Norm Friesen
Biographic Data
| ID | 3857485 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Norm Friesen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Norm |
| FAMILY NAME | Friesen |
| SIGNATURE | FRIESEN N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Boise State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7810-7129 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 28 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Interview with Stein M. Wivestad
This interview features Stein M. Wivestad, Professor Emeritus of General Pedagogic, discussing the enduring significance of Klaus Mollenhauer’s modern classic, Forgotten Connections: On Culture and Upbringing (Vergessene Zusammenhänge). Wivestad reflects on over thirty years of teaching Mollenhauer’s work to students of education, detailing a unique seminar approach that pairs Mollenhauer’s six central themes—such as presentation, representation,…
Who’s Zoomin’ Who? Videoconferencing & the Pedagogical Gaze – An Interview
This interview between Etienne Vallée and Dr. Norm Friesen explores lived experiences of videoconferencing and the significance of the “pedagogical gaze.” Dr. Friesen details how digital platforms reconfigure human interaction, leading to experiences of simultaneous connection and (bodily) disconnection. Central to the discussion is the “pedagogical triangle”—the relationship between teacher, student, and content—and how technology disrupts essen…
What is (Postdigital) Education? A Debate between Norm Friesen and Petar Jandrić
Norm Friesen is a Professor in Educational Technologies at the Department for Educational Leadership, Research, and Technology, College of Education, Boise State University. Friesen’s work spans a number of areas related to education and technology such as media theory, alternative pedagogies, technical e-learning standardization, phenomenology and the importance of pedagogical tact
Pedagogical Relations in the Postdigital Classroom
Norm Friesen is a Professor in Educational Technologies at the Department for Educational Leadership, Research, and Technology, College of Education, Boise State University. Friesen’s work spans a number of areas related to education and technology: e-learning (Friesen 2009 ), relations between physical and online classrooms (Friesen 2011a ), technology and the new language of learning (Friesen 2013 ), the history and evolution of textbooks and l…
Pedagogical tact and attention
Theory and Practice in Teacher Education
“Friedrich Schleiermacher [wrote]: ‘for every domain that can be called an art in the narrow sense of the word ...practice always precedes theory’ (2021, p. 5). Art is meant here in the sense taken from the Middle Ages, as one speaks of a healing art, the art of statecraft, etc. This means that there has always been—indeed since the beginning of humankind—a kind of education which is manifest in certain practices and [later] in certain institutio…
The Pedagogy of Special Needs Education
What Is Pedagogy? Discovering the Hidden Pedagogical Dimension
What is pedagogy, exactly? Merriam‐Webster defines it simply as “the art, science, or profession of teaching.” In contemporary academic discourse, however, pedagogy is generally left undefined — with its apparent implicit meanings ranging anywhere from a specific “model for teaching” (e.g., behaviorist or progressivist instruction) to a broadly political philosophy of education in general (most famously, a “pedagogy of the oppressed”). In this pa…
Fulfilment
The Oxford English Dictionary defines fulfilment as ‘satisfaction or happiness as a result of fully developing one's potential or realizing one's aspirations; self-fulfillment’. Not only has the idea of fulfilment underpinned ‘approximately twenty centuries of philosophy’ as Lefebvre notes, it plays an indispensable role in both popular and scholarly accounts of education and upbringing. Experiences of education, of upbringing and of ‘life lesson…
Klaus Mollenhauer
Klaus Mollenhauer (1928–1998) is one of the most important German theorists of education in the postwar era. Mollenhauer is often remembered in Germany today for his first book titled Education and Emancipation: Polemical Sketches, but he received international renown for his final monograph, Forgotten Connections: On Culture and Upbringing. Although Mollenhauer characterized Forgotten Connections as actually working to move towards a more “subst…
Dilthey and Human Science
Using Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as an example, this paper introduces Wilhlem Dilthey’s (1833–1911) hermeneutics and pedagogical theory. Dilthey saw biographies (and autobiographies like Angelou’s) as nothing less than “the highest and most instructive form of the understanding of life.” This, then, serves as the starting point for his hermeneutics or theory of understanding, which distinguishes humanistic understanding from s…
