First I want to say how much I enjoyed your paper, Maggie. It is an exciting read. O.K., some general points first and then more stylistic ones. I’m really happy to discuss any aspects of my review that you want to.

General comments:

I like the way you set up your paper in a framework in which uncertainty is the good guy! Opening up to learning is one of the tenets of a living theory – and of this journal – in the sense of having open reviews in which anyone can read what is said and by whom. I think this is a very strong statement. In my experience uncertainty is feared and mistrusted by people who are not secure in their own sense of self. A certain level of uncertainty is surely the only way we can truly learn deeply because learning is a risk. It might overthrow what we knew before and where we were safe. This is related, to my mind, to the reasons why planning every move in an educational process, or submitting each designated process then with measurements, leads to sterility – I am thinking, for example, England and Wales’ constant political interference in educational measurements, and to my mind these are reducing the opportunities to learn something of value rather than learning pieces of information. A mind that can only accept measured standards is a narrow mind in my opinion. Learning has within it, as your paper shows, an openness to wonder. Without wonder, mystery and beauty in our lives, then we are much the poorer. It is so important that this kind of message that your paper supports, is itself supported! I think this is a very important paper.

I know that there is something truly significant in the idea of melding a Celtic spirituality with the processes of learning with e-technologies, but your paper doesn’t give me enough detail. As a whole strand of your living theory, I expected more detail and linking to your learning and what you find to be of value. I don’t think this is a huge criticism. I think it can be solved quite simply. You introduce it beautifully in your abstract: This constellation includes the unusual combination of an educational response to the flow of energy and meaning in Celtic spirituality and the educational opportunities for learning opened up by digital technology. This isn’t quite how I read and understood your paper, however. Having read the passage in the paper several times, however, it seems that the description near the picture of the sunset is sufficient – for me – where it stands. What I don’t fully understand is how you see that dimension affecting processes in ways you could describe to us. How does this spirituality impact on your learning/teaching programmes? I just think you need to be more specific and draw out the thread so that it is more visible to the reader. It may require literally a few lines here and there to distil it further. I also realise that this is a slippery quality – a spirituality. I am most certainly NOT asking you to measure it! I am, though, asking you to offer how you believe it impacts on you and how it helps you, I assume, to improve the quality of learning.

I very much like the whole nature of your paper. Integrating two such apparently disparate areas of human experience as spirituality and digital technologies is probably a first anywhere! However, I suppose they’re not so far apart, in the way in which the technology can give rise to a greater understanding of the spirituality. I’d like to see that tested more in the paper. Your videos are fantastic, really showing the ways in which people engage as they learn, or learn as they engage! I wonder if more explanation from you about the significance of these videos might help me to understand more about your spirituality as well as the learning with the help of technological aids.

Now to some more nitty gritty points!

Stylistic comments:

Abstract:

The first sentence of the abstract is too long in my opinion. I spent ages trying to understand it fully! I realised the rest of the paper would show me, but I think it could still be shorter to aid comprehension.

By the time I get to this in the abstract, though:

This constellation includes the unusual combination of an educational response to the flow of energy and meaning in Celtic spirituality and the educational opportunities for learning opened up by digital technology .

I’m really keen to read the paper!

Prologue:

The use of a game as an analogy is really neat, because it acts, in my mind, not just as a comparison, but reveals a certain joy you seem to have in the children playing. The way you describe the children draws me in. It’s lovely.

Tolstoi was quite something, wasn’t he? The sense he had that his fiction must have some moral standards to aspire to, is also something I admire him for. Although I imagine some other authors have that in mind, it doesn’t apparently follow that they’re all going to be authors of his stature. I wonder whether that’s what you’re alluding to in a sense of the way in which the rules created for certain processes don’t enable people to play the game. Theory cannot simply be applied!

The way in which you blend anecdote with educational theory is inspiring. There is a seamlessness about it, and this gives me confidence in your authorial voice.

You write on p.2: If I spend three hours with a group of students discussin, Watch the end of â€discussin…’

p.3 When you write: I am cautious of preconceptions I wonder if that can be entirely true. Preconceptions by their nature are not always open to the conscious mind. It might be better to make a tentative comment about your caution.

