Last spring, Amy Collier and I gave a talk at the Emerging Technologies for Online Learning conference in Dallas, called ‘Mess in Online Education‘. We were delighted to then be invited by George Veletsianos to contribute a chapter on a related theme to the second edition of his ‘Emerging Technologies in Distance Education’ edited collection, currently in press (due late 2015). In the first edition, George defined emerging technologies as being, amongst other things, ‘not yet fully understood’ and ‘not yet fully researched, or researched in a mature way’ (Veletsianos 2010, p.15). In writing our chapter, Amy & I landed on the idea of ‘not-yetness’, and this has turned out to be a fantastically useful and generative concept for us.

Our chapter focuses on not-yetness as it relates to complexity and mess in teaching online:
digital practices contribute to the fruitful mess that characterises education, casting new light on issues of power, responsibility, sustainability, reach and contact. …a key element of emerging technology is its not-yetness: there is so much we do not know when we engage with these technologies. We must therefore choose to dwell as teachers in [a] state of radical and enduring uncertainty …We need practices that acknowledge and work with complexity to help us stay open to what may be genuinely surprising about what happens when online learning and teaching meets emerging technologies. (Collier & Ross, in press)
We’ve since separately been talking about not-yetness at conferences and events, and for each of us the concept has begun to send out new roots and shoots. Amy blogged eloquently about her take a few days ago:
Not-yetness is not satisfying every condition, not fully understanding something, not check-listing everything, not tidying everything, not trying to solve every problem…but creating space for emergence to take us to new and unpredictable places, to help us better understand the problems we are trying to solve.
– http://redpincushion.us/blog/teaching-and-learning/not-yetness/
She describes ‘the play, the fun, the opportunity in complexity and not-yetness’, and argues that ‘the ill-defined, the un-prescribed, the messy can lead to the unexpected, the joyful’.
Not-yetness has become an important part of my thinking this year about digital education practice and research. As I’ve moved towards the end of my time as programme director of the MSc in Digital Education, I’ve been inspired by the idea of the ‘edges’ of digital education: where I think we need to stay to make sure that what we do remains distinctive and relevant as the educational ground continually shifts. At our MSc away day last year, we grappled with the edges of digital education in a team session which went on to generate the Online Professional Learning Incubator, a ‘micro credits’ course called Open Themes in Digital Education which is currently working its way through the university approval process, and new collaborations and projects on playful analytics and MOOC reuse. These edges require not-yetness, and the openness to uncertainty and surprise it brings.
Then I was invited to give a plenary talk at a seminar in Limerick, Ireland called ‘Building an evidence base for enhanced digital pedagogy for online learning‘, and in thinking about evidence-based practice and the nature of evidence more generally, I found not-yetness a useful critical tool for considering what happens at the edges of digital education research.
I’m exploring that further in an in-progress journal article about how we can do research that helps us engage in ‘intelligent problem solving’ (Biesta 2010) and ‘inventive problem-making’ (Michael 2012) in digital education, where we have a particular need for methodological approaches that can grapple with not-yetness. One such set of approaches is known as ‘speculative design’, ‘speculative method’, or ‘design fictions’. These approaches are aimed at envisioning or crafting particular futures or conditions which may not yet currently exist, to provoke new ways of thinking and to bring certain ideas or issues into focus. Wilkie, Michael and Plummer-Fernandez (2014) describe a speculative method involving the creation of a series of ‘Twitter-bots’ to participate in exchanges about environmental issues, and they characterise these bots as:
methodological interventions that are overtly constitutive of the material that is gathered, but in ways that are open, ambiguous or troublesome. In triggering such responses, the aim is to access new and emergent formulations of the ‘issues at stake’… (p.2)
This is, I think, a lovely way of understanding not-yetness. And in fact my own experience with twitterbots this year (the EDCMOOC teacherbot, generated from a project led by Siân Bayne) echoes this concern with new ways of formulating ‘issues at stake’, in this case the nature and role of the digital teacher.
Now I’m about to put not-yetness into practice in a different context, as May sees the start of a new research project (Artcasting, funded by the AHRC and working with the ARTIST ROOMS research partnership partners, including National Galleries of Scotland and Tate) that will use mobilities theories and speculative design approaches to examine and help to rethink how gallery educators can evaluate visitors’ engagement with art.
