How important would the authors find this characteristic of the place to be? Is it crucial to its success, or just a nice-to-have? Further, where there any intentional design decisions made to make it an inviting place for people to come in to socialize?

Isn't it here where the tensions arise? Today's media has essentially made it very difficult to be in public and not be public at the same time.

I'm really surprised by this sentence. These games are ultimately pieces of software, with pretty rigid rules. Both Katarina and Rachel certainly played "by the rules" in these games -- neither did anything that somehow violated the game mechanics. The only way the authors can imply that one "played" by the rules whereas the other one didn't is by projecting their own biases of what proper game play ought to look like.

Really? To me the stronger case made is that living rooms are a good learning environment, more so than the videogames, no?

I agree, and this point is really interesting to consider from the perspective of designing a game. It is insufficient to simply have "multiplayer" features and expect that to engender collaboration -- inextricably linking player goals and making them impossible to achieve single-handedly is a sure-fire way to do that. Portal's multiplayer games achieve this spectacularly.

I wonder how the internet and things like YouTube have substituted these local, family resources

Recently there has been an explosion in casual games where the out-of-game context of a participant is heavily taken into account in design. At the same time, next year we will usher in a new-era of immersive gaming experiences... how can the unit analysis then be "gaming." Don't the conclusions change dramatically depending on what subset of gaming we are taking a look at?

... and here's the answer to rebekah's and Sarah's discussion up above!

Interesting how it pretty much dies completely after it is done.

Is the -pox suffix the main thing that led to that behavior?

But we haven't exactly made clear just how much participation in Whyville is voluntary in it of itself!

Is this a factor in the fact that the platform has many more female participants?

How does this not incredibly bias the types of interactions they have in the online world?

These types of games also have blend the different worlds the students are inhabiting; they need to now collect information and evidence from the real world and bring it into their virtual space.

So essentially, is the mechanic that you have this "fun" online community where you can make avatars, talk to your friends, build houses etc., but to do that you need money. So you sit through science games as a way to earn that money?

This was published about 10 years ago. I wonder if the authors would make that same statement today.

:-(

The individual learning experience here (the "site") is repurposed by the student, to suit his interests. The idea, though, is that repurposing happens so that the student can mold that experience in a way where it then becomes useful to him/her in other situations, or with other communities

The image of a complicated, multi-dimensional web comes to mind. Rather than just the focus on different sites, it seems to me that part of the argument here is that there are several different "situated events" that make up part of a learning path. These would be like nodes in a graph. Individuals learning trajectory, then, traces a path connecting these nodes. Each of these nodes represent a very specific context (time, place, etc.). Therefore, one way to think about learning is thinking about the connections that a learner makes between these situated events -- in other words, you can think about the web that he "creates" bringing all of these events together.

the multi-sited framework seemed mostly concern with how the different sites would contribute differently or help paint a more robust picture of the learner's development. It seems that here we are taking that basic idea and adding more dimensions to it, such as a temporal component. At any given time, then, a learner is inhabiting a specific space, but he is also sharing it with others. These practices have"complex temporal rhythms", and so at any given time the nature of the practice - even if in the same place and with the same people - may change.

I think more than anything, I think the only thing you are missing is the equivalent of “skating” in Jasmine’s paper. Here’s what I mean:

When she was talking about the different uses of the space and how skaters would “edit” it to suit their needs, that was always in reference to the fact that they were there to learn how to skate. You had relationships of experts teaching novices, etc., but all in the context of learning to skate.

If we go to the example of the cafeteria, here’s the one question I’d ask you right away: What is being learned? I think we could even take your own example. You sat there and slowly realized just how unwelcome you were in that space. Now, I think you could take this one step further: What are the kids learning in the cafeteria? Yes, it’s there for eating, but that’s probably not what is being learned there.

To me, I think the most interesting question you could be asking is how does the cafeteria serve as a space where children learn the “social” aspects of school: what groups hang out with what groups, who the cool kids are, whether or not they fit in to a group, etc.

Armed with a question like that, then I think you could apply a lot of what Jasmine talked about into your analysis. For instance, the very fact that the chairs aren’t fixed is an interesting thing, right? It allows students to reshuffle the space, making bigger or smaller groups at will. How does that change how one can “learn” about the school’s social pecking order?

