[Ed: i posted this thread in Twitter on or around 8/27. Zero engagement. Par for the Twitter course… it’s alright.]

When I was in graduate school, I learned several learning theories that were based on empirical, or highly specific observation-based insights. Alongside those, I learned how to align those theories so they would be highly effective when applied with/through technology. 1/x

Wittgenstein, Lakotos, Bransford, Skinner, etc. The whole gang. I also learned about various instructional design theories, that could be wielded to good effect with most types of learning outcomes and contexts. Some of those ISD theories even live to this day… 2/x

In one class, I even learned about a wildcard. A general purpose catch-all idea that, like Pandora’s box, would solve a problem by laying waste to great many carefully laid prologues. This idea was “Anything Goes” and was listed under the theorist Paul Feyerabend 3/x

With this one theory, a person could try to rationalize any kind of approach or application, because, ahem, Anything Goes. Let’s chat for a second about why that information is important, but, like Pandora’s Box, off-limits and never to be used. 4/x

The job of the instructor, designer, and indeed the learner, is to experience the content in a way that can lead to its adoption by the learner. There’s (supposed to be) a reason why the lesson is taught. Not to dazzle, amaze, or confound. 5/x

Yet, using an omnibus idea like “Anything Goes” to reverse-rationalize everything is extremely dangerous. Activities are designed that are merely time-fillers, or opportunities to shift responsibility away from one party and onto another. Improper. 6/x

A learner has put their intellect into a vulnerable state, to allow it to be altered with the intention of improving it. To remove disinformation, to solidify grounded ideas, to rehearse well-known ideas, and to practice new ones. 7/x

A person who would present a barely-reasonable “learning” activity, reverse rationalized by an omnibus idea like “Anything Goes”, to a person who has allowed themselves to become intellectually vulnerable, is acting in bad faith. 8/x

Such bad faith experiences, once recognized by the learner, produce irreparable harm. The learner no longer trusts the instructor, the lessons, the technology, the foundations upon which the lessons were created. So, here I am tossing down a gauntlet. 9/x

Think through your objectives, activity structure, the technology, the technology integration, everything. Why is it necessary? What purpose does it play? Is this the best option to accomplish what the learner needs? Am I protecting all learners’ fragile vulnerabilities? 10/x

And if you find yourself enticed by an omnibus panacea, called “Anything Goes,” slide your attention away from Paul Feyerabend’s output, and closer to something like Cole Porter’s. 11/x Fin.

Epilogue: Anyone who would attempt to disguise their malintent or malpractice behind a simple phrase like “Anything Goes,” or “Manifest Destiny” or “Executive Privilege” deserves whatever they get by way of punishment or reproach. And that’s all I have to say about that.

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