W2.4 Ecology of Resources

[Joshua Underwood]

A place for talking about the Ecology of Resources design framework and sharing our attempts to use the framework.

Ecology of Resources (EoR) Design Framework (EoR Presentations & Examples). 

• Phase 1: What help is potentially available in learner context? (Instructions |Template | Example). Add your analysis to this cloudscape. 
• Phase 2: What relationships in learner context do you want to change? (Instructions | Example). Add your analysis to this cloudscape. 
• Phase 3 - How can your design guide interactions that shape learner context? (Instructions | Example). Add your analysis to this cloudscape and to your portfolio and/or display elsewhere.

(Done EoR?)

[Joshua Underwood]

If you are working your way through some background on the EoR process you may be interested in this tweet from

Bethany Bovard‏@tektrekker

"#oldsmooc_w2 initial reaction to EoR design frmwk: seems designer role subsumes what learner should learn: identify filter select resources"

That's certainly not the way I see it. It's difficult in a week on a course like this but the framework is intended to support a participatory process, very much involving learners in the design and using the framework to re-understand their own contexts. So, a tool for negotiating a shared understanding of learner context and the (new, hither to unnoticed) opportunities for learning and co-designing ways of exploiting these opportunities... More later...

[Apostolos Koutropoulos]

It's an interesting reaction to the EoR :-)

This was new to me, and when I read it, I saw it as a continuous recursion (improvement).  In the beginning (before your learners step into the classroom (physical or virtual), as a designer you probably do make some assumptions based on previous information or knowledge - but this assumption isn't necessarily the end-point.  Once learners step into the fold and you get to know who is there, you have opportunities to revisit everything and rework it while the course is in session.

[Joshua Underwood]

The approach is certainly supposed to be used like that, the design is perpetual beta and gets continually refined, though there are always constraints within which projects work.

It is inevitable that we all bring assumptions to the design process. Part of the participatory process is making these explicit, exposing them to critique and revising them. 

Also, although phase 1 is framed as brainstorming resources and filters this brainstorming is intended to be participatory (designers, learners, teachers, possibly other stakeholders) and grounded in data about context. There is no prescription of methods for this as this depends on settings, participants, constraints, etc but you might use observation of practice, participatory research e.g. participant informants, autoethnography, design in the wild, interviews, questionnaires, etc to help inform your model of context. 

Will try to add some examples of these methods to the http://www.bibsonomy.org/tag/oldsmooc-w2+