This paper aims to provide principles and to give a case study of the application of Bateson’s ideas to promote epistemological change in organisations to deal with problems which many governments currently attempt to address by control through detailed performance indicators and top-down monitoring. It suggests that epistemological change requires an approach that goes beyond rational argument and provides an example of the way that emotional engagement and story telling can be built into action research based on cybernetic ideas. Bateson stresses the need for an epistemological change to embrace an understanding of the implications of circular causation to underpin our approach to problems and policy making. The case study shows how research using systemic principles can address epistemological change at all its stages including data collection and dissemination. In this way the research aims to become a conversation in which participants can reflect on the epistemological assumptions that underpin their actions. Relevance: Following Maturana and Bateson it is found that a reflexive conversation that engages participants through emotion and story telling as well as demonstrating reflection on the researcher’s own assumptions can powerfully engage participants in changing how they see problems and what they do. Whilst rational argument can be used to develop and expand a rational domain, including the rational domain of cybernetics, the paper suggests that the introduction of a systemic or cybernetic understanding to newcomers instead requires aesthetic seduction that can be achieved by promoting reflection on epistemological assumptions through story telling and emotional engagement.

In the last two decades, one can clearly observe a boom of interest for e-learning and web-supported programs. However, one can also notice that many of these programs focus on the accumulation and delivery of content generally as a business industry with no much concern for theoretical underpinnings. The existing research, at least in online English language teaching (ELT), has demonstrated a lack of an effective online teaching pedagogy anchored in a well-defined theoretical framework. Hence, this paper comes as an attempt to present constructivism as one of the theoretical bases for the design of an effective online language teaching pedagogy which is at the same time technologically intelligent and theoretically informed to help envision how education can best take advantage of the information and communication technology (ICT) tools. The present paper discusses the key principles underlying constructivism, its implications for online language teaching design, as well as its limitations that should be avoided in the e-learning instructional design. Although the paper is theoretical in nature, essentially based on an extensive literature survey on constructivism, it does have practical illustrations from an action research conducted by the author both as an e-tutor of English using Moodle online educational platform at the Virtual University of Tunis (VUT) from 2007 up to 2010 and as a face-to-face (F2F) English teaching practitioner in the Professional Certificate of English Language Teaching Training (PCELT) at AMIDEAST, Tunisia (April-May, 2013).

The aim of this paper is to provide characterization of the Constructivist Research Method and to make clear how it differs from Action Research. Constructivist Research is based on Constructivist Learning in the way Action Research is based on Action Learning, but unlike Action Research, Constructivist Research relies essentially on constructionist or design thinking. However, while Action Research is widely known and theoretically studied, Constructive Research appears to lack theoretical exposition and recognition, in spite of its abundance in research practice. The paper will characterize Constructive Research in the Computing field, with examples from Software Engineering and Cognitive Science taking into account its typically multi- disciplinary and cross-disciplinary nature. Finally the relationships of Constructivist Research method with the Info-Computational Paradigm of knowledge production will be addressed.

This book is a cyber-systemic inquiry that has at its core the Maturanan questions: “What do we do when we do what we do?” and “What does it mean to live in language?” Systems are understood as epistemological devices brought forth by observers. The book is divided into four parts beginning with the societal need to move towards more systemic and adaptive governance against the backdrop of human-induced climate change. Part II unpacks what is involved in systems practice by means of a juggler isophor (sensu Maturana). Part III identifies factors constraining the uptake of systems practice and makes the case for innovation in practice by means of systemic inquiry, systemic action research and systemic intervention. The conclusion examines how systems practice is, or might be, utilised at different levels from the personal to the societal. The development of our capabilities to think and act systemically is an urgent priority and Systems Practice aims to show how to do systems thinking and translate that thinking into praxis (theory informed practical action) which will be welcomed by those managing in situations of complexity and uncertainty across all domains of professional and personal concern.

