Save those scrapbooks!
Perhaps I'm over reacting, but it seems to me that a truly dangerous pattern is
taking shape here. Denney continues:
This pattern of creation, and nonchalant destruction of the fruits of learning, appears in similar forms from other research subjects. The excitement of design is the challenge of creating a system of solutions that fit patterns of daily life. As we begin to see daily life patterns like these and peer through the fog at the first outline of what an electronic learning record might look like, we’re asking ourselves when is something ready for placement in a record? Or, is everything the kid creates captured in the record and separating the wheat from the chaff is done by the kid at a later date? Is the record smart in terms of knowing what to record and what not to record?
I suppose that if there's a save it / throw it out scale that measures the degree
to which we favor one of these options, I'm pretty far off toward the Gordon
Bell edge. For me, even the simple question of "when is something ready
for placement in a record?" simply seems wrong. Why would we ask a question
such as that? It's never too early to save things, thus
delaying the decision to throw something out to some future time when we then have
to ask ourselves why it was that we saved it. And of course at that time we conclude that though we
really don't know why, there must have been a reason, so we'll stay on the safe side
and keep it.
Denney approaches this question from a practical, rather than from a theoretical
perspective. His objective is to generate more effective and useful ways of recording
and saving. For me it's more of a basic, existential, issue. Once we let "forgetfulness", or "expendability"
get their feet in the door we're fighting a losing battle.
Go to: Holding on / Letting go.