Entry 30 IDT1514 Dwight 2004 Review Essay of Dreyfus' 2001 On the Internet

Although I personally found Dwight's philosophical discussion rather unappealing, I was able to identify with his claims and certainly support his view rather than Dreyfus'. First of all, I think that one of the key concepts in his discourse is 'flexibility' and how this concept simply gives way to a sea of possibilities. I fully agree both with Spender's claim that 'people perform embodied habits on line as they do proximaly' (p146) as my own experience, as argued in my response to Dreyfus' reading, tells me this is true, and with Dwight in that meaningful dialogue is a condition for online interactions to be embodied. After all, if this is missing then can it be called a learning environment? Maybe yes, but this leads me to imagine unilateral interaction of the Web 1.0 type where the user is mainly receiving information or the Web 2.0 type where the interaction is between the machine (software) and the user but clearly not CMC. In any case, the social aspect of it I believe is central to all the concepts both in Dreyfus' emotion needed in learning and Dwight's dominant discourse of the net as both require human interaction thus socialisation to exist. I also found reassurance in Dwight's argument that instruction needs to bridge individual experiences and culturally valued subject matter and believe that his 'child and computer are part of the same process' (p147) refreshing as separating them, I believe, simply does not acknowledge the fact that technology is becoming 'invisible' or in the process of 'normalising' in Bax's terms (2003). The idea of living in 'symbiosis' with tools and society is even more current than a decade ago and I believe it is here to stay with technology advancement in leaps and bounds. I find Haraway's Cyborg (p148) unnecessary as I believe Cousin's (2005) dynamic collaboration between technology and pedagogies acknowledges the freedom between the parties that a Cyborg cannot afford. In short, my favourite part is Dwight's closing words on how 'boundaries are fluid and depend upon context and use' (p150) as it reflects the flexibility that distinguishes him from Dreyfus.

References

Dwight, J. (2004). Review Essay. E-Learning, 1(1), 146–152. Online at: http://moodle.nottingham.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=24802. [accessed: 11 Nov 2014].

Cousin, G. (2005). Learning from Cyberspace. In Ray Land and Sian Bayne (Ed.), Education in Cyberspace. Routledge. Online at http://moodle.nottingham.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=24802. [accessed: 2 Nov 2014].