I recently finished Dourish’s “whirlwind tour through the work of many people who have addressed the issue of embodiment in one way or another” (p. 124), and I think there are plenty of stops along the way of interest to teachers. It’s also true that at times I found myself wondering what the purpose of all of this was.

For example, I think I got how “tangible computing” is moving computing “into the same phenomenal world as our other sorts of interaction” (p. 103). And I see how this is related to social computing’s “use of sociological approaches in the design of interactive technology” (p. 103). But as I was reading through the philosophical summaries in chapter four, I found myself loosing track of why any of this matters. Still I found the philosophy interesting; it’s a line of philosophy worth teachers’ attention.

Early in the chapter Dourish discusses graphical interfaces again. His comments make clear what people like the author that Joe quoted seem to miss when they say that graphical interfaces and metaphorical software design make things easier. It’s not that it is easier for the user; it’s more familiar. “[Graphical interfaces] make interacting with the computer seem more like those arenas of everyday action with which we are more familiar and in which we are more skilled” (p. 100). I think that “arenas of everyday action” is a clear, concise description of what we mean when we talk about literacies, and this then connects to Brant’s notions of accumulating literacies. Yes more kinds of literacy are expected in computer environments, but these literacies are what younger people are more skilled in already.

I wrote this earlier (in another entry about Dourish’s book), but it seems worth repeating here in response to this chapter about phenomenology: Teachers are natural phenomenologists. “We encounter the world as a place in which we act. It is the way in which we act—the practical tasks in which we are engaged and how they are accommodated into the world—that makes the world meaningful for us” (p. 108). What a good description this is of a teacher’s intellectual life! Teachers are, in effect, practical educational theorists and researchers, solving the problems of teaching and learning for themselves and their students every day (p. 113).

Another example of how some of this material is affirming and grounding (foundational?) for teachers is Dourish’s summary of Heidegger’s distinction between “ready-to-hand” and “present-at-hand.” This distinction is good for teachers who work computers to remember: “That with which our everyday dealings proximally dwell is not the tools themselves. On the contrary, that with which we concern ourselves primarily is the work” (Being and Time: 99) (p. 109). Like the concern for grammar fades into the background for the writing teacher, so the concern for teaching (or learning) software fades for the technology teacher (or professional developer)—because the focus is on the work, not on the tool.

Another project summarized by Dourish that is worthy of teachers’ attention is “ecological psychology” and “affordance.” After all, isn’t reflective teaching all about assessing the “three way relationships between the [learning] environment, [skills and abilities of] the organism [student], and an activity [assignment]” (p. 118)!

Next, Wittgenstein’s notion of “language games”—a form of action by people in “the setting in which language is used” (p. 124) seems like further support for my interest in language variation in different Internet and other computer environments.

At the end of Dourish’s “whirlwind tour,” he lists “three notable common elements to the approaches outlined in [chapter four]” (p. 125). Here’s my translation of these elements as seen through a teacher’s eyes:

1) Like “embodiment” teaching involves being grounded in everyday, mundane experience. I love thinking deeply—and this book is a good excuse to do so—but I also love the practical reality of needing a lesson plan for Monday morning!

2) For teachers “action in the world” of their schools (and beyond) is what defines our “understanding of the world and our relationship to it” (p. 125). We can theorize all we want (or others can for us), but it is the actions we take in our classrooms that are fundamental to who we are and how we understand our worlds.

3) Teachers “find the world meaningful primarily with respect to the ways in which we act within it” (p. 125), not what we think about it. And at our best, we model this action-oriented process of meaning making for our students.