Abstract: This is a paper about the design of systems that are part human, part machine. It uses a framework for understanding the nature of technology that builds on W. Brian Arthur's notion of technology as the orchestration of phenomena to some use and the nature of technologies as assemblies. Technologies are treated as existing on a continuum between soft and hard, with soft technologies orchestrated by humans and hard ones embedding that orchestration within the technology. The concept is explored in relation to Athabasca Landing, a deliberately soft social system that attempts to avoid predetermined purpose and design so that its inhabitants actively create the technology as they use it. The paper describes some issues that arise and steps being taken to address them.

Abstract: Formal teaching of adults has evolved in a context de ned, initially, by the constraints of physical boundaries. Classroom walls directly entail timetables, norms and rules of behaviour, social segregation into organized groups and, notably, the course as a fundamental unit of instruction. Our adult education systems are well adapted to provide ef cient and cost-effective teaching within those boundaries. Digitally embodied boundaries are far more uid, open, permeable, scalable, metaphorical and fuzzy. This has helped to drive the increasing dominance of e-learning in intentional informal learning and yet methods that emerge from physical boundaries dominate institutional e-learning, though they are a poor t with the media. This paper is an exploration of the implications of the removal of physical boundaries to online pedagogies, many of which challenge our most cherished educational foundations and assumptions.