‘Education as a Geisteswissenschaft ’
Human Science Pedagogy is ‘a strange case,’ as Jürgen Oelkers has recently noted: In the Anglophone world, where Gert Biesta has compellingly encouraged scholars to ‘reconsider education as a Geisteswissenschaft’ (a human science) its main themes and the contributions of its central figures remain unknown. For Germans, particularly in more ‘general’ or philosophical areas of educational scholarship (i.e. Allgemeine Pädagogik), this same pedagogy …
Towards a Pedagogical Hermeneutics
The manifesto authored by Hodgson, Vlieghe, and Zamoj-ski outlines five principles for a “Post-Critical Pedagogy.” The first principle is that there are indeed principles to defend, and the second, that a pedagogical hermeneutics, rather than what might be called a critical “hermeneutics of suspicion,”1 is now needed in education. Correlatively, the third principle calls for the end of critical pedagogy, and the fourth and fifth principles for a …
Towards a Pedagogical Hermeneutics
The genealogy of the textbook as an educational form
In this article, I provide a short but broad history of the textbook as a multimedia pedagogical and cultural form. In doing so, I pay particular attention to the interrelationship of oral and textual media and cultures, highlighting the ways that these two communicative modes are reconfigured over the history of this pedagogical form. I also situate the textbook in the context of changing instructional methods and practices, and I demonstrate th…
Erziehung und Unterricht
Der Band verweist auf Johann Friedrich Herbarts »Allgemeine Pädagogik« (1806), eines der wichtigsten grundlegenden Werke in der Entwicklung der wissenschaftlichen Pädagogik, auf allgemeingültige systematische und begriffliche pädagogische Positionen und verknüpft diese mit Aspekten aktueller erziehungswissenschaftlicher Diskurse. Die »Allgemeine Pädagogik« von Johann Friedrich Herbart gilt als eine Grundlagenschrift der Pädagogik, die im Hinblick…
The Textbook and the Lecture
The Textbook and the Lecture
Why are the fundamentals of education apparently so little changed in our era of digital technology? Is their obstinate persistence evidence of resilience or obsolescence? Such questions can best be answered not by imagining an uncertain high-tech future, but by examining a well-documented past―a history of instruction and media that extends from Gilgamesh to Google. Norm Friesen looks to the combination and reconfiguration of oral, textual, and …
Confessional technologies of the self
Foucault’s general notion of “technologies of the self” provides an invaluable starting point for investigating a range of broadly “confessional” practices and technologies over time — from medieval confession to contemporary forms of networked identity construction. Foucault defines technologies of the self as “reflected and voluntary practices by which men not only fix rules of conduct for themselves but seek to transform themselves, to change …
Tact and the pedagogical triangle
Media Transatlantic
Training and Abrichtung
As a landmark philosopher of language and of mind, Ludwig Wittgenstein is also remarkable for having crossed, with apparent ease, the ‘continental divide’ in philosophy. It is consequently not surprising that Wittgenstein’s work, particularly in the Philosophical Investigations, has been taken up by philosophers of education in English. Michael A. Peters, Christopher Winch, Paul Smeyers and Nicholas Burbules, and others have engaged extensively w…
Nacherzeugung, Nachverstehen
It is widely acknowledged in science education that everyday understandings and evidence are generally inconsistent with the scientific view of the matter: “heartache” has little to do with matters cardiopulmonary, and a rising or setting sun actually reflects the movements of the earth. How then does a member of the general public, which in many areas of science is characterized as “illiterate” and “non-scientific,” come to regard something scie…
The Past and Likely Future of an Educational Form
At a time when it is seen as increasingly “obsolete,” this article analyzes the textbook as an evolving pedagogical form, as a changing medium comprised of smaller media components. These components include images, diagrams and also oral prompts, which have changed not so much through technical innovation as in synchrony with larger cultural and epistemological developments. This article investigates the increasingly sophisticated structuring of …