I also think a lot of the L&W LPP framework could apply as well, depending on what you observe. There certainly might be students who are “experts” at the lunch social scene, and some which are not. Is there a gradation? Does the lunch room or other school spaces help you see how that transition would take place?

What specifically made that clear?

I think this is a lot of the ethos that has permeated many of our readings - I think especially evident with the skatepark reading. They go on to say that this research would help "challenge the 'fallacy that school-like learning tasks necessarily require greater capacity for higher order thinking than do everyday tasks."

I thought it was interesting how they feel the argument needs to be challenged, rather than the premise itself: It seems like we take it as fact that school tasks and everyday tasks are different things.

This reminded me of the midwives examples in L&W, where I think the distinction between the "everyday" and the "learning environment" were naturally very, very blurred.

This made me think of the skatepark discussion as well. It seems that the concept that they are discussing, the idea that "work novices do to enter a practice" is "also the work of reinventing that practice" can be tied to the idea of "editing" spaces that we saw in the skateparks reading.

This notion certainly maps well to the example of the extended families that we see when we discussed Funds of Knowledge. The emphasis here on physical places could help us broaden our view of funds of knowledge, perhaps thinking that different physical spaces could themselves offer access to different funds of knowledge.

Dancing is seen as just a legitimate form of expression as writing or speaking.

Group coordination in dancing provides a strong metaphor for students to think about collectivity in broader society.

The physical and social demands of dancing provide the content with which more meta-cognitive skills can be acquired and practiced.

Movement becomes an instrument to bring students and teachers together in shared experience.

movement is another tool for expression and formation of identity

As visitors pose, they themselves become resources for understanding for others

Immediate apprehendability FTW!

The pose is helping with the internal understanding and at the same time communicates that this is taking place to people nearby.

Posing isn't a representation of an already-established conceptual understanding; it is a tool to help in the construction of understanding.

Is the posing causing a richer understanding, or is posing making understanding more easily observable?

hard time accepting the "unprompted" part when students were explicitly told to act like "real" museum visitors.

Is it ever made explicitly clear what is considered "a pose"?

This seems really problematic for their study. These are not visitors making meaning out of the artworks -- these are visitors enacting their fantasies about what 'real visitors' would do!

Is what they are recorded doing a fruit of their own desires or simply actions which they feel will placate the elders?

What is meant by "minimize the role of the 'school context'"

The first claim is certainly not very controversial -- the idea that the poses, gestures, and physicality of visitors shapes the "social" component of meaning making. I think what is far more interesting is the assertion that it affects the "psychological processes on the intramental plane" -- that is, these poses affect how we construct meaning individually.

Reminds me of when Jasmine spoke to one of my classes last semester, and there was some discussion about teaching kids math when they are sitting still in a classroom. I could be remembering this wrong, but she made the point that no matter what, your body was always doing something, even if that something was sitting. She emphasized that we couldn't simply discount what the body of a learner was doing. Seems that Steier is making that precise point.

I think the challenge is just that restricting it to fiction just simply might be really hard to do because I imagine that would be very difficult to observe in the bookstore. I could be completely wrong, however.

For instance, there's probably a lot you could observe about people who peruse the fiction isle, versus people who don't. Maybe, for instance, there is exploration in the non-fiction aisle, whereas the people who come in and go straight to non-fiction go exactly to the book they want and then head out. I don't know. But I would encourage you to at this point to be open about this and about your frameworks - to really let exactly what you see in there dictate the direction your questions and framework choices take you.

So at the bookstore you are looking at people who are voluntarily inhabiting the space - sweet. And you say that it'll be a good place to figure out how fiction becomes part of someone's identity. So what are some things that you have observed that give you some insight into that, and how does one of the frameworks help you explain the evidence?

For instance: How do they move about? How long do they stay? Does everyone buy something, or just some types? Do people wander or go straight to a shelf, a book, or the café (if there is one)? Do people ask questions of staff - if so, do all people, or just some types? Is there talking in the bookstore - and what do people talk about? Are there distinct types of conversation? Do people sit there for a long time with no intention really of buying anything? Who are these people? How does the bookstore seem to relate to them? Are there elements of the design of the space that make it seem okay to do this? Is it clear when someone is a "bookstore novice"? If so, how? Etc., etc.

