Thanks Ian for your comment. I think it's more than a question of time - it's something to do with having an open mind to new ways of thinking about teaching, learning and possibilities for education.
What we have learned from running workshops about drawing these footprints is that they are often counter-intuitive for people who like 'answers', like tidy outcomes, like to be in control and so on. Although people will readily acknowledge that learning is a messy process, somehow they can't seem to equate that to the messiness of emergent learning, and for emergent learning to occur we need environments in which there are multiple paths that students could take (along with many other factors that we have identified in our footprints framework).
We have found though that once people have got over their initial resistance to the 'messiness' of the footprints, and begin to discuss the factors in depth, then they are a bit of an eye-opener. Some people find that the footprint they have drawn is not what they thought their course was like. So the drawing process and more particularly, the discussion of the factors is what is value.
We are still working on/developing these ideas and we would be very keen to develop some software that would automate the drawing process, so that the focus can be firmly on the discussion.
Any thoughts?
And as far as a tool that helps show lecturers how they can let go - I think drawing footprints is a start.