Learners can command an increasing range of mobile technologies that have the potential to support learning anytime anywhere, but also to disrupt the carefully managed environment of the classroom. This paper outlines a theory of learning as conversation that can provide a framework for the design of mobile networked technology for learning. It describes a prototype device based on a pen tablet computer with camera, phone and wireless LAN connection, combined with software to support learning actions, descriptions and conversations. Such devices raise both opportunities and challenges for classroom education.

Abstract. CSCL faces the challenge of not only designing educational technologies and interventions, but of inventing analytic methodologies and theoretical frameworks appropriate to the unique character of collaborative learning as an interactional group accomplishment. This paper argues that thinking in CSCL settings should be primarily analyzed at the small-group unit of analysis, where contributions coming from individual interpretive perspectives are interwoven into group cognition. The collaborative discourse is the agent of knowledge building that requires computer support and curriculum design. Groups can think; with the help of CSCL in the next decade, they may be able to overcome the limitations of the individual mind.

ABSTRACT: In this ethnographic study of summer undergraduate research (UR) experiences at four liberal arts colleges, where faculty and students work collaboratively on a project of mutual interest in an apprenticeship of authentic science research work, analysis of the accounts of faculty and student participants yields comparative insights into the structural elements of this form of UR program and its benefits for students. Comparison of the perspectives of faculty and their students revealed considerable agreement on the nature, range, and extent of students ’ UR gains. Specific student gains relating to the process of “becoming a scientist ” were described and illustrated by both groups. Faculty framed these gains as part of professional socialization into the sciences. In contrast, students emphasized their personal and intellectual development, with little awareness of their socialization into professional practice. Viewing study findings through the lens of social constructivist learning theories demonstrates that the characteristics of these UR programs, how faculty practice UR in these colleges, and students ’ outcomes—including cognitive and personal growth and the development of a professional identity—strongly exemplify many facets of these theories, particularly, student-centered and situated learning as part of cognitive apprenticeship

Abstract: In this article, I explore the question of what it means to create a science for all from the vantage point of urban homeless children. I draw on the work of critical and feminist scholars in science and education, as well as my own teaching and research with urban homeless children, to question how inclusive the science education community is in its efforts to understand the margins of science for all. I frame this analysis through the pedagogical questions of representation in science (what science is made to be) and identity in science (who we think we must be to engage in that science). J Res Sci Teach 35: 379–394, 1998. One of the most popular and most powerful phrases connected to science education reform in the last decade has been “science for all. ” Paul Hurd (1993) reminded us that this phrase was introduced into the science education community as early as an 1847 publication. Egalitarian in theory, this idea of science for all has proven difficult to actualize among all students, even with the renewed emphasis and central position of science for all in several national reform documents and projects in the United States [American Association for the Advancement of Science

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Experiential learning theory (ELT) has been widely used in management learning research and practice for over thirty-five years. Building on the foundational works of Kurt Lewin, John Dewey and others, experiential learning theory offers a dynamic theory based on a learning cycle driven by the resolution of the dual dialectics of action/reflection and experience/abstraction. These two dimensions define a holistic learning space wherein learning transactions take place between individuals and the environment. The learning space is multi-level and can describe learning and development in commensurate ways at the level of the individual, the group, and the organization. This approach is illustrated by reviewing current research on individual learning styles and managerial problem solving/decision making, the process of team learning and organizational learning. We describe how ELT can serve as a useful framework to design and implement management education programs in higher education and management training and development.

This paper contributes to the development of a critical understanding of strategic management. We provide a brief outline of strategic management as it is conventionally taught and practiced, pointing to several avenues for developing critical approaches. In the broadest sense, a critical perspective stands outside of the managerialist orientation in order to study strategy as an organizational process. We review work in the processual school that purports to describe how strategy is ‘really ’ made, from bargaining, constructivist, and emergent perspectives. We argue that processual approaches hold some promise but quickly move toward prescriptive managerialism. A second, more profound critique draws from critical theory and postmodern insights to question the social and political effects of strategic management. Strategy can be viewed as a set of practices and discourses which promotes instrumental rationality, reproduces hierarchical relations of power, and systematically privileges the interests and viewpoints of particular groups. While this approach has been valuable in probing the ideology of strategy, its focus on discourse and lack of concern with the ‘truth of strategy ’ is a potential weakness. A third approach draws from Gramsci to offer an historical materialist perspective, which pays more attention to the content of strategy. We argue that the strategic deployment of discursive, organizational, and economic resources in sustaining or challenging hegemony suggests a strategic concept of power and a political perspective on corporate strategies to exercise market power, discipline labour, influence government policies, and resist pressures from social groups. It also points to a more encompassing vision of emancipation strategies than that offered by critical theory.

Abstract: In this manuscript we describe our “empowerment design ” work. Instead of simply building an artifact to help an individual accomplish a particular task, the focus of empowerment design work is to develop socio-technical structures that empower individuals and societies more generally. Essentially, empowerment design is designing with heart. It is a complex work that involves bringing together multiple and even opposing agendas, acknowledging different voices, and even working through unintended consequences and confusing struggles that have no one clear answer. Here, we describe an empowerment design initiative that overtly attempts to transform a culture and empower those it serves by way of a technology-rich educational innovation called Quest Atlantis. While the project is currently situated in various informal and formal learning environments, much of the data in this account is focused on our collaboration with a local Boys and Girls Club that serves disadvantaged children. However, empowerment design requires going beyond the initial site of innovation, and therefore we also bring in data based on our work with teachers and additional sites so as to communicate the complete cycle of empowerment design.

Abstract: ‘Hybrid modeling ’ is an innovative technological platform that enables students to link multi-agent models (“in ” the computer) and electronic sensors (“outside”) in real time. The platform is designed for learners to validate, refine, and debug their computer models using realworld data. Also, the technology broadens the types of scientific explorations possible in classrooms. Pilot studies suggest a real-to-virtual reciprocity that catalyzes further inquiry toward deeper understanding. What do we obtain from “going out to the world ” as a learning resource? Multiple aspects of such learning experiences have been explored by different schools of thought in education. John Dewey (1916) was one of the first to emphasize the importance of connecting school learning and real-world experiences. Critical pedagogy and situated-learning advocates argue that departing from the learner’s out-of-school context is crucial to foster emancipating and motivating learning (Freire, 1974; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Constructionist educators (Papert, 1991) posit that building personally-meaningful public artifacts is central to promote sustainable and deep learner engagement. However, does the world afford the necessary information and opportunities for students to learn the ‘official ’ school content? For instance, are acid-base reactions amenable for student inquiry? School laboratories, as we explain, do not always provide the necessary solutions.

The development of complexity theory in the natural sciences is described, and summarized in six principles of complex emergent wholes. It is suggested that complexity theory is leading biology toward a science of qualities based on participation and intuition. It is argued on metaphorical and epistemological grounds that these principles which describe the emergence of complex wholes can be applied to social and organizational life. The six principles are then applied to qualitative and action research practice, with a particular reference to co-operative inquiry, in order to provide principles for good practice and theoretical support for the nature of valid inquiry processes.