I think this is a little bit of an example of what I meant above. These "material infrastructures" that are utilized are, in the scope of your observations at the bookstore, not really observable, right? These are observations about what you alread know readers and non-readers already do. I think this is one of the risks you'll face if you don't hone in first on things you have observed which you are trying to explain.

Later in the paragraph you ask a few questions about how people could or could not be inhabiting figured worlds, and state that these are the things that you are thinking about as you observe customers.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you are taking the figured world/line of practice frameworks, and then justifying how it matches up to your research project, right?

If it is, I'll suggest a different approach. The lenses should be tools to help you make sense of what you are observing. From what you have seen in the bookstore, maybe some questions have emerged -- not from the world of non-fiction, or what you know about how people read or don't read -- but literally about how you have seen people behave inside the bookstore. There's some puzzle there, something curious, that you have observed. Now, take that, and try to explain it. Why are you seeing that behavior? Is it just with a specific type of person in the bookstore? Etc.

Now you have that puzzle you are trying to solve -- is there something we have read which gives you hints as to why what you are seeing may be happening? If so, then that's a framework you should marshall into your paper.

OMG HOW?! Count me in as one of your "friends and acquaintances"!

The kids learn that there are faults in the systems they often rely on, and learn to recognize hints that may lead them to doubt their efficacy and accuracy

Okay, maybe my point above is not entirely valid :-(

I think it is really interesting that the meetings are held in the shop, despite the fact that building bikes is not the activity currently in question. Still, I'm sure it afforded great learning opportunities for the kids to explore other facets of this domain (even the mechanics of the construction of bikes), but also, to understand how many different aspects of the mobility question are linked together... it gives them an opportunity to explore how the efforts of this one bike shop in their neighborhood are intrinsically linked to planning at city hall, and that's a very powerful learning setting.

Definitely something that is being learned -- the structures we see in and around the city are designed by someone, they aren't some received edict from God. Through this presentation, students learn that they can have a voice in how these things come about as well.

Because unlike the skating park, there is a clear teaching goal employed at these places, and a clear teaching goal adopted by whomever takes the kids there. These are "public" spaces in that one can freely enter them, but the interpretations and meanings and connections one can form inside it are decidedly "private." At each step - from the layout to behavioral models shown to the kids - there is a careful curation supporting some kind of message. This is contrasted by what we saw in the skatepark, where, although "rules" and such existed, they only emerged out of the participation of people in the space. In that sense, the very definition of what it meant to be a skater in the skatepark was constantly being questioned. Not so much in the museum.

But they don't, because that isn't the point! To what I mentioned above, those kids' parents do the exact same thing. But somewhere along the line the definition on being an educated person, a knowledgeable participant in the public sphere, included "going to museums." Actually engaging with the art, with the public, with one another, takes a distant backseat to the pretense that one is cultured.

... or anymore than visitors at the Met can glance at the work on the wall and become art connoiseurs!

Wrong insofar as now the public space has a defined purpose. It is decidedly no longer public, but a place where one enters to engage in (shopping, or buying, or browsing, or looking fashionable).

There's an element of intentionality in design that was mostly absent when we discussed the skateparks. It seems that here the public spaces are being constructed according to some individuals' design, regardless of how public interaction has evolved in that space. It is not designed for interactions and meaning to emerge, but rather, designed in such a way that the experiences and relationships people will have in it are already predetermined.

Which is insane, right? I can't think of few places that are technically public but are so disjoint from public life than the ones cited. Our schooling and the field trips we take legitimize those places as "public spheres," but the public at the Met, for instance, would give you a pretty distorted view of the public of New York City. The 4th street basketball court, for instance, would give you a very different one. But we do field trips to one and not the other. I think this goes to the heart of what Jasmine and Sarah were discussing regarding the power institutions, like schools, have in creating "official narratives of regional or group identity."

This may be a stretch, but it made me think of the distinction we discussed around learning and teaching curriculums. It seems to me that the distinction that is being drawn is between community spaces that allow a child to enter it and construct meaning through their interaction with others and adults (a learning curriculum), versus places that are specifically built with a purpose in mind, "formally organized and timetabled," not really affording opportunities for individual discovery and exploration (a teaching curriculum)

I have a feeling that if Tony Hawk or Bob Burnquist went in and did the exact same thing there'd be awe at first, perhaps some considerations of how "innovative" that use of the park was, leading to many attempting to do the same thing later on.

