Introduction

“Throughout history, people have learned to make sense of the world around them through stories. Long before King Solomon, whose command of 3,000 proverbs earned him the reputation as the wisest man who ever lived, stories played a central role in education. This way of thinking and giving meaning to one’s life and society in terms of stories and narratives is universal over all cultures, and is in our basic “wiring” as human beings.” Alan Kay Educom Review Vol 31, Number 4 1996

Technology design has profound implications for social practices. A critical impact of social practices relates to boundary conditions related to dimensions of power, hierarchy, and discipline in education. Communities of scientists and educators have social practices and rules that affect how they collaborate and communicate within and how well they are able to join with other communities. This document explores stories that document how designs have impacted practices that cross boundaries: reifying or breaking down these boundaries. It examines stories of collaborations between communities of scientists and science educators, examining the parameters that permit successful collaboration and those that inhibit collaboration. In the end, we try to identify parameters successful collaborations in science education reform and of software design that influence practices across boundaries, extract some lessons from the stories, and document some general principles that might be useful for technology design.