Wicked problems, Design & Horst Rittel

by | Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Matt Koehler and I have often talked about the wicked problems of design and teaching with technology (most specifically in our handbook chapter on TPACK). We take the idea of wicked problems from a classic paper written by Rittel and Weber back in 1973. As Wikipedia says, Rittel was “a pioneering theorist of design and planning, and late professor at the University of California, Berkeley.” Rittel’s writings are often hard to get hold of since he published in a range of journals across multiple domains. Professor Ellen Do at Georgia Tech has created a webpage with links and downloadable PDFs of many of Rittel’s works. Check it out here.

A few randomly selected blog posts…

TPACK & Creativity at Cedar Rapids

I had a wonderful day at the Grant Woods Area Education Agency at Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I was invited there by Andy Crozier and his team as a part of their 21st Century Learning Institute. I spent the day with 50+ teachers, library media specialists, and administrators...

The Three Oddest Words

A poem by Wislawa Szymborska Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it. When I pronounce the word Nothing, I make something no non-being...

Googling me…

I wish I had a Googleganger (also known as a Google twin), but with a name like mine, I doubt that is going to happen anytime soon.

Of raindrops and dying flowers

Of raindrops and dying flowers

The rainfall in June –the poems I’ve pasted to wallspeel off, but leave traces.~ Basho All photos taken with my iPhone8©punyamishra

Mishra, Nicholson & Wojcikiewicz (2001/2003)

Mishra, P., Nicholson, M., & Wojcikiewicz, S. (2001/2003). Does my wordprocessor have a personality? Topffer’s Law and Educational Technology. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. 44 (7), 634-641. Reprinted in B. C. Bruce (Ed.). Literacy in the information...

iPhones, higher ed & faculty resistance

Today's NYTimes has a story Welcome, Freshmen. Have an iPod about universities handing out iPhones and iTouchs to freshmen. A part of this may be making specific universities look "cool" to their incoming students - a requirement in the highly competitive world of...

Mea maxima culpa

I try to be scrupulous about giving credit where it is due and yet I messed up big time. This happened over a year ago and to my dismay I did not think about it or realize it till this moment. A year or so ago we received the 2008 MSU-AT&T Instructional Technology...

1 Comment

  1. Cherice Montgomery

    Thanks, Punya! This was very helpful to one of my students who is doing some research on critical thinking!

    Reply

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