The Anatomy Lecture Then and Now
Although there are many points of continuity, there are also a number of changes in the pedagogical form of the anatomy lecture over the longue durée, over centuries of epistemic change, rather than over years or decades. The article begins with an analysis of the physical and technical arrangements of the early modern anatomy lecture, showing how these present a general underlying similarity compared to those in place today. It then goes on to c…
Erziehung und Unterricht
Der Band verweist auf Johann Friedrich Herbarts »Allgemeine Pädagogik« (1806), eines der wichtigsten grundlegenden Werke in der Entwicklung der wissenschaftlichen Pädagogik, auf allgemeingültige systematische und begriffliche pädagogische Positionen und verknüpft diese mit Aspekten aktueller erziehungswissenschaftlicher Diskurse. Die »Allgemeine Pädagogik« von Johann Friedrich Herbart gilt als eine Grundlagenschrift der Pädagogik, die im Hinblick…
The Lecture as a Transmedial Pedagogical Form
The lecture has been much maligned as a pedagogical form, yet it persists and even flourishes today in the form of the podcast, the TED talk, and the “smart” lecture hall. This article examines the lecture as a pedagogical genre, as “a site where differences between media are negotiated” (Franzel) as these media coevolve. This examination shows the lecture as bridging oral communication with writing and newer media technologies, rather than as be…
Phenomenology and Surveillance Studies
In response to the increasingly quotidian, even banal character of surveillant practices in postindustrial societies, this article explores the possibility of a theoretical and methodological re-alignment in surveillance studies. This re-alignment entails a move from broadly Foucauldian, macro-level, structural or poststructural analyses, to the existential–phenomenological study of subjective consciousness and experience. This piece illustrates …
Training and Abrichtung
As a landmark philosopher of language and of mind, Ludwig Wittgenstein is also remarkable for having crossed, with apparent ease, the ‘continental divide’ in philosophy. It is consequently not surprising that Wittgenstein’s work, particularly in the Philosophical Investigations, has been taken up by philosophers of education in English. Michael A. Peters, Christopher Winch, Paul Smeyers and Nicholas Burbules, and others have engaged extensively w…
Tact and the pedagogical triangle
Fulfilment
The Oxford English Dictionary defines fulfilment as ‘satisfaction or happiness as a result of fully developing one's potential or realizing one's aspirations; self-fulfillment’. Not only has the idea of fulfilment underpinned ‘approximately twenty centuries of philosophy’ as Lefebvre notes, it plays an indispensable role in both popular and scholarly accounts of education and upbringing. Experiences of education, of upbringing and of ‘life lesson…
The genealogy of the textbook as an educational form
In this article, I provide a short but broad history of the textbook as a multimedia pedagogical and cultural form. In doing so, I pay particular attention to the interrelationship of oral and textual media and cultures, highlighting the ways that these two communicative modes are reconfigured over the history of this pedagogical form. I also situate the textbook in the context of changing instructional methods and practices, and I demonstrate th…
The Past and Likely Future of an Educational Form
At a time when it is seen as increasingly “obsolete,” this article analyzes the textbook as an evolving pedagogical form, as a changing medium comprised of smaller media components. These components include images, diagrams and also oral prompts, which have changed not so much through technical innovation as in synchrony with larger cultural and epistemological developments. This article investigates the increasingly sophisticated structuring of …
The Anatomy Lecture Then and Now
Although there are many points of continuity, there are also a number of changes in the pedagogical form of the anatomy lecture over the longue durée, over centuries of epistemic change, rather than over years or decades. The article begins with an analysis of the physical and technical arrangements of the early modern anatomy lecture, showing how these present a general underlying similarity compared to those in place today. It then goes on to c…
The Athabasca University eduSource Project
Athabasca University - Canada's Open University (AU) made the commitment to put all of its courses online as part of its Strategic University Plan. In pursuit of this goal, AU participated in the eduSource project, a pan-Canadian effort to build the infrastructure for an interoperable network of learning object repositories. AU acted as a leader in the eduSource work package, responsible for the metadata and standards for learning objects. In add…
