Evaluation in complex situations

Two trees

Evaluation in complex situations

The following text has been adapted from and inspired by part of a report written within the PALETTE project.

Evaluation helps handle complexity in complex situations by providing provisional stabilities that assist decision-making processes and can serve to combat entropy by enabling the emergence of a simpler order from complexity, albeit temporarily.

Understanding and improving evaluation in complex situations requires extending the notion of evaluation to include moments of evaluation, that is to say, embedded evaluative processes not necessarily carried out by evaluation experts.…

Leadership, information gathering and the future – What if we’ve got it wrong?

The following text was written as preparation for a seminar entitled “From Observation to Action: Challenges for Policy and Decision Makers in the Field of ICT in School Education” jointly organised by the SATW and EENet that was to take place at Schloss Münchenwiler early October 2004. I took part in that seminar on behalf of the Swiss Agency for ICT in Education (CTIE).

Ambient “schooling”: Putting learning back into life

The term “ambient schooling” is emerging as a new power word in the conceptualisation of tomorrow’s schools. By “power word” I mean one that has momentarily become magically imbued with extraordinary explanatory powers such that it is enough to use it in a conversation and all becomes clear (even if no one agrees on what it could be). 

Using a gross over simplification, the concept of ambient schooling is largely driven by a techno-commercial scenario but includes a substantial pedagogical and ethical thread.

Are we learning or managing competences?

Managing competences

Are we learning or managing competences?

Without some form of feedback and subsequent evaluation, no learning – in the very broadest sense of the word – can take place. Life is not possible without learning, as life in all its facets involves ongoing processes of change and adaptation that require us to learn. Most of this learning requires no conscious intervention on our part.…