What Zack seemed to lack was a legitimacy to do this sort of thing. By using the park that way, as the authors write, [he edited the park] in ways that did not aling with the setting as they conceived of it." But if we accept that the riders' own conception of what is and isn't appropriate was itself created by these sorts of "edits" in the past, then you have to wonder what makes an edit accepted and not.

It seems here that the edit conflicted with the established conception of how it was to be used. One has to wonder, then, how bigger, more fundamental "edits" to spaces can occur once norms begin to take firmer root. How would a paradigm shift occur in this kind of space?

How about for Austin? Is this a learning event for him as well? As a more experienced skater, is it understood in the community that part of his "practice" now includes being a resource for novices or no? If it is, is the park also giving him an opportunity to engage in that role?

I don't know about anyone else, but this is the single thing which which baffled me the most when I visited the skate park. Given how many people were there at the same time, I just assumed that there'd be lots of talking with one another about tricks, tips, random chatter, etc. Beside the occasional comment here or there, I was astounded by how quiet it was. I'm curious if anyone else was surprised by this, or if any of you felt the same way.

I think this is key when thinking about context and learning. The key "feature" of the space, it seems, isn't so much that it is designed with a particular "learning goal" in mind or anything of the sort. Rather, it allows each individual participant/learner to "co-opt it", so to speak - to relate to it in his own way, and to construct meaning that way. Given the same context, the expert or the novice will relate to the space differently - and it is exactly that "flexibility" of the space that makes it such a rich learning environment. Novices, experts, young, and old can be legitimate participants in this shared environment.

So when we have to consider "context" in relationship to learning, it is insufficient to think about how the physical layout of the skatepark does or does not promote learning opportunities. We must instead consider how that physical space, COMBINED with the norms and practices that emerge from the interactions of skaters with it, come together to promote learning

I think there is a similarity here in terms of motivation and identity with what we saw with the hurdlers. While there are a lot of goals (like fun) and things motivating the participation of the students, objective measures like "stats" always seem to play "a major role in characterization of the game and of self".

While recognizing other goals, Nasir & Cook write that "an important goal of track [...] was reducing the time it takes one to complete an event, as times were the standard measure of performance in most events."(p. 46). They then discuss many other more localized goals (academic success, social relationships, etc.) But the time seems to govern the rest.

In that example and here, it seems difficult to abandon the connection that these objective measures have on motivation and identity, even when such a strong emphasis is placed on other goals.

These figured worlds are certainly part of everyone's upbringing -- every soccer fan has performed this "play" of kicking the winning world cup goal, every golfer has sunk the last putt to win the Masters, and every football player that game-winning touchdown.

But what I really like about the explanation here is that in the baseball it is easy to see how inhabiting these figured worlds essentially becomes a problem-solving strategy. Actually, it is kind hard to think how the coach would accomplish some of this training without it. Similar to the AA example, it is hard to see how it could, with the creation of the figured worlds through the stories of participants and the roles of each, how they'd go about accomplishing their goals.

"spectate knowingly" <-->intent participation?

The order of the goals the coach has for the kids reveals a lot about the true motivation for the team - to, above all, allow the kids to have a good time.

I think there are parallels here to the motivations of the amateur astronomers who, at the end of the day, did what they did because it was "fun":

"In practice, the fun moments of explaining [Mitchell] experienced at City and Mt Hillview Star Parties were enmeshed with preferences for socializing with friends/public, as well for reading (which appeared in his preparatory studying of the literature for details of objects that he would show the public), and made teaching astronomy a line of practice in his hobby." (p.489)

This type of command asks the students at least to assume the identity of a professional player, and then give their "best guess" as to what they feel the proper behavior would be.

This seems different from the kind of identity formation that we saw with LPP. Through that lens, identity shifts by moving from peripheral participation and slowly working one's way into the center; here, it seems almost the opposite: The coach tries to get them to "pretend" to be real players as much as possible, and from that assumed identity, slowly uncover attitudes and behaviors that will legitimize it

But they certainly meet the criteria of the kinds of explanations that we saw in most of the LPP scenarios -- like the midwives, for instance; just enough explanation, folklore, or reasoning to deal with the issue at hand - no attempt to extract from there some greater "truths".

