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embedded in the world. The task of teaching thinking by opening, deepening,
and widening spaces of dialogue involves changing cultural practices and social
structures.
Towards a Framework for the Design of Educational Technology
that can Teach Thinking as Dialogue Across Difference
Converting the theoretical foundation for design argued for above into educational
activities requires an intermediate framework for design consisting of flexible design
principles, exemplars, and key questions to ask. Below we put forward a provisional
framework for design based on (1) conceptual analysis of the components of an
account of teaching and learning thinking understood as movement into dialogue
across difference and (2) an assessment of what has worked in already tried and
tested educational designs to promote creative dialogic thinking. Conceptually this
model of teaching thinking assumes that thinking is limited by closed identities and
monologic or systemic practices so the first aim must be to open dialogic spaces
understood as spaces of internal freedom within the external constraints of a situa-
tion and the next aim is to improve the educational quality of these spaces drawing
participants more completely into dialogue through deepening and widening these
spaces.
Opening Dialogic Spaces
There are ways of using ICT in education which close down dialogic space and
ways which open this up. Tutorial software used individually closes down dialogue
when the same sort of questions and tasks given to a group will open up dialogic
spaces within the curriculum. Simulations that encourage fast and furious engage-
ment will close down dialogue when the same interfaces with a prompt for talking
that interrupts the action will open up dialogic spaces (Wegerif et al., 2003). A sin-
gular affordance of new media technologies is the possibility of supporting new
dialogic spaces anywhere and everywhere, from interactive blogs under exhibits in
museums to texted exchanges between pupils in different classrooms. But the tech-
nological support alone does not make a dialogic space. One of the key findings
from Wegerif's research with Neil Mercer, Lyn Dawes, Karen Littleton, and oth-
ers on collaborative learning around computers in classrooms is that, for effective
shared thinking, it is not enough just to place people in groups but they need to
be prepared for working together in groups beforehand (Wegerif & Dawes, 2004).
Applying discourse ground rules such as asking open questions and listening with
respect to others opens up a creative dialogic space.
As well as the Thinking Together approach described by Wegerif and Dawes,
Philosophy for Children also seems effective as a method of teaching for engage-
ment in dialogic thinking. In one EC-funded study, “Philosophy Hotel”, similar
