Reactions on Tech-mediated interaction I (Blyth and Reinhardt)

Hi all:
I'm not quite done with my readings yet, but I have a few questions and comments I figure might be useful to have up there before class:

·        1.  What is exactly new stuff in the ecological approach, in contrast to the sociocultural or socio-cognitive one?

o   The social semiotic idea seems to be important but can’t quite articulate it. Any help?

·       2.   Why is it so important to synthesize Interactionist and SC approaches, to expose how they are not necessarily incommensurable? What do we gain by it?

·        3. Is the Interactionsit claim that they acknowledge the importance of the social aspects of the learning process but just chose to not focus on them at all valid as a research principle? “I know it’s important but I’m just not interested in it” kind of argument? What are the consequences for understanding of how the world works and how we contribute to the way it does?

4. ILiked: hindsight look at technological descriptive phase in research harshly criticizing not contributing to grand theoretical understanding of CALL reflects the “ivory tower phenomenon”: academics’ estrangement from teachers’ need and concerns and self-centeredness on their own needs

5. I Liked: We don’t always need to go to the most outer layers of the "onion" to understand practices in a specific context if it is not relevant, not answering your questions; you just have to be aware that the layers exists and how they interact with each other—this poses a selectivity issue. How do we accumulate the right criteria to do this?