Want to get kids excited about math and teach comp. sci. and engage them with technology and teach them fundamental principles of computing and expand their view of the world and let them be creative?

Teach 'em LISP

Is this similar to the example of guided participation in YELL (the first group in the reading)? The adults there for support, following young person's lead and giving them the support they need when they need it?

This observation makes one wonder, then, how much of the child's development of his island of knowledge is motivated by the response it gets from his parents rather than an innate interest in the subject.

May be a stretch, but there are some parallels here to AA. The strong emphasis on sharing -- even by novices -- are used to teach the "beliefs, propositions, and interpretations" common to the group, which then allows them to dive into a deeper discussion about alcoholism

I didn't know exactly where to make comments specifically in reference to the rubric, so I will just make them here:

It is clearly obvious that this is a fantastic FR which is very thoroughly and thoughtfully written.

1. You completed the assignment thoroughly and thoughtfully.
2. Your report is completely based on factual observations and direct quotes from the readings, and you already demonstrate a deep understanding of the class discussions, reading, your observations, and how they relate.
3. Your ideas are in fact presented cohesively, and you marshall the textual evidence very well to support the conclusions from your observations.
4. I think the only thing one could say could be improved is that, in this instance, you DIDN'T make connections to previous weeks' readings (which I don't think I did either :-( ), but I made an annotation in the text where I think a connection readily presented itself.

Fantastic work.

-Felipe

I'm curious about what you mean here. What would making the meaning of an artwork itself immediately apprehendable look like?

Kind random, but this question made me think of a Dirac quote:

"In science you want to say something that nobody knew before, in words which everyone can understand. In poetry you are bound to say... something that everybody knows already in words that nobody can understand."

Kinda ashamed after reading your excellent FR that my entire report on this question was about this one aspect, and it is but one of several things you point out in your work. :-/

Perhaps a connection to our guided participation readings?

Great evidence!

Agreed - the density of guards certainly make is VERY immediately apprehendable that you are being watched at all times!

I wonder what think leads to the interpretation that they are places to rest mentally? The bench's shape certainly has the affordance of sitting, but what about it also would lead the user to disconnect mentally from the exhibit? Are the instances where it may be the opposite -- where the bench in fact is an invitation for deeper focus on a work?

Perfect quote to define IA and set the reader up!

I'm not Azevedo would consider this one of the resources, but I had a hard time thinking of anyone who legitimately belongs in a community of practice who would say that there is just one "site" in which he practices it. Depending on where Mitchell is -- and even when he is in his home -- the activity that he engages in differs, but since he is always an astronomer, he engages in astronomy in different ways depending on the site that he is in.

I can consider myself a golfer, and certainly I "play golf" on the course. But I exercise my "golfer"-ness at the bar when I'm watching games with friends, online as I contribute to forums on instruction, etc.

I think it is interesting to contrast this with how we see kids and school subjects, for instance. For many, the classroom is the beginning and the end of how what is taught there permeates the rest of their lives.

Given everything we are reading, this heading gave me pause -- after all, is he really "practicing" amateur astronomy or is he an amateur astronomer? (A brief search through the text reveals they get into issues of identity -- i searched some keywords and found the quote below -- but I haven't gotten here yet)

"Another prominent preference emerging in Mitchell’s narrative regarded his developing identity in amateur astronomy."

Access to these books is part of what establishes her identity as an astronomer and not just a stargazer -- without these, she is just a star gazer. Certainly reminds me of the individual pieces of track equipment which reinforced the hurdler's identities in Nasir & Cook

Ohh... hmmm... I guess everything makes a lot more sense now ;-)

I wonder how many other times these sorts of digressions are disincentivized, characterized as "off-task", or simply time not spent covering what really needs to be covered.

Perhaps the most useful/important resource of all for sustained engagement - tapping into the learner's own intrinsic motivations!

Quote 2

Another big contrast to schooling -- information is not presented as the thing to be observed, but rather given in context insofar as it is necessary to accomplish the current endeavor. The goal is not to accumulate some piece of knowledge, but to find it and apply it in the ongoing process of achieving some greater task

Maybe the beginnings of an answer to my question above!

How about the opposite? We often here popular commentators on education mention things of the order that "schooling is killing creativity" or things of that nature.