Ed Tech in Reverse’
As we rapidly approach the 50th year of the much‐celebrated ‘cognitive revolution’, it is worth reflecting on its widespread impact on individual disciplines and areas of multidisciplinary endeavour. Of specific concern in this paper is the example of the influence of cognitivism's equation of mind and computer in education. Within education, this paper focuses on a particular area of concern to which both mind and computer are simultaneously cen…
Wikiversity; or education meets the free culture movement
Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, has challenged the way that reference works are used and understood, and even the way that the collective enterprise of knowledge construction and circulation is itself conceptualized. The article presents an ethnographic study of Wikiversity, an educationally-oriented sister project to Wikipedia. It begins by providing an overview of the orientations and aims of Wikiversity, which seeks to provide for par…
Discursive Psychology and Educational Technology
As an alternative to dominant cognitive-constructivist approaches to educational technology, this article makes the case for what has been termed a discursive, or postcognitive, psychological research paradigm. It does so by adapting discursive psychological analyses of conversational activity to the study of educational technology use. It applies these modified techniques specifically to discursive interactions with chatbots or intelligent agent…
Phenomenology and Surveillance Studies
In response to the increasingly quotidian, even banal character of surveillant practices in postindustrial societies, this article explores the possibility of a theoretical and methodological re-alignment in surveillance studies. This re-alignment entails a move from broadly Foucauldian, macro-level, structural or poststructural analyses, to the existential–phenomenological study of subjective consciousness and experience. This piece illustrates …
Mind and machine
Ethics and the technologies of empire
Education and the social Web
In recent years, new socially-oriented Web technologies have been portrayed as placing the learner at the centre of networks of knowledge and expertise, potentially leading to new forms of learning and education. In this paper, I argue that commercial social networks are much less about circulating knowledge than they are about connecting users (“eyeballs”) with advertisers; it is not the autonomous individual learner, but collective corporate in…
The Lecture as a Transmedial Pedagogical Form
The lecture has been much maligned as a pedagogical form, yet it persists and even flourishes today in the form of the podcast, the TED talk, and the “smart” lecture hall. This article examines the lecture as a pedagogical genre, as “a site where differences between media are negotiated” (Franzel) as these media coevolve. This examination shows the lecture as bridging oral communication with writing and newer media technologies, rather than as be…
(Re)Inventing The Internet
"Although it has been in existence for over three decades, the internet remains a contested technology. Its governance and role in civic life, education, and entertainment are all still openly disputed and debated. The issues include censorship and network control, privacy and surveillance, the political impact of activist blogging, peer to peer file sharing, the effects of video games on children, and many others. Media conglomerates, government…
The Past and Likely Future of an Educational Form
At a time when it is seen as increasingly “obsolete,” this article analyzes the textbook as an evolving pedagogical form, as a changing medium comprised of smaller media components. These components include images, diagrams and also oral prompts, which have changed not so much through technical innovation as in synchrony with larger cultural and epistemological developments. This article investigates the increasingly sophisticated structuring of …
The Anatomy Lecture Then and Now
Although there are many points of continuity, there are also a number of changes in the pedagogical form of the anatomy lecture over the longue durée, over centuries of epistemic change, rather than over years or decades. The article begins with an analysis of the physical and technical arrangements of the early modern anatomy lecture, showing how these present a general underlying similarity compared to those in place today. It then goes on to c…
Nacherzeugung, Nachverstehen
