Learning Across Sites: New tools, infrastructures and practices - Earli

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214 A. Lund and T. E. Hauge
John:
Erik:
John:
Ole:
Niels:
Ole:
John:
Ole:
John:
Ole:
John:
The Chechens have been oppressed and killed and abused and raped
and . . . kidnapped
I almost think it’s easier to – hehe (nervous laughter) – sympathize
with the Chechens
Yes . . . so do I, in fact I think it’s easy to sympathize with the
Chechens now. Just think . . . look at all that . . . (studying screen,
becomes excited) there, you see!
(leaving his work station to join the three) John, John!
(in response to John) Yes, that’s just what I’m saying
John!
Yes
This (referring to the Beslan tragedy) is not the only thing the
Chechens have done, they blew up the headquarters used by Moscow
in Chechnya, that Russia used in Chechnya
When
In December 2002, they blew up (inaudible)
We have found an insanely good page here (Ole moves to watch the
screen, all four study intensely)
In the dialogue and the activity that constitute this episode we see how the shared
object holds a potential for multiple interpretations. To the learners, it presents a
horizon of possible understandings, not a fixed point of “truth” or “plain facts.”
The dual nature of the object, its materiality and its activity- oriented qualities,
can be located in John’s exclamation “there you see!”; it indexes the website that
serves as a temporarily shared artifact and mediates his emerging acknowledgement
of Chechen suffering. On the other hand, Ole’s critical comments serve to
illustrate the complex character of the object. In this short episode of dialogue
and artifact- mediated knowledge- advancement we see how the group seeks to
coordinate their interpretations by drawing on one particular resource at the end
of the above excerpt. During the project many such episodes and situations arise.
The group meticulously aggregates, discusses and develops material to be converted
into the various representations of the object; the poster, the PowerPoint
presentation, and the staged TV debate.
By following the group’s efforts we have so far seen how the group first
approached the larger assignment and identified their object and, in this section,
how the object is further constructed through dialogue and exploratory
and artifact- mediated activity. Through material and social mediation the object
is transformed from a historical, enigmatic phenomenon into a contemporary
representation that the learners can handle and make sense of. To grasp what
happened at School No. 1 in Beslan, and why, gradually emerges as an object that
exists beyond a fragmented, provoking, and seemingly irrational incident. In the
final stage of the project this process now materializes in different products.