Great quote in a post by Konrad Glogowski on the Blog of Proximal Development. The post called Tools Interiorized quotes Walter J. from Orality and Literacy. (pp. 82-83) in saying:

"Technology, properly interiorized, does not degrade human life but on the contrary enhances it. The fact is that by using a mechanical contrivance, a violinist or an organist can express something poignantly human that cannot be expressed without the mechanical contrivance. To achieve such expression of course the violinist or organist had to have interiorized the technology, made the tool or machine a second nature, a psychological part of himself or herself. … Such shaping of a tool to oneself, learning a technological skill, is hardly dehumanizing. The use of a technology can enrich the human psyche, enlarge the human spirit, intensify its interior life."

Konrad goes on to say "I believe in 'shaping of a tool to oneself.' I believe that learning is tools interiorized and thoughts made visible. I believe that blogging classrooms are helping us get there."

He is right. But it is not just a question of individual shaping. It is a question of communities shaping and controlling the tools they use. In the case of education, its is for the entire community to shape the development of educational technology. And that is not so easy. Much as brilliant and innovative teachers like Konrad work to provide tools for their students to shape for expressing their ideas, the politicians and the e-learning industry has different ideas.

Their idea is to develop managed and standardised environments where learning is consumed not created.

So what we see is contradictory developments and pressures. Most educators claim that they are implementing constructivist pedagogies. In reality constructivism is limited. reports on digital literacy talk of the importance of creativity whilst systems administrators block access to blogs. We all talk of interoperability but interoperability is largely a dream.

Having said all this I remain optimistic. But we need to think about this issue of how communities can shape elearning more.

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