ODFs in the Learning Process

What is there to examine?

Are ODFs a tool? If they are tools, do they hold within them cumulative knowledge? Seemingly, the answer to these questions is yes, yet the knowledge contained within ODFs is hardly culturually accumulated knowledge like that we find in artifacts that normally are seen as repositories of distributed intelligence. Instead, it's a different sort of knowledge - what might be defined as "working" knowledge.

Working knowledge, as opposed to "culturally accumulated" knowledge has not been refined, or even reviewed. It might better be referred to as "raw" knowledge, and as such it's unclear that in contains "intelligence" of the sort usually found in the cultural artifacts that Pea refers to when he writes of "distributed intelligence".

The use of tools is something that must be taught. What should be taught about the use of ODFs? The seemingly "logical" threading of an ODF may actually be something that can be understood only through repeated practice. Perhaps understanding how an ODF works is an abstraction that is beyond the grasp of school children.

On the other hand, perhaps ODFs are representations of a learning process. According to this approach, what is contained within the threaded conversation of the ODF is less important as accumulated knowledge than as a reflection of a collective thinking process. If what we are looking at is a collective thinking process, what should ultimately be evaluated:

individual achievements: i.e., do they reflect an individual internalization of the external, collective thinking process?
group achievement: i.e., did the group reach understandings that are beyond what each individual achieved? How might this be measured?

On the individual level, who is learning? If learning is a collective process, then perhaps cheating on exams should be encouraged. Do we convey conflicting messages to the pupil when on the one hand we speak of the development of a "collective intelligence” while on the other we demand that s/he individually have a command of the course material? In Salomon's discussion of Perkins we read that:

Higher-order knowledge, a crucial element in mastering a field and in the operations of the executive functions, is a matter of the person-solo.

If this is the case, how do we encourage and measure "higher-order knowledge" while emphasizing the external intelligence that is being stored in the ODF?

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