I look forward to seeing how not-yetness keeps evolving in light of the experiences we’re having and feedback we’re receiving as we discuss and work with this concept.
https://twitter.com/amcollier/status/586294603780861952
@amcollier brilliant! And I've responded. 🙂 http://t.co/VbApuOQOxz @veletsianos @holden @GardnerCampbell
— Jen Ross (@jar) April 13, 2015
‘Not-yetness’ – research and teaching at the edges of digital education
@amcollier & I have been blogging about the concept of #notyetness & what it means for us: http://t.co/0vcchNuLMz ; http://t.co/VbApuOQOxz
— Jen Ross (@jar) April 13, 2015
https://twitter.com/amcollier/status/587643561060904961
@amcollier Have also adopted #notyetness for household chores.
As in, "Dishes? Later. Too busy researching #notyetness."
Response: What?— Alyson Indrunas (@AlysonIndrunas) April 13, 2015
Love this! "And embracing #notyetness requires courage, room for forgiveness, & for things to not always be perfect" https://t.co/SJ8N7S9qcZ
— Alyson Indrunas (@AlysonIndrunas) April 14, 2015
https://twitter.com/amcollier/status/588101114437971968
http://redpincushion.me/
"not-yetness is the space that allows for emergence." really interesting. #rhizo15 https://t.co/qQa7s8S0SF
— Bonnie Stewart (@bonstewart) April 14, 2015
@amcollier It's just chat at the moment but it relates to our 'pedagogies of ambiguity'. Not-yetness is a helpful element of this
— David White (@daveowhite) April 14, 2015
https://twitter.com/amcollier/status/589109369427480576
https://plus.google.com/+HsiaoyunChan曾曉韻/posts/5tdUwdjCzRM#storify/13e6e57e55f446722bbe75b106194ceb
https://twitter.com/veletsianos/status/588114961429356544
In Defense of *gasp* Facebook http://t.co/GSKBhgXrcJ #rhizo15 #notyetness
— Lisa Chamberlin (@chambo_online) April 15, 2015
@chambo_online I like the idea of a 'continuum of emergence'. 🙂 #notyetness
— Jen Ross (@jar) April 15, 2015
Notyetness & the EverythingIsAwesome/Lego-set view of over-accountability in Ed by @amcollier http://t.co/8ih3qRtVz2 #rhizo15 @chambo_online
— Joanne Dolan (@SlightlyJo) April 15, 2015
@amdulin best blog post read all year. accountability movements run counter to the best learning? http://t.co/CHW5VRO2gx via @amcollier
— Kristen Eshleman (@kreshleman) April 15, 2015
I LOVE @amcollier's posts about "not-yetness" (or what I think of as "living in perpetual beta"): http://t.co/jFit0exbS2
— Ashley Shaw (@ashleygshaw) April 15, 2015
love the explorative wonder of 'not-yetness' @amcollier @GardnerCampbell @holden @jimgroom @davecormier @ddmeyer @audreywatters @jar #genius
— Tom Evans (@taevans) April 14, 2015
@catherinecronin Have you seen this? http://t.co/lbSEvah8eH
— Simon Warren (@worried_teacher) April 15, 2015
@worried_teacher @amcollier @jar yes! love this concept. want to explore more…
— Catherine Cronin (@catherinecronin) April 15, 2015
https://francesbell.wordpress.com/
mentioned @jennymackness @sheilmcn @chambo_online @Neil_Selwyn @R3beccaF Are we there yet? the notyetness of … http://t.co/VEHZYwNBPP
— Frances Bell (@francesbell) April 16, 2015
https://twitter.com/amcollier/status/588723015157841921
Interesting @FrancesBell post. Emerging technologies practice in education in a state of "notyetness" https://t.co/a5f0EtCCFg
— Gordon McLeod (@LearnTribe) April 16, 2015
Not-yetness: research and teaching at the edge of digital education. Good post @jenross. http://t.co/SZYt2bRkNo #elearning.
— Michael Gallagher (@mseangallagher) April 16, 2015
https://twitter.com/amcollier/status/588729284144996352
https://twitter.com/cljennings/status/588735930980126721
#notyetness Finding its way into my presentation materials about #OER
Sums up nicely all the challenges & barriers pic.twitter.com/EjLPNwHr2g— Alyson Indrunas (@AlysonIndrunas) April 16, 2015
https://twitter.com/amcollier/status/588837054911418368
Liminality, not yetness, and the pain of waiting http://t.co/UWcQBZbpsE h/t @kreshleman @amcollier
— A. Michael Berman (@amichaelberman) April 17, 2015
New on the blog – summary from today's fantastic session with @CMSinclair around online learning https://t.co/YDIWmOYVSK #GCUBlend
— GCU Learn (@GCUBlend) April 21, 2015
https://twitter.com/holden/status/590667321884147713
#et4online @amcollier mentions work w/ @jar on "not yet-ness." Reminds me of something I've said about learning as a space of "not knowing."
