Talk:Patterns

From Elearning

Lifecycle of a Pattern

How do patterns get started?

How do they get developed?

How do people come to find the patterns they need?

From case-study to pattern

Patterns are janus-faced. They present one face when approached from the perspective of one looking for the educational significance of a particular tool, and another when approached from the perspective of an attempt to understand and generalise a particular case-study.

Viewed from the perspective of tool-use, patterns look like affordances, i.e. educational possibilities opened up by the availability of a particular tool. For example, there's a whole range of simple, generalisable teaching strategies that are made possible by the introduction of a discussion board. Similarly, social bookmarking sites make different sorts of student-participation possible.

But I don't think this is an easy face to start with to familiarise yourself with elearning patterns, since the technologies themselves don't wear their educational possibilities on their sleeves, and often distract from the educational objective involved. It is much easier to look at the ways these technologies have actually been used, in order to determine the kinds of patterns they afford, by interrogating a case-study.

Below is a list of questions that could be asked of a particular online unit, or a particular activity or choice within an online unit, to tease out the implicit pattern at work. I've put the aspect of the pattern that this is meant to reveal, or the purpose of the question, in brackets at the end of each question.

• What gap does this activity fill? (problem)
• Why use that tool? (helps to identify the solution independent of the specific technology used)
• Could a different tool have been used? (as above)
• Are there other situations in which this would be a useful strategy? (problem / context)
• Were there any unexpected advantages of doing this? (generalise the solution)
• What about any unexpected problems? (can lead to supporting patterns, or to contraindications - i.e. when not to use this pattern)

Please add to this list. Remember the idea is to generalise the strategy, the problem it solves, and the context in which the solution works / doesn't work.

Listing patterns

See the Wikipedia article on Antipatterns for a good layout for lists of patterns - especially the use of a by-line or brief description to complement the name.

Compare this with the WikiPatterns model, which only has the name of the pattern. --Jtauber 15:14, 31 July 2007 (EST)