Loughborough University Library: Open Journals

Williams, P. John

The context in which I am forming these reflections
has had a significant impact on their nature. I have
just attended another excellent International
Conference on Technology Education Research which
is held every two years in Queensland, Australia. After
the conference I travelled south along the Australian
coast to New South Wales for a beach holiday of
swimming and fishing.
While standing on the beach, fishing rod in hand
waiting for something exciting to happen at the other
end of the line, I unfortunately had too many idle
hours to ponder. Some of this pondering included the
similarities between fishing and school assessment. At
the risk of extending an analogy to its limits, I would
like to share some of these ideas.
In the context of the Queensland conference and its
theme of Values in Technology Education, I also draw
on the spirit of the key note presentation by Steven
Petrina: On Techno-Theology and the Sacred, to recall
the biblical story related to Jesus’ appeal to fishermen
to become fishers of men, or teachers. With this in
mind, here, on the beach fishing, I feel as though my
reflections are complete.
Petrina adopted a definition of spirituality to mean
“any aspect of humanity's connection to something
other than itself. This includes deism (natural
revelation), and theism (revealed revelation), yet also
expands to include even other human relationships.
Spirituality in its broadest sense is the evidence of, or
attempt to explain, human transcendence” (2006).
Considering this definition, fishing can be a very
spiritual experience. The desire to connect with the
natural environment, to sense the shifting currents in
the wave patterns, to feel the caress of the wind and
the pull of the tide, but most of all to connect with a
fish is a spiritual experience.
Assessment of success in fishing is very clear – if you
have fish you have been successful. This simplicity of
outcome belies the complexity of variables that
combine to produce the result. The location, type of
gear, setting of the rig, type of bait or lure, style of
casting, type of fish, how the fish move, what level
they swim at, tidal movements, water currents and
cloud cover are all relevant variables. When all these
factors are at their ideal and integrate together
optimally, success is the outcome. 
However, there are generally too many variables for
them all to be controlled, or to have an absolute
knowledge of how they all interact, and yet success is
not uncommon. People fish in areas with which they
are not familiar and do not understand all the factors,
and yet they may be successful. This indicates that
knowledge and control over all the relevant variables
is not necessary in order to be successful.
The skill of assessing success in fishing has little to do
with outcomes – any layperson (non-fisherman) can
judge the success of having a few fish in the bag.
Success comes from skill in assessing the inputs:
making judgements about all the variables based on a
range of sources of knowledge: personal and others
experiences, TV lifestyle fishing shows, books,
magazines and internet research. 
Likewise, assessment in Technology Education
immediately implies notions of outcomes. The
outcomes may be cognitive or manipulative,
procedural or conceptual, formative or summative, but
still outcomes. There are clear and explicable reasons
for this – outcomes assessment is the public and high
stakes end of Technology Education, both at an
individual and school level. 
Less attention is paid to the assessment of the input
variables. As with fishing, they are manifold and
changeable, and there really are too many to
cognitively process them all at any one time. Specific
variables are focused on at different times, until
eventually a repertoire of skills is developed which to
some extent become automatic responses to given
situations. In a broad range of contexts that are
formed by set combinations of variables, the teacher
comes to know what works, and to this stimulus a
response, determined by experience, becomes almost
automatic. Compared to research about the
assessment of outcomes in Technology Education, the
research about the assessment of inputs, and
teacher’s cognitive processing of those input variables,
is inadequate.
The Spirituality of Fishing: Reflections on assessment
P. John Williams, Edith Cowan University, Australia
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The more a fisherperson practices, the better they
become. If they were to practice for 5-6 hours each
day, five days a week, 40 weeks a year for a few
years then they would become very good, in fact they
would be an expert. They would be able to make
judgements about the combinations of variables they
are confronted with and take actions that result in
successful outcomes. People would naturally respect
them for the knowledge they demonstrate and the
many successful experiences they have. 
Technology teachers must be treated more as experts
who know when they are successful, as they do. This
is not to deny the need for evidence, but the
evidence is partly the outcome of trust. Teachers must
also have confidence in themselves – we know when
students are developing as they should, and achieving
in that big picture kind of way. How we formally
assess may be another thing altogether, and in some
sense is less important.
Fishing at a fish farm is a way to minimize the variety
of variables and so increase the chances of success.
For novice fishers, such as children, it provides a way
of achieving some success without having to absorb
all the knowledge required to deal with the naturally