Is there some basis for this? Is the assembly-line model of instruction curbing instincts that children demonstrate of careful observation of adult activities and a propensity to want to participate?

It seems that a crucial component for intent participation to exist is for the connection between participation and concrete, real, observable outcomes to be intimately connected.

Some people have taken this to meaning giving monetary rewards to students (http://freakonomics.com/2012/06/26/bribing-kids-to-try-on-tests/), but I think that the fundamental lesson here is that the activity itself is designed such that it inherently creates that feedback. They are meaningful and legitimately engage students

As in most of these examples, a high level of autonomy and initiative is demonstrated by students. How does one promote this kind of participation if that initiative is lacking?

Very important point! If we take the "intent participation" example of language acquisition, maybe there is an average of one adult per child in the home? If we take schools, what does that ratio drop to? What are the implications of that for creating opportunities for intent particpation?

Do these two sentences necessarily follow? Is schooling necessarily an environment which "limits children's opportunities to participate in the mature activities of their families and communities?" Isn't that one of the assumptions that this course is asking us to challenge?

Are U.S. children substituting that time for other times of activities in which they are active participants, or do they spend more time being casual observers? What are the consequences if the latter?

Interesting to think about later life outcomes for children who live in households where these behaviors exist for them to model versus households where they don't.

The assembly-line comparison is very helpful. After all, assembly lines are especially designed for uniformity and to not require workers to have any agency in the manufacturing process, they simply follow instructions. Above, Rogoff mentions children observing with "intent concentration and initiative," which are clearly things that assembly-line models are not designed to promote.

Is it ever not justified?

But this certainly doesn't resolve the point Sarah raised earlier that there might naturally be a predisposition to observe certain things and not others!

This made me think about LPP with respect to a time-horizon. Clearly the student above felt that this approach was rather suboptimal, but what if it had gone on for a longer period of time? Would that have been sufficient to turn that limited peripheral participation into a truly legitimate peripheral participation, and slowly allow the student to have a more central role?

Undoubtedly this is a reflection of the formation of identity as well. I'd be hard-pressed to think that this is what students found to be the most compelling way to present information, but certainly it matched perfectly with ideas that they had about what a "professional" report ought to look like.

At what point do things like this add to the legitimacy of the process and at what point does it detract?

(I'm going to be really ineloquent right now, but please bear with me)

begin lack-of-eloquence In virtually all of the examples we saw so far (the midwives, A.A., the hurdlers, etc.), the "legitimate" in "legitimate peripheral participation" seemed to be really present. One of the things which seemed missing from those examples was a sort of fakeness, an artificial situation created solely for the benefit of participants/learners.

Here, however, a lot of the discussion (like the passage highlighted) is about the adults and students being overly concerned about these issues around what participation ensures that the project is still "a product of youth's labor" instead of something thought up by adults. It just seems really artificial to me. Its almost like in their attempt to guarantee legitimate participation on the parts of the students, they go to such lengths to create this environment that it becomes clearly an artificial exercise and compromises the very goals they set out to promote end lack-of-eloquence

No doubt modeled by the sort of rules they were subjected to as students!

Another clear example of the importance of identity formation. This is not an exercise in getting the students to come together for a time to work around organizing, but rather, to see themselves as community organizers in their daily life. Very similar to the discussion around the importance of personal stories to get A.A. members to identify themselves as alcoholics, not simply as people who attend A.A. meetings

A consequence of several years in a assembly-line model classroom?

One way for us to conceptualize this would be to think of designs which do not necessitate access to any particular knowledge which may not be contained in some "funds of knowledge."

(I didn't highlight the entire sentence because Hypothesis wouldn't let me)

This isn't synonymous with better attainment of the learning goals of the exhibit, however. I can design two biology lessons: One involves a worksheet, in the other students play Bioshock on the XBox. It is a certainty that my students would rate the bioshock lesson more enjoyable, would much more vividly remember their experience, and would want to engage in that lesson for far longer. But that doesn't mean they learned what I wanted them to learn.

But this is not synonymous with higher attainment of the learning goals of the exhibit itself. How did those compare?

Telling here is the assumption that a museum visit will necessarily last longer than 30 minutes. Why is that so? How would museum visits change if very short, targeted visits were encouraged/the norm?