Innovations in the use of Information and Communications Technologies ICT, give rise to organisational change as a more or less intended concomitant. At the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom, ICT is being deployed in a number of innovative ways to support the delivery of education and training and associated business processes. Part of my role, as a learning technology specialist, is to act as a facilitator of organisational change. In this paper, I give an account of my work. For guidance, I draw on the action learning, action research and organisational change literatures. I also explicitly draw on sociocybernetics to provide key concepts and principles. I set out my understanding of these key concepts and principles and illustrate their relevance and application using my Defence Academy and some other experiences as case studies.

Key words: organisational change, sociocybernetics, social system, human communication, trust, managing variety

Don Schon’s ideas of reflective practice and organizational learning are connected with second order cybernetics. This connection enables a rethinking of a science center in terms of the ways that science is presented and “understood” and the organizational relationships, at all levels, that allow for and sustain the process of that rethinking. Through a conversation, emergent tensions (including the multiple hearings of a generative metaphor) are explored that point to the very frames within which a science center organizes itself. A scaffolding of an action research program for the science center is offered, emanating from questions raised in the conversation. Finally, a reformulation of some of Schon’s key ideas that motivated the project is offered – from a reflection-in-action to a reflection-in-inter-action, linked to a second order organizational

This article seeks to interrogate conceptions of cognition and knowledge, explicit and implicit, that underpin conventional projects of educational research. Developed around our own efforts to make sense of the contingent and complex nature of a recent action research project, the discussion develops an enactivist account of cognition that is offered as an alternative both to subject-centred orientations (e.g. representationism and constructivism) and culture-privileging accounts (e.g. critical and sociocultural theories). The relevance of enactivism for educational action research – conceived as a site for learning, and hence tranformative of both individual and collective – is examined in terms of the practical and moral dimensions of the activity.

This article presents a discussion and a new theoretical model about how we adequately can describe education on the level of the classroom after the introduction of digital media and wireless networks. As its point of departure the article describes the contemporary situation within the classroom referring to research in Danish upper secondary schools. Then it discusses this situation in relation to medium theory and the education situation before digital media and wireless networks. After that the article provides a systems theoretical explanation following Niklas Luhmann and finds the theory’s explanatory power limited in relation to the new situation. Next the article introduces actor network theory following Bruno Latour to overcome the limits of Luhmann’s systems theory and reconstruct it framing a hybrid theory both sensitive to the new situation and able to observe it and analyze it adequately as historically linked to the old society. Exemplifying this hybrid theoretical model the article presents the action research project, Socio Media Education, showing pedagogical consequences and possibilities of the new media environment in relation to education. Finally we provide a conclusion on the contemporary situation of social media and the hybridization of

Key words: ANT, Action Research, Education, , media theory, society, systems theory, teaching

Context: The term “second-order cybernetics” was introduced by von Foerster in 1974 as the “cybernetics of observing systems,” both the act of observing systems and systems that observe. Since then, the term has been used by many authors in articles and books and has been the subject of many conference panels and symposia. Problem: The term is still not widely known outside the fields of cybernetics and systems science and the importance and implications of the work associated with second-order cybernetics is not yet widely discussed. I claim that the transition from (first-order) cybernetics to second-order cybernetics is a fundamental scientific revolution that is not restricted to cybernetics or systems science. Second-order cybernetics can be regarded as a scientific revolution for the general methodology of science and for many disciplines as well. Method: I first review the history of cybernetics and second-order cybernetics. Then I analyze the major contents of von Foerster’s fundamental revolution in science and present it as a general model for an alternative methodology of science. Subsequently, I present an example of practicing second-order socio-cybernetics from within. I describe some consequences of doing science from within, and I suggest some new horizons for second-order cybernetics. Results: Second-order cybernetics leads to a new foundation for conducting science and offers important contributions for a new way of organizing science. It expands the conception of science so that it can more adequately deal with living systems. Implications: Second-order cybernetics extends the traditional scientific approach by bringing scientists within the domain of what is described and analyzed. It provides models of research processes for when the scientist is within the system being studied. In this way it offers a new foundation for research in the social sciences, in management science, and in other fields such as the environmental sciences or the life sciences. Keywords: Epistemology, general scientific methodology, cybernetics, social sciences, action research, Heinz von Foerster.

Key words: Epistemology, general scientific methodology, cybernetics, social sciences, action research, Heinz von Foerster