— Jesse Stommel (@Jessifer) April 24, 2015
MT @Jessifer: #et4online @amcollier mentions work w/ @jar on "not yet-ness." .. I've said learning a space of "not knowing." Scary but yes!
— Jane Harris (@janedh) April 24, 2015
As a child I learned best by getting messy in life, why should that stop in my adulthood & career. #et4messy #et4online #notyetness #explore
— Tom Evans (@taevans) April 24, 2015
@amcollier: Is not-yetness a thing of privilege? #et4messy #etonline
— Dr. Laura Gogia (@GoogleGuacamole) April 24, 2015
not-yetness. No, we're not there yet, stop asking and immerse yourself 😉 #et4online
— Apostolos K. (@koutropoulos) April 24, 2015
it occurs to me that teaching with risk is another version of #not-yetness #et4online #et4tvsz
— Rebecca Frost Davis (@FrostDavis) April 24, 2015
Enjoyed the intimate discussion on #notyetness w/ @amcollier @Jessifer @slamteacher and others need more sessions like that #et4online
— Patrice Torcivia (@Profpatrice) April 24, 2015
#notyetness requires faculty and students stepping out of comfort zone and needs to be done w/intention and thought #et4online
— Patrice Torcivia (@Profpatrice) April 24, 2015
@amcollier would love to chat more about institutional culture and #notyetness which now comes up as a suggested word : )
— Patrice Torcivia (@Profpatrice) April 24, 2015
Maxine Greene: 'I am what I am not yet' shared at the #et4messy unconference table #learning #unet4online #et4online #notyetness @scragg_OSU
— Tom Evans (@taevans) April 24, 2015
Connecting to not-yetness & embracing mess: http://t.co/5CxR836Nzo (H/T the peerless Maxine Greene) #unet4online #et4online @jar @amcollier
— Ben Scragg (@bscragg) April 24, 2015
@JeffreyKeefer @EatcherVeggies have you heard about @amcollier & @jar's not-yetness? Seems like something you'd like http://t.co/zqF5K4YbFr
— Dr. Laura Gogia (@GoogleGuacamole) April 26, 2015
@amcollier @jar I'd like to see entire book on not-yetness from diff perspectives; instructional design,learner (traditional&non), faculty
— Dr. Laura Gogia (@GoogleGuacamole) April 26, 2015
"… embracing not-yetness requires courage, room for forgiveness, and for things to not always be perfect. http://t.co/mnZUanegcS
— cv harquail (@cvharquail) April 27, 2015
Having problems shaking not-yetness defined as not fully understood/not fully researched.Resigned 2 being obsessed. @amcollier @veletsianos
— Dr. Laura Gogia (@GoogleGuacamole) April 27, 2015
https://twitter.com/veletsianos/status/592715047425679366
@SuzanKoseoglu @Bali_Maha start with @amcollier http://t.co/zqF5K4YbFr on not-yetness which leads to @veletsianos @GardnerCampbell etc
— Dr. Laura Gogia (@GoogleGuacamole) April 27, 2015
@GoogleGuacamole thanks! been hearing about not-yetness a lot so would be int. to tie that to @GardnerCampbell's talk and @veletsianos
— Suzan Koseoglu (@SuzanKoseoglu) April 27, 2015
@veletsianos @GoogleGuacamole @amcollier I see not-yetness as my gradeschool playground where I'm free to play & unashamedly scrape my knees
— Tom Evans (@taevans) April 27, 2015
https://twitter.com/amcollier/status/593561366197243905
Todo: Think about #not-yetness more. @amcollier http://t.co/scQ31GsYd9
— Jeff Rimland (@jeffIST) April 29, 2015
@amcollier Does it go against not-yetness to put it on my todo list? : )
— Jeff Rimland (@jeffIST) April 30, 2015
Not-yetness as messy learning. It has been in my thoughts, my work, & on my person since #et4online http://t.co/VorTkP5jK6 via @amcollier
— Dr. Laura Gogia (@GoogleGuacamole) April 30, 2015
And yes,I managed to connect @jadedid's http://t.co/pU7zGTq5Qs & @amcollier's http://t.co/VorTkP5jK6 in my life – Can you? w/o edu-jargon?:)
— Dr. Laura Gogia (@GoogleGuacamole) April 30, 2015
Messy love and #notyetness from @amcollier http://t.co/5HO0i5EHXN So brilliant.
— Robin Bartoletti (@robinwb) May 2, 2015
@amcollier Shared #NotYetness w faculty at a local conference & they LOVED it!
