Recentering open for those at the margins: three lenses on lurking [workshop]

Against a prior emphasis on transmission of knowledge, designing for learning in today’s open environments is often ‘designing for participation’. Has the pendulum now swung too far in this direction, such that those who are said to ‘lurk’ are dismissed, derided, or at best, understood through a deficit model? Our proposed lenses on lurking as troublesome, political and ordinary, suggest alternative ways of understanding lurking behaviours, but do not provide an obvious answer to the question of how to engage the lurking learner – or whether the lurker must be engaged. What does learner agency look like in this context? Can we truly design for all? Or should we design for participation – and let lurkers lurk?