The way in which you introduce the technological aspects of what you’re considering is done very skilfully. It fits.

p.3: Speed makes the computer a friend that can whisk us along rather than leaving us in frustration. But we need to be attentive to the journey rather than become too fascinated by the technology. I like the possibilities of this, the sense that there is a balance to be achieved. I wonder if this is what your insights into Celtic spirituality can explain for me.

Context:

p.4 You write about â€the future of humanity’ from Whitehead. This is a phrase borrowed from Kilpatrick, 1951 in fact. Kilpatrick, W. (1951) Crucial Issues in Current Educational Theory. Educational Theory 1 (1) pp. 1-8. (You can also find it at the bottom of the page at: http://ejolts.net/drupal/submission (smile))

I think that when you’re writing about a Masters degree, Masters has a capital M. Sometimes in the rest of the paper it’s M and other times m.

Creating an educational space…

You write: There is a lack of research in higher education into how educators are influencing the education of their students. As a claim I am sure every single living theorist and most action researchers in general would agree with that statement, but making a claim like that is not very rigorous. I think you need to find some reference that backs that up.

You wrote on p.4: Bruce Ferguson which is hardly surprising as RI wrote it incorrectly – despite my underlining of the fact. It is a hyphenated surname: Bruce-Ferguson. Hers was a lovely article, wasn’t it?

p.5 I wonder if you need to give us a seating order of the people whose names you mention being on the video. It’s otherwise confusing. In addition, the mention of the names so far away from where you’ve placed the video in the paper makes it doubly confusing. Is there a way of organising the writing so that nothing is lost, but it’s not so difficult for the reader here? The juxtaposition of the picture between the names and the video extract is confusing for me.

The picture of the sunset is stunning, by the way. Wow!

Bernie’s body-language and her voice flow, don’t they? I was intoxicated just watching and hearing, without necessarily first time round, listening to the actual meanings. I wonder whether this is another huge advantage of visual/audio forms of representation: that the message is carried in so many other ways than simply through language and semantics.

The organisation of the three video-clips was problematic to me. First I could only find two urls for videos and then I realised that there were parts one, two and three at the site. I wonder if you could say that so it doesn’t lead to more confusion. It may be just me, but it wasn’t self-explanatory and I think it should be.

p.8 top. You write: Rayner refers to this as 'relationally dynamic'. You need to end this sentence with a colon to introduce the quotation, otherwise the reader – well, me in this case! – expects to find a date-allusion to when he said it.

I think quotations needs to be in italic script as it helps the reader to distinguish between text and quotation. Lower down the page, the quotation needs to be set apart from the rest of the text as it’s quite long.

Bottom of p8: makes this a innovative and unique programme Needs to be â€an innovative’…

p.9 I wonder whether, in describing Yvonne Crotty’s contribution to the programme, you need to emphasise the point that there are strands of influence through you to her and then to her students. Therefore your living educational theory is partly validated – I assume – through the fact that she has learned something with you.

Why a living theory approach

I wonder whether this section might be better at the beginning as it seems to me to be part of the context of your own learning.

Storying my developing use…

I love the point you make about the importance of sharing learning. Indeed, that’s so much a part of the human condition.

I’m wondering about the organisation of this part too. As it’s part of the story, it’s part of the context as well. However, this is your paper. Maybe it would be worthwhile having an explanation at the beginning of the reasons for presenting your paper in this way. At the moment, I am not convinced that the videos of your practice, say, belong before comments on why you’re using a living theory approach or indeed storying your developing use of technology. You see, I think these two sections belong nearer the beginning, but I may be wrong. I’m questioning the logic. See what you think.

I make the above points in a spirit of learning. I would like to learn more about what you know. I think you can help me understand more. I accept, however, that I may have missed something, and am open to debate on any of these comments. It seems to me important that in reviewing a paper for EJOLTS I bear in mind my own limitations (biases) as a reviewer. If my remarks are biased in any way that detracts from your achievement, I do hope you’ll feel free to tell me. After all, the openness has to work both ways.

I think this paper is fascinating, innovative and deserves a wide readership.

My recommendation here is:

ACCEPT with modification - But needs further work as indicated in the review.

Warmest regards,

Moira xxx