Ppl listen Amy tell it http://t.co/JggbYxx7dS@gsiemens too:)— Alyson Indrunas (@AlysonIndrunas) May 2, 2015
@francesbell @mdvfunes critical pedagogy as unsettling found here http://t.co/JdT2sm56nG reminds me of @amcollier's concerns re:not-yetness
— Dr. Laura Gogia (@GoogleGuacamole) May 4, 2015
@GoogleGuacamole maybe becoming is endless notyetness – Vivienne Hodgson core to NL community @mdvfunes @amcollier
— Frances Bell (@francesbell) May 4, 2015
@francesbell @veletsianos suggests notyetness is only 1/4 of 'emergence' so I'm not equating notyetness&becoming (yet) @mdvfunes @amcollier
— Dr. Laura Gogia (@GoogleGuacamole) May 4, 2015
Great post & food for thought via @amcollier Highly recommend you take a min: http://t.co/LyJezelPzQ #BFC530 #tlap
— Jessica Raleigh (@TyrnaD) May 5, 2015
Some older things…
@gavinclinch I heard that @jar was doing a keynote maybe today… context? notyetness sounds fun… is it?
— dave cormier (@davecormier) February 17, 2015
@davecormier @jar Ìt's fun alright! – the fun of the unknown where we don't even know what questions to ask but #rhizo15 forking might find
— Gavin Clinch (@gavinclinch) February 17, 2015
@davecormier @gavinclinch 🙂 @amcollier and I are thinking 'notyetness' is fun! Chapter in press in @veletsianos ' new collection.
— Jen Ross (@jar) February 17, 2015
@jar @gavinclinch @amcollier @veletsianos hmm… how long do i have to wait? how about now? now?
— dave cormier (@davecormier) February 17, 2015
https://twitter.com/veletsianos/status/567708200988708865
@davecormier @jar @amcollier @veletsianos aah the deferred gratification of "notyetness"
— Gavin Clinch (@gavinclinch) February 17, 2015
http://sched.co/2IqP
@amcollier #wshetc15 Super cutie son. Can't wait to see what good in the world he will create. #FutureFeministAlert pic.twitter.com/g99Bl8Or2O
— Alyson Indrunas (@AlysonIndrunas) March 13, 2015
When we hear @amcollier "not yet" but "we need to do this" everyone should say "Yes!" & our "not yetness" moves faster bc of ppl like you.
— Alyson Indrunas (@AlysonIndrunas) March 13, 2015
Finding it hard to not run up & embrace @amcollier for advocating for freedom for faculty to embrace #NotYetness
— Alyson Indrunas (@AlysonIndrunas) March 13, 2015
#wshetc15 @amcollier advocating for us to "enjoy" #NotYetness on our campuses. We should tell faculty *this* is where it gets interesting.
— Alyson Indrunas (@AlysonIndrunas) March 13, 2015
@francesbell @amcollier casting on so many ideas. Never *felt* so inspired by the phrase #NotYetness Could work row after row.
— Alyson Indrunas (@AlysonIndrunas) March 13, 2015
http://www.concordia.ca/cunews/main/stories/2015/03/24/amy-collier-strategic-directions-technology-to-create-meaningful-learning-experiences.html
https://sites.middlebury.edu/ctlr/category/staff/
Amy Collier @Middlebury "embracing not-yetness of emerging technologies & digital learning" #notyetness
— Tracy Himmel Isham (@middccg) March 31, 2015
"Connectedness is one of the most exciting parts in digital learning"-an essential of embracing not-yetness. @Middlebury @digitalearning
— Tracy Himmel Isham (@middccg) March 31, 2015
Embracing not-yetness in emerging technologies and digital learning
Inspired @amcollier Embrace 'Not Yet-Ness' & help minimize institutional barriers @stefaniecorona pic.twitter.com/KRvRAdIXGZ
— Natalie Roper (@roper_natalie) April 2, 2015
Other ‘notyetness’ unrelated to ours!
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/asa/asa2015/panels.php5?PanelID=3365
References:
Biesta, G.J.J., 2010. Why “What Works” Still Won’t Work: From Evidence-Based Education to Value-Based Education. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 29(5), pp.491–503.
Collier, A. & Ross, J., in press. Complexity, mess and not-yetness: teaching online with emerging technologies. In G. Veletsianos, ed. Emerging Technologies in Distance Education, 2nd edition. Athabasca University Press.
Michael, M., 2012. “What Are We Busy Doing?” Engaging the Idiot. Science, Technology & Human Values, 37(5), pp.528–554.
Veletsianos, G., 2010. Emerging Technologies in Distance Education, Athabasca University Press. Available at: http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120177
Wilkie, A., Michael, M. & Plummer-Fernandez, M., 2014. Speculative method and Twitter: Bots, energy and three conceptual characters. The Sociological Review, 63(1), pp.79-101.
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