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Alan et al,

Thanks in turn for the work you all did. Yeah, I had some thoughts in mind going in, but where it all came out was as much your doing as mine. For example, I knew that I wanted to get across the points that the "real" is more "virtual" and the "virtual" more "real" than we often think. But the idea that we all live in "virtuality", the space between "reality" and "imagination" emerged as we talked. And I like that way of thinking about things.

Finding good metaphors for education is important. And I like your "journey" with its emphasis on knowing where students are beginning. Maybe though we shouldn't expect to "properly guide them to the destination" so much as to encourage them to move in new directions that may be as individual as where they start? Yep, "equip them with the tools to construct knowledge themselves". Without perhaps knowing for sure "if the blueprints we provide are sufficient" except by whether the students do things that contribute to our own explorations? Yep, new assessment tools very much needed.  Maybe relevant in further thinking:

• Emergent Pedagogy
• Science as Open-Ended Transactional Inquiry