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Goals/Strategies/Explanation:
Clothing the Emperor & Dangerous Discussions
The
challenges we address in "Clothing the Emperor" are
Dangerous Discussions Issues that have been polarized and hyperbolized.
Goals for Clothing the Emperor
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We try to reveal simple truths and
useful options that may be disappointing to those who prefer the
more dramatic and polarizing claims of zealous advocates of
innovation – or the equally hyperbolic claims of their opponents who
resist such changes most avidly. We are committed to providing
starting places that are both interesting and useful enough to
repair the damage that often results from more exciting and illusory
activities.
We want our work to be more useful than useless, more harmless than
harmful.
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We are committed to finding those “intermediate” issues (issues with
scope somewhere between setting foreign policy and resolving
interpersonal conflict) where we have some credibility and some
expertise; where we can make contributions that are both substantive
and procedural; where we are most likely to be able to identify and
engage others who have even more to offer; where we can help
directly as well as by offering coordination and working in
collaboration with others; by sharing our experience and expertise
in this very rapidly changing part of the world where technology and
education meet – where technology and education keep touching each
other so furtively, tentatively, eagerly, and expectantly.
Strategies
Framework for a Civil, Constructive Conversations
I.
Anti-inflammatory Description
II. Polarizing Views or
Questions
III. Worthwhile Results
IV.
Evidence and Priorities
V.
What do YOU care about most?
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Deflate the hype and defuse artificial
disagreements: restate the issue and the challenge in more realistic
and less inflammatory ways.
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Identify polarizing positions or questions.
Restate them in ways that are least inflammatory, least pejorative,
most likely to enable stakeholders who are initially committed to
apparently opposing views to engage in civil, constructive
discussion.
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Identify mutually
beneficial options.
-
Delay
or stop if participants cannot achieve civil, constructive
conversation likely to develop widely respected solutions [most
likely, repeat the effort until progress resumes or seems
impossible; if the latter, re-direct the issue to some other
venue, some other decision-making procedure]
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Develop, launch, support, and
revise obviously useful actions with likely positive ongoing,
cumulative, and long-term results.
-
Develop and implement improved
policies.
Dangerous Discussions
"Clothing the Emperor" fits within our Dangerous
Discussions Initiative, the goal of which is to engage participants in mutually beneficial discussions about important and
controversial issues
- in problem areas where we can help them build
something together,
to improve
teaching and learning – with technology.
We recognize that Web pages CANNOT be
enough by themselves for these purposes; but we hope that the Web
pages we develop for this initiative - including this one - can be
valuable resources when used effectively in workshops and other
collaborative activities. We seek ways of using technology to support, not undermine,
communication and collaboration.
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