer-students]
What I find really difficult about this assignment, is the many degrees of freedom. Indeed, when we are free to 'design' everything (as long as we use a social community, and it is suitable for primary education), there are almost no limitations. [-skipped, because sentence was not finished-]
[Written today, following the lay-out which was still in this message] This gives room for a lot of discussion about how the context should look like, but we decided to define a context we consider realistic (e.g. not cost-expensive and following on the 'current' curriculum). Around november the 6th (I think it was the last lecture for this course on november the 4th, wherein we discussed the current status of the lesson) I heard about a group who were designing a lesson in a real context, using the factors of a choosen school. In this case, the 'limitations' of the context are already given. I do not think this given context makes the task for designing more easy, but I do think this will helps you in deciding whether some solution is possible or not. The reason of thinking this, is because you are able to check whether the choosen content, pedagogy or technology is suitable for the environment, the teacher or the students without guessing.
[Written today, current thoughts:] I just said "'limitations' of the context". With this, I mean that the context limits the amount of possibilities which are suitable for your design. I do not consider this as a disadvantage. On the contrary, I see this 'limitations' as a challange, to come up with a solution which is suitable for the imposed context. I do think, this 'limitations' fosters the designer to come up with new innovative ideas about the possible sollution, and fosters his creativity, to come up with a solution which takes all the factors into account. And besides this: When does a designer have the opportunity to 'design' his desired context in real life?
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