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3.1: The evolution of the proposed methodologyThe interdisciplinarity or multi-disciplinarity (see Bridges, 2006) of this study has been helpfulin providing a broad basis in relevant literature as was seen in chapter 2. It has also been asource of enduring debate since the work does not fit neatly into a specific discourse (see e.g.Foucault, 2007), research tradition (see e.g. Swann and Pratt, 2003) or paradigm (see e.g. Guba,1990). As was seen in section 2.3, complexity theory seems to indicate that in the 21st Centurythis is inevitable since ideas, concepts, theories and methodologies overlap and interlock in arange of academic endeavours. Support for this notion is evident in the following quotation:"In retrospect we know that the road that led from nineteenth century transportation wasquite different. The invention of the automobile and the airplane did not come from adetailed study of how their predecessors such as horse drawn carriages worked or did not.Yet, this is the model for contemporary educational research. The standard paradigms foreducation research take the existing classroom or extra-curricular culture as the primaryobject of study. There are many studies concerning the poor notions of Math or Sciencestudents acquire from today's schooling. There is even a very prevalent "humanistic"argument that "good" pedagogy should take these poor ways of thinking as its startingpoint. It is easy to sympathise with a humane intent. Nevertheless I think that the strategyimplies a commitment to preserving traditional systems." (Papert, 1993 p. 44)When I make the connection from this quotation back to Waldrop's description of 'bursts ofevolutionary creativity and massive extinction events' (Waldrop, 1993 p. 119), I find myself inagreement with Papert that education research needs to find creative ways of discoveringemerging meaning and truth. This I believe to be particularly true when it comes totechnologised learning since it will not necessarily help our understanding of the potentialaffordances of ICT to examine the pedagogical implications of, say, chalk. Further support forthis new way of understanding study, research and theory can be seen here:"One of the most essential features of the new history is probably this displacement of thediscontinuous: its transference from the obstacle to the work itself; its integration into thediscourse of the historian, where it no longer plays the role of an external condition thatmust be reduced, but that of a working concept; and therefore the inversion of signs bywhich it is no longer the negative of the historical reading (its underside, its failure, thelimit of its power), but the positive element that determines its object and validates itsanalysis" (Foucault, 2007 p.10)138Simon Hughes Ph.D. Thesis (October 2012)