occurring elements in an un-contrived environment.
The skills a fisher develops through fishing at a farm
have limited transferability to a natural environment
because it provides no opportunity to simultaneously
deal with a broad range of variables.
There is no comparison between the quality of life for
the fish in the farm and those in the natural
environment. While the fewer dangers to be
encountered when developing to maturity in a farm
mean that the early rate of survival is high, conversely,
an early demise is predetermined and so there is no
chance of a full and rich life through maturity. 
The structure of a technology classroom to resemble
fish farm characteristics may enhance the chances of
student success according to some assessment
criteria. The elimination of variables that may distract
from specific goals measured by the assessment will
enable a focus on only those assessment goals. The
elimination of any possibilities of making mistakes, a
focus on quality product outcomes and
standardization of portfolios through proformas will
create the illusion of successful teaching. 
The students will also seem to be successful, but their
quality of (school) life will be poor and the skills
developed in such a contrived environment will not
be transferable. I will not extend the analogy to
predict an early and inevitable demise!
Assessment of outcomes in fishing is a very tangible
exercise because success is obvious. Desirable
outcomes in Technology Education are less tangible,
and assessment is needed to indicate both success
and failure, or in outcomes based terms, the level of
success. There is really no failure, just an absence of
success, or lack of progress. (If only that were the
case with fishing, where the absence of success feels
a lot like failure!)
The tendency is common in Technology Education for
assessment to determine the goals of education, but
this of course is problematic. If this were the case in
fishing, then the assessment criteria could be: fish at
high tide in the Big Hole, use prawns for bait on a
ledger rig late in the day when the sun is low. If you
satisfy all these criteria then you have been
successful, regardless of whether you actually catch
any fish or not. Despite this being obviously silly, it is
not uncommon in Technology Education. There is a
big picture, an end goal that should drive the
educational endeavour, and the assessment criteria
must be made to match. 
Which brings me to the spiritual dimension of fishing.
As I travelled down the New South Wales coast on
my surfing and fishing holiday, I noticed a report on a
court case in which a number of fishermen were
prosecuted by the NSW Fisheries Department for
poaching. The eleven accused admitted the
allegations against them but argued they were
exercising their religious rights. They said that‘…they
are practising the Aboriginal religion and their religious
beliefs dictate the manner in which they do these
things’. Their barrister added: “These people believe
they have a connection to the land, a connection to
the water and anything they do in relation to the
taking of produce of the land or water is inherently
connected with their religion” (Murphy, 2004). I
agreed with the accused, the court case confirmed
my personal experience of the spirituality of fishing.
The Spirituality of Fishing: Reflections on assessment
Fish are important to aboriginal people in their daily
life, not only as a source of food for basic nutrition,
but also in spiritual, social, economic and educational
contexts. Spiritual links with specific fish species from
birth (totem species) are a significant part of
aboriginal culture. The activity of fishing is one
medium through which the spirit of the person and
the spirit of the environment come together. 
In his presentation at the Technology Education
conference, Petrina (2006) proposed that technology
embodies and generates five sets of values – the
existential-spiritual values of technology are as
important to recognize as ecological-natural, ethical-
personal, socio-political and technical-empirical values.
He stated that
“None of these interdependent values can be
ignored in education lest we offer a compromised
curriculum and literacy of technology. Too often in
design and technology education we emphasize
and prioritize technical-empirical, or rational
values”, we address to some extent ecological-
natural, ethical-personal and socio-political values,
but rarely consider the existential-spiritual
dimension. “In effect, we are out of balance” 
(p.2).
All the Dimensions of Technology are imperative for
educational success. Some are susceptible to ease of
assessment, others less so. One struggles to imagine
examination authorities funding the development of
techniques to assess the existential-spiritual aspects of
technology. However, the difficulty, or maybe even the
impossibility of assessing the existential-spiritual
dimensions of technology render them no less
important. Best practice is not defined by high
assessments. 
Likewise, the spirituality of fishing is not determined
by assessable outcomes alone – it is the totality of
the experience, the blending of all the elements in
the environment. Again, teachers know when they are
successful in all the Dimensions, and we must trust
our feelings on this and ensure that formal
assessments do not deliver a picture different from
how we feel. We need to trust our spirit – the
spirituality of teaching! It’s not a dimension of the
curriculum that we teach, it is how we feel about the
important aspects of our students’ development.
Despite the relative novelty of Technology Education
