We had a discussion of reduced attention to details and regression of some skills based on a dependence on technological tools.  I believe that technology designed to extend classroom practice can aid the remedial learner, as is my experience as my colleagues rightly comment that  ‘the curriculum is a … and a mile deep’. However,  I can see merit in the other side of the argument.

I was intrigued to explore this debate further. This search steered itself into considerations of the levels of proficiency desired from education. Often objectives in education describe being  proficient as an ideal goal. However, an interesting review of Dreyfus’ discourse on Merleau-Ponty’s levels of skills acquisition: Novice, Beginner, Advanced beginner, Competence, Proficient and Expertise, show proficiency as wanting. The expertise model  distinguishes from the proficient as : ‘the proficient performer, immersed in the world of his skillful activity, sees what needs to be done, but decides how to do it. The expert not only knows what needs to be achieved, based on mature and practiced situational discrimination, but also knows how to achieve the goal.’ Do we go for expertise and how then can we enable such through technology?

Dr. Tim Thornton brings to light combined discourse of Dreyfus and Martin Heidegger that considers ‘ a reorientation of philosophical approaches to knowledge, a reorientation which places embodied practical know-how rather than disinterested context-free ‘knowledge-that’ at the heart of the analysis’ (https://sites.google.com/site/drtimthornton/courses/tacit-knowledge/dreyfus). I am in support of practical know-how and this has been a major influence in fueling my design o course activities but how do we embody this in technology and not create technology dependence or separation for that matter? The other interesting and followup point raised that is of relevance here is the consideration that ‘objects are first encountered as tools or equipment with taken for granted uses and purposes. Only given that understanding of what is ‘ready-to-hand’ can one have a more abstracted understanding of objects now thought of decontextualised from such practical projects and merely as space occupying and ‘present-at-hand’.’

He notes that ‘practical coping and of tacit over explicit knowledge’ is emphasized in Dreyfus’s Heidegger influenced approach.

This sounds greatly as embodied cognition, which I also met up on in ETEC 510. This was a central consideration for me in technology design and that which I believe to be sincerely considered in technology design and use. However, Michael Anderson’s perspective on embodied cognition in the context of Artificial Intelligence puts a new spin to my considerations.

References

Hubert L. Dreyfus. 1997. The Current Relevance of Merleau-Ponty’s
Phenomenology of Embodimenthttp://www.focusing.org/apm_papers/dreyfus2.html

Dr. Tim Thornton. https://sites.google.com/site/drtimthornton/courses/tacit-knowledge/dreyfus