I think this was a really great point. Through the careful crafting of the exhibit, is clear that interactions took place that otherwise would not. And I'm sure the interactions also were substantially different in nature where the participants somehow "were told to" or "forced" to interact in someway. There are definitely lessons to be learned here with respect to how teachers in more traditional environments can craft their lessons and classroom settings to foster collaboration.

...but lonely visits to a museum are rare. How did this culture of quiet, monastic contemplation arise in museums?

How is the context that the display is in perhaps affecting this kind of behavior? Are there roles that people take on as "museum goers" which pose a challenge for this exhibition? For instance, removing part of the installation from the wall might break from established norms about how one should behave in such a setting. How do you deal with this without, at the same time, specifically prompting the behavior?

Isn't the "fund of knowledge" one has access a chief thing governing this as well? After all, what is shaping the interest in being in the museum in the first place?

What prompted the encouragement in some scenarios and not in others? Is there something to be learned from instances where participant exploration was completely organic and instances where they needed facilitators?

Is there an effective way to marshall those funds of knowledge in educational settings when children from very different kinds of families -- and thus very different "funds of knowledge" -- are brought together?

I think the "dramatically" here is very important. It is a signal of the ownership the students had of the rules, and establishes them as important actors in their craft. The teacher, while undoubtedly an arbiter of what gets put on the rules, nevertheless allowed the students to have ownership over this part of the process. Definitely a great example of LPP

Is there possibly a perverse effect to this "fund of knowledge"?

The examples cited mention how instrumental it is in helping the family navigate social services and how to stay afloat. But what if the wisdom in the "fund of knowledge" also contains advice and suggestions which, for better or for worse, prevents them from improving their circumstances. In a community like this, how do you police against bad advice, or incorporate knowledge from outsiders?

From the preceeding paragraph, the authors explicitly state that they chose this setting because it exhibited specific social and cultural characteristics. Is it valid to then, based on these observations, to support a conclusion pertaining to "all forms of human activity?"

Highly resonant with Lave and Wenger's idea that to understand CoP one need to consider all of its historical nuances, and that they may differ significantly from one another.

How did she "become inclined" one way or another? Again, the discussion seems to center around an identity that is or isn't assumed, but there is little discussion about why it is or isn't - which seems to be the most interesting/important part! How did she "learn" to distaste socialites?

Interesting to consider the social-cultural context that the author of the paper is in; there was no hesitation in enumerating a few of the words used to describe men, yet no attempt at doing the same for the terms reserved for women.

The definition of "understanding" is interesting in this case. It is noteworthy that this is not the understanding brought upon by rigorous analysis and scientific inquiry, but is understanding nonetheless. It seemed to resemble the kind of "understanding" or "learning" evidenced in some of Lave & Wenger scenarios.

I have to admit, like every single reading that precedes this, our analysis begins when the individual is already in the community. When we say "they have come to understand that 'alcohol is controlling their lives'", there seems to be a lot of learning that has already happened. Similarly, all the other cases we have addressed study how the individual interacts in the community of practice, but say nothing about how they got there. To me, that is a fundamental question which we have so far not really devoted any attention to.

Apple seems to have thoroughly internalized this lesson.

Very curious to understand the justification for this one...

"the figured world becomes embodied" - what is meant by this?

Lainey remarked above that the design of children's imaginary worlds. Similarly, this remark seems to support the notion that competence is a necessary requirement for the ideation of these worlds. Therefore, how can they impact learning where competence does not exist?

From this account, in doesn't seem like "identity resources" did much of anything to foster hear learning -- rather, it seems that somehow "she gained some mastery over her hurdling and stopped falling so much," which subsequently altered her perspective on her involvement with the team and her identity as a track athlete. Some of the evidence mentioned -- Octavia spending 20mins on the grass talking to fellow team-members, for example -- are marshaled to provide evidence that the causation runs the other way, but I find that evidence to be rather inconclusive.

Would this mean Harrell would have been better served had he not joined the track team? Would his track skills and his identity development as an athlete be more mature had he not had that encounter?

Again... how was this observed?

How was this ascertained?

But surely the opposite isn't true either, right? There are definitely the cases where people seem to adopt certain identities that are highly dissonant from their current skills and abilities.

