Blue Unit: Computational Tinkering
2A: The Methodological Landscape
Background Knowledge Probe
Reflect back on a way that you’ve taken something you have and used it in a way it wasn’t meant to be used, in order to get something done that you couldn’t do otherwise. Then, consider the landscape of methods you used to accomplish this innovation-in-use.
- What are some ways you’ve used this and other methods and practices over time in similar contexts? How they have evolved over time? What are some ways these methods and practices may have originated as a part of your everyday or occasional praxis?
- How might these methods and practices have shaped your work so far through this book, both positively and negatively?
- What are some ways these methods and practices may be further developing as you work through this book?
Tinkering as Research
My work as a tinker began very early as my family encouraged me to tear apart any and all no-longer-used tools around me. Of course, while the goal was to discover what was inside and to make them work again, those earliest days were almost always “Not Yet” fail forward moments. At around 5, I was offered the opportunity to earn 50 cents an hour to help with basic sweeping, cleaning, and moving of sawdust and wood in the family sawmill. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was my first apprenticeship role. It seemed boring, but what was really happening was a first discovery of the music and performance of the sawmill as sociotechnical system. It is a combination of senses, knowledge, culture, community, and technology artifacts working in concert. As with most, if not all, such lived experiences and practices in our lives, it was not something that could be learned through a banking concept of education. Rather, it could only be done through community inquiry as part of a community of practice, which itself is rooted within the apprenticeship model of learning in which students study with master craftspeople.
I am first generation American, first generation English-as-first-language speaker, and first generation college graduate, let alone PhD. And yet, as I advanced through university and worked professionally the last two and a half decades within the university, I have found some aspects of the methodological landscape to be something I knew of, and practiced in part, even during my early years of work in that family community. While different perspectives may be incorporated, and while they may use different terms and practices, the research process is incorporated into many different disciplines beyond the academic realm. Still, it is in the academic disciplines that special emphasis has been given to identifying and practicing the perspectives and assumptions underlying our research paradigms. It has proven an extraordinarily valuable resource in addition to my apprenticeship learning, opening up new avenues for exploration, advancement, fine-tuning, and new discoveries of practice and knowledge.
Table 1.