and the consequent research deficiencies in a broad
range of areas, researchers continue to push the
boundaries into new and developing areas. For
example, products and emotion (Spendlove, 2006),
how we should live (Keirl, 2006), the environment
(Elshof, 2006), design for experience (Williams &
Wellbourne-Wood, 2006), values ( Pavlova, 2006),
technicity (Doyle, 2004), wicked problems (Coyne,
2005), democracy (Baynes, 2005) and rights
(Petrina, Volk and Kim, 2004).
It is a sign of a vibrant, dynamic and enduring profession
that apart from continuing research on the fundamentals
of Technology Education, concurrent research is being
conducted on innovative, futuristic and pioneering
aspects of Technology Education. Thinking and activity
about assessment must maintain the same future
dynamism. There are trends in this direction, for example
in creativity (Stables, 2006), innovation (Bain, 2005) and
electronic assessment (Kimbell, 2006). Innovation in
assessment research must keep pace with the innovative
dynamism of Technology Education research generally. 
p.j.williams@ecu.edu.au
The Spirituality of Fishing: Reflections on assessment
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Dimensions of
Technology
Figure 1. Dimensions of Technology (Petrina, 2006)
Technical-
Empirical
Socio- 
Political
Ethical-
Personal
Ecological-
Natural
Existential-
Spiritual
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References
Bain, J. (2005) Photo-stories from Durham: a case
study on assessing design innovation. DATA
International Research Conference, Wellesbourne: 
The Design and Technology Association.
Baynes, K. (2005) Design and Democracy.
Wellesbourne: The Design and Technology
Association.
Coyne, R. (2005) ‘Wicked Problems Revisited.’ Design
Studies, 26(1).
Doyle, M. (2004) The Evolution of Technicity: whence
creativity and innovation? DATA International Research
Conference, Wellesbourne: The Design and
Technology Association.
Elshof, L. (2006) Technological Education and
Environmental Sustainability, a Critical Examination of
Twenty years of Canadian Practices and Policies.
PATT-15 Conference, Netherlands.
Keirl, S. (2006) The Ultimate Design Question: “How
Should We Live?” as Catalyst for ‘Visioning Values’ in
Design and Technology Education. Technology
Education Research Conference, Surfers Paradise,
Australia, 6-9 December.
Kimbell, R. (2006) E-scape to the future. Articulating
Technology Education in a Global Community.
International Technology Education conference in the
Asia Pacific Region, Hong Kong, January 5-7.
Murphy, S. (2004) Aborigines test sea rights law.
Retrieved on December 26, 2006 from
http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2004/s1148
417.htm
Pavlova, M. (2006) Do we Value all Values in
Technology Education? Technology Education
Research Conference, Surfers Paradise, Australia, 6-9
December.
Petrina, S, Volk, K. & Kim, S. (2004) Technology and
Rights. International Journal of Technology and
Design Education, 14(3).
Petrina, S. (2006) On Techno-Theology and the
Sacred: Exploring Technology and Spirituality. TERC
2006 (Technology Education Research Conference),
Surfers Paradise, Australia, 6-9 December.
Spendlove, D. (2006). Person, Process, Product: A
Conceptualisation of Emotion within Three Creative
Subjects. Paper Presented at British Education
Research Association Conference, Warwick University
6-9 September.
Stables, K. (2006) Valuing Creativity: The Perceptions
of Learners and Teachers and how these Relate to
Performance. Technology Education Research
Conference, Surfers Paradise, Australia, 6-9
December.
Williams, P.J. & Wellbourne-Wood, S. (2006) ‘Design
for Experience: a New Rationale.’ Design and
Technology Education: An International Journal,
11(2), 9-19.
The Spirituality of Fishing: Reflections on assessment


The spirituality of fishing : reflections on assessment

Purpose: Following an first-time opportunity to run a face-to-face workshop with Computer Science First Years the self-imposed brief was to use activities that captured their imagination, be innovative, yet within the author’s technical capabilities. A course wiki, or mass collaborative authoring tool, was an obvious choice for this community. 
Methodology/approach: The paper reports on observations of two groups; the first observation discusses students use of a course wiki in a face-to-face information literacy session, the second discusses use of a separate wiki by a group of information professionals at a CPD event. 
Findings: The Computer Science students engaged with the wiki and associated activities and posted some very interesting comments. Encouraging reflection in class following an activity allows a teacher to gauge understanding and just as importantly, to elicit student views. The ability to post anonymously is welcomed by students and teacher alike and mitigates against a cohort going mute when a question has been posed. Whilst using a wiki with Computer Science First Years was extremely successful, mixed results were achieved with a much less homogenous group of information professionals at a CPD event. 
Originality/value of paper: Wikis are increasingly being used in education and in libraries and in some cases in library education or information literacy. Whilst examples of these can be found easily there is an apparent dearth of writings on how wikis might be used in a face-to-face information literacy session. This article reports on the experience of using a wiki in two different IL scenarios

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The spirituality of fishing : reflections on assessment

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