This is supported by the Lave & Wenger examples - I'm especially reminded of the midwifery example: "A Maya girl who eventually becomes a midwife most likely has a mother or grandmother who is a midwife, since midwifery is handed down in family lines..."

What is the implication of this for the design of communities of practice? If we want to retain some degree of non-determinancy in the way we structure learning environments for youngsters, how can be create the tight social ties while not at the same time essentially creating an environment which in some sense will dictate their future life?

Despite my many googlings on "microgenetic" and "ontogenetic" processes, I'm still unsure about what is meant here. Any help would be much appreciated.

Interesting to think if this ever would happen if the student did not know that he could rely on a computer/phone to consult while he was in the bookstore.

Of the people who failed at this at first, was there a trend? Did they tend to swipe too fast/too slow, or was it mixed? Did they get the card direction wrong?

I think this is a really interesting observation. Despite the really significant frustrations you pointed out, kinda remarkable that there was just one person who solicited the employee as a resource. Why? Is this a good or a bad thing?

Annotate/Comment on this one.

How backwards we must have been! </sarcasm>

Why unnecessary in situations of apprenticeship learning?

I believe it is, but isn't the reason directly tied into the learners motivations? And, if so, what to do when that motivation isn't there?

And when participation in the community is not valued by the learner? Schooling would look a lot different (and I'd argue it does look a lot different) if it were restricted to those legitimately invested in the endeavor.

I think this is a very interesting point. In some sense, I feel that we are brought up taking these distinctions as obvious, and it is interesting to see it challenged. It also ties perfectly into the Resnick's discussion of "symbol manipulation" in schools versus "contextualized reasoning" outside

This is just one dimension in which the communities which exhibit legitimate peripheral participation are wildly different from one another. What are the implications of this for "designers" like ourselves? It is also noteworthy to consider the sharp contrast between the difference in cycles established by these communities with the incredibly uniform "cycles" that we have settled upon in traditional schooling.

Important conditions to be met for LPP

Any different than what we do in colleges, for instance?

I found this to be a fascinating account of how very specific customs or practices can emerge that facilitate Legitimate Peripheral Participation, even being crucial to their success. How did such a "policy" or "rule" or "custom" come into being?

Made me think of: "The curriculum necessarily differs substantially from what competent practitioners of the skill or art in question know how to do"

How does the apprentice find his way to his specialist master? Resnick challenges the usefulness of the kind of "generalized learning" that people claim goes on in school. But would it make sense as part of a model of career/life choice?

So what will the generalizable lessons be from LPP? Won't every community of practice have its own historical development, social organization,and political structure?

(sorry could not highlight the rest of the sentence for whatever reason).

This feels to me a bit like the sentiment of heading to the Galapagos to gain some insight into biology: An attempt to look at evidence that has been untampered somehow -- in this case, free from our conceptions of schooling. Instead, the hope is to see the kinds of structures that emerge to support learning communities.

How so?

Is it possible to achieve this in all knowledge domains?

How can we structure schools to better support this?

This is stated nowadays as an objective, practically obvious fact. Is that really so? What is the evidence of this need to change due to the more pervasive role of digital media?

What if the learning objective were linear algebra? Would this be equally valid? Are there learning objectives more or less suited to these approaches?

Interesting to see how this discussion will play out in the online MOOCs, as there seems to be a lot of experimentation with course pacing and evaluation strategies.

... and more importantly, usually through an instrument crafted by the very instructor of the course. Certainly no conflicts could arise there!

Interesting to note that now there is much discussion around the need to purposefully expose kids to these so-called "traumas", as traits like resilience and persistence are brought further into focus.

Really? What is the evidence for this?

What would Resnick make of the stunning growth of code schools across the country?

In the economics literature this is often referred to as the "signaling effect" of education, and there is a lot of literature supporting the view that most of the returns to education stem from its use as a "signal" rather than any productivity gains from things actually learned in school.

What mental work? It seems that the bookie's relationship with the math goes little beyond looking up a value in a table and believing blindly in its truth. How would he deal with a situation not completely captured by the table in front of him? Isn't the argument for the restriction of the use of these kinds of tools in school settings based on the idea that in order to be able to fully engage with them one must first understand how/why they work?

Conrad Wolfram has a great talk on the topic, and wholly believes that the justification above is complete nonsense!

Conrad Wolfram TED Talk