It is widely acknowledged in science education that everyday understandings and evidence are generally inconsistent with the scientific view of the matter: “heartache” has little to do with matters cardiopulmonary, and a rising or setting sun actually reflects the movements of the earth. How then does a member of the general public, which in many areas of science is characterized as “illiterate” and “non-scientific,” come to regard something scie…
Media Transatlantic
Training and Abrichtung
As a landmark philosopher of language and of mind, Ludwig Wittgenstein is also remarkable for having crossed, with apparent ease, the ‘continental divide’ in philosophy. It is consequently not surprising that Wittgenstein’s work, particularly in the Philosophical Investigations, has been taken up by philosophers of education in English. Michael A. Peters, Christopher Winch, Paul Smeyers and Nicholas Burbules, and others have engaged extensively w…
The Textbook and the Lecture
The Textbook and the Lecture
Why are the fundamentals of education apparently so little changed in our era of digital technology? Is their obstinate persistence evidence of resilience or obsolescence? Such questions can best be answered not by imagining an uncertain high-tech future, but by examining a well-documented past―a history of instruction and media that extends from Gilgamesh to Google. Norm Friesen looks to the combination and reconfiguration of oral, textual, and …
Confessional technologies of the self
Foucault’s general notion of “technologies of the self” provides an invaluable starting point for investigating a range of broadly “confessional” practices and technologies over time — from medieval confession to contemporary forms of networked identity construction. Foucault defines technologies of the self as “reflected and voluntary practices by which men not only fix rules of conduct for themselves but seek to transform themselves, to change …
Tact and the pedagogical triangle
Towards a Pedagogical Hermeneutics
The manifesto authored by Hodgson, Vlieghe, and Zamoj-ski outlines five principles for a “Post-Critical Pedagogy.” The first principle is that there are indeed principles to defend, and the second, that a pedagogical hermeneutics, rather than what might be called a critical “hermeneutics of suspicion,”1 is now needed in education. Correlatively, the third principle calls for the end of critical pedagogy, and the fourth and fifth principles for a …
Towards a Pedagogical Hermeneutics
The genealogy of the textbook as an educational form
In this article, I provide a short but broad history of the textbook as a multimedia pedagogical and cultural form. In doing so, I pay particular attention to the interrelationship of oral and textual media and cultures, highlighting the ways that these two communicative modes are reconfigured over the history of this pedagogical form. I also situate the textbook in the context of changing instructional methods and practices, and I demonstrate th…
Erziehung und Unterricht
Der Band verweist auf Johann Friedrich Herbarts »Allgemeine Pädagogik« (1806), eines der wichtigsten grundlegenden Werke in der Entwicklung der wissenschaftlichen Pädagogik, auf allgemeingültige systematische und begriffliche pädagogische Positionen und verknüpft diese mit Aspekten aktueller erziehungswissenschaftlicher Diskurse. Die »Allgemeine Pädagogik« von Johann Friedrich Herbart gilt als eine Grundlagenschrift der Pädagogik, die im Hinblick…
Dilthey and Human Science
Using Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as an example, this paper introduces Wilhlem Dilthey’s (1833–1911) hermeneutics and pedagogical theory. Dilthey saw biographies (and autobiographies like Angelou’s) as nothing less than “the highest and most instructive form of the understanding of life.” This, then, serves as the starting point for his hermeneutics or theory of understanding, which distinguishes humanistic understanding from s…
‘Education as a Geisteswissenschaft ’
Human Science Pedagogy is ‘a strange case,’ as Jürgen Oelkers has recently noted: In the Anglophone world, where Gert Biesta has compellingly encouraged scholars to ‘reconsider education as a Geisteswissenschaft’ (a human science) its main themes and the contributions of its central figures remain unknown. For Germans, particularly in more ‘general’ or philosophical areas of educational scholarship (i.e. Allgemeine Pädagogik), this same pedagogy …
Sociology (27 works) · Epistemology (20 works) · Philosophy (18 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Pedagogy (13 works) · Political science (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Educational Philosophies and Pedagogies (7 works)