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that progress in personal, professional learning has occurred.How does th<strong>is</strong> relate <strong>to</strong> my hypothes<strong>is</strong>? The answer <strong>to</strong> th<strong>is</strong> question lies in the underlyingassumption evinced in figure 34 which <strong>is</strong> that progress can be made at the interlocution of thesethree contrasting phenomena, if <strong>and</strong> when, education professionals make a personal commitment<strong>to</strong> the process of learning. <strong>It</strong> <strong>is</strong> my lived experienced that professional progress has been mostassured when I worked in th<strong>is</strong> zone of interlocution. The research shows that activity, over <strong>time</strong>,catalysed a radical overhaul of my underst<strong>and</strong>ing of pedagogy <strong>and</strong> taught me <strong>to</strong> h<strong>and</strong> learningover <strong>to</strong> the learners, rather than continue <strong>to</strong> operate didactically. <strong>It</strong> also shows that I <strong>to</strong>oklearning gained from working in one technolog<strong>is</strong>ed setting <strong>and</strong> applied it in others successfully -in career terms. Moreover, I have now come <strong>to</strong> underst<strong>and</strong> that in th<strong>is</strong> zone my professionallearning has been dependent on the agency of the 'words <strong>and</strong> works of others' or the machinesthey have programmed <strong>to</strong> operate pedagogically. Progress has also occurred when I have beeninstrumental in the development of technologies or their application; in short, w<strong>here</strong> I have actedas a node on the 'network' <strong>and</strong> have caused information <strong>to</strong> 'flow'.Looking back, it does appear as though I was motivated <strong>to</strong> learn about, with <strong>and</strong> throughtechnology. Part of my ‘focal theory’ (Phillips <strong>and</strong> Pugh, 1994) was that significant professionallearning gains could be made <strong>by</strong> other education professionals if they also choose <strong>to</strong> under<strong>take</strong>structured work in th<strong>is</strong> zone. To be clear, I do not think that the nexus <strong>is</strong> a theoretical placew<strong>here</strong> professional learning has occurred, rather I think it <strong>is</strong> a theoretical place w<strong>here</strong> learningmay occur if the professional's personal motivation <strong>is</strong> 'switched on', w<strong>here</strong> they have aprofessional need <strong>to</strong> learn, have sufficient prior knowledge <strong>to</strong> access learning resources, w<strong>here</strong>they can access supplementary expert<strong>is</strong>e through human, real or virtual networks <strong>and</strong> w<strong>here</strong> theycan play <strong>and</strong> experiment with confidence.289Simon Hughes Ph.D. Thes<strong>is</strong> (Oc<strong>to</strong>ber 2012)

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