I'll need to do a google search for extreme learning when I get into the office later this morning. It just sounds to good a catch-phrase not to have been used before. Are there any lessons that can be learnt from Extreme Programming (XP)? One major difference is the fact that XP relies on 'pair' programming. What would it mean to have 'pair' learning? Since most learning situations are one-to-many rather than one-to-one and because one of these 'ones' is presumably the teacher and due to limited teacher bandwidth it's not (always) possible to pair up one learner with one teacher, even if that is the ideal learning environment.

So would a pairing of two (or slightly more) learners be feasible? How would a 'teacher' element arise from this. The simple answer of course is that it wouldn't. The pair would flounder around not knowing what they don't know and not knowing how to elicit knowledge. Given this fundamental flaw in XL can it be overcome. This is such an interesting question that I believe I'll be spending some time working on it. So be warned, DJ is likely to shift into reflective, instructional design mode, for some time as I explore the issues.

Regular readers of DJ will probably recognise my modus operandi. First there's a flurry of links to information on an area that grabs my attention and then a period of (background) activity where I explore these. These past couple of week have been an example of that. The catalyst was probably the meeting I had with Don Ledingham. Follow-ups to that meeting are too good an opportunity to miss. For once, I intend to strike whilst the iron is hot.

I've long had a passing interest in instructional (technology and) design but I am by no means knowledgeable in the field. I rely heavily on David [SiT] Carter-Tod to act as an e-mentor as SiT is a great resource of links and comments. David is someone I 'trust' to highlight important developments in this are and to comment upon them. Perhaps this is one exemplar for e-XL ;-)

Since I am in reflective mode, I wonder how effective some of my own attempts at using instructional technology have been? Have I made learning more effective with my adoption of e-mail, newsgroups, and the web to support/enhance my f2f teaching? I believe that I am an effective user of these technologies but it's certainly not a given that it improves the learning experience. Since I am a 'seat of the pants' teacher rather than an instructional technologist, I haven't really put the mechanism in place to 'measure' the effectivenes of such innovations. Not that these are innovations in this day and age!

It also won't come as any surprise to most of you reading this that Scripting Newshas an influence on my thinking. I have Dave WIner to thank for kicking off my interest in weblogs, XML, UserTalk/Frontier/Radio, content management, etc. Equal thanks, too, to Seth Dillingham and Conversant for creating the indispensible tool I use on a daily basis and which has also been used to great effect to support group collaborative work in some of my teaching.

The most recent influence has been reading Glyn Moody's Rebel Code. This book has inspired me to think about the social/group dynamics as they played out in the Open Source Software phenomenon. There's no doubt that the fact I teach computer science subjects and that many of the OSS movement have come out of that discipline has a bearing on my belief that there are lessons to be learnt from collaborative projects such as GNU/Linux, Apache, etc. The question is, does this have any bearing on teaching subjects other than, say, programming. I think that's an interesting question. David Wiley: Online self-organizing social systems has also had an influence on my thinking as I re-read it on the train in to work this morning.

But enough of my rambling. I will need to tease apart this stream of consciousness and come up with some firm ideas for moving forward. In fact, it's just struck me that most of the trains-of-thought essays come about on the train to/from work. With due homage to the Cluetrain guys, I think I'll call my rants and rambles 'thoughttrains'!

Thanks for reading if you got this far in today's thoughttrain ;-) Some people obviously have. Thanks. Their reponses are listed in the Extreme Learning (XL) thread...