In the graphic to your right...
BOK = Body of Knowledge
CYO = Create Your Own
PLU = People Like Us
PP = Pedagogical Pragmatists
Body of Knowledge
If you're training aircraft maintenance people you don't really encourage creativity: "Hmmm, I wonder how she'd go with lighter bolts in there?" There's this Body of Knowledge about how to maintain aircraft, and it's like the law, and like medicine. It's an instructor's job to guide the student through the material, to situate, to interpret, and to test.
Create Your Own
By contrast, multimedia students may, after some basic instruction in first principles, be let loose to create their own meaning using a bunch of storylines and a range of software packages. I was about to say, "nobody was ever harmed by a multimedia show", but then I had momentarily forgotten photosensitive epilepsy.
People Like Us
In some Communities of Practice it is more important how you do it, than what you do it on. The ethics of anthropology are much the same whether you are studying a lost tribe or hospital laundry workers (Bernard, p.26). Engineers think, speak and behave like engineers (Kidder) whether they are mechanical, structural or software engineers. Industry trainers take a somewhat different approach to tertiary educators. So, it's kind of a blend of BOK and CYO, but with inviolable PLU.
Pedagogical Pragmatists
Members of the PP category roll up their sleeves and get on with building e-learning. They acknowledge the tensions existing between the other three categories, and they mix-and-match to solve problems and move forward.
Bernard, H.R. (2006) Research Methods in Anthropology: qualitative and quantitative approaches. Fourth Edition. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Brooks, F.P. (1995) The Mythical Man-Month, essays on software engineering. Anniversary Ed. Boston: Addison-Wesley.
Conole, G. & Oliver, M. (Editors) (2007) Contemporary Perspectives in E-learning Research. Abingdon: Routledge.
Kidder T. (2000) The Soul of a New Machine. New York: Little Brown & Co, Back Bay Books.