The importance of the second loop in educational technology: An action science study of introducing blogging in a course curriculum

Abstract

This paper uses an action science approach in analyzing attempts to introduce readable/writable web technology, specifically blogging, into a course curriculum. It is suggested that action science is an important and to this point underused approach for understanding the potential and ramifications of introducing this new technology as a central part of the teaching and learning process. We concentrate especially on Argyris and Schon’s construct “double loop” learning where study of the target phenomenon focuses on the impact of underlying “governing variables” on the ways members of an organization – in the case of this paper the classroom community – act in everyday situations. The intervention studied in this paper was the introduction of blogs as not only a key, but the primary component of a large, undergraduate, general education course. The intervention is analyzed two sequential classrooms. In the initial classroom the teaching team attempted to implement blogs by making adjustments to a traditional curriculum and was largely unsuccessful in terms of what teachers claimed they wanted to accomplish through introduction of the new technology. In the second classroom the teaching team opened the class up to changes in governing variables and through double loop learning developed more successful strategies for using blogs.