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I am helping Frances and Jenny with their next research paper on a Rhizomatic Learning course which ran in 2014. I made a graphic for the paper based on their words in Canva.
I spoke with Alan Levine about the hyperlink a few weeks ago. It was my hope that I could use the recording to help students and faculty where I work understand why it mattered that we had no permalinks in our learning management system’s course blog platform. I also wanted them to understand why knowing how to ‘speak web’ mattered to mediated dialogue and mindful communication.
I never managed to edit the video during the course and when I started editing the Skype recording I made turned out to be rather precarious. Still, I felt that what Alan and I spoke about was important. I did some tacky editing to hide some of the glitches. I hope I have done enough to at least enable those interested to listen to the content if not admire my editing skills!
We had a great talk and whilst we did not keep to the order of our planned questions, we explored below our mind walking in a meandering sort of way:
- How would you describe the hyperlink to a martian?
- In what ways does the hyperlink embody the idea of connection?
- How would you explain to the martian the importance of weaving/making the web?
- What do you mean by “the original dream of hyperlinks as being bi-directional” and how does the modern web not embody this?
- Why should I care about the hyperlink at all?
Enjoy.
Just as I realised nearly 2 years on just how useful DS106 Headless 13 had been to my professional life, I am only now realising that the Thought Vectors on Concept Space MOOC (TVCS in what follows) has been the most impactful MOOC I have taken part in since my first DS106 experience. What did I say about DS106 recently?
[23/01/2015 13:03:30] Mariana Funes: I just wanted to say thank you! I am so grateful to all I have learnt on DS106 about making stuff…only today I am seeing how useful it has been beyond making art to the business of buying kibble for Colin 🙂 have a good day.
[23/01/2015 17:04:49] Alan Levine: This is the kind of evaluation of a course that means something, it comes much later than the end of a course.
This post is about TVCS and the impact it has had in my journey to become an open educator. It has done so much and so quietly that only now, a year on, I realise how privileged I have been to be part of something that is showing me in a very practical way the true potential of this form of open learning.
Warning: this is a very long post (when are these short?) as I want to use this as a reminder of our work this semester to learn for next year when the course will run again.
I have been on many back channel conversations of late that have led me to reflect on Bateson’s idea that only ‘a difference which makes a difference’ is information. It makes me smile to think that so much of what I read and write may be just noise and not information.
Let me explain.
Just this week a paper that looked at the light and shade of one MOOC was extensively discussed on the web. Jenny offers a balanced view of the discussion in answering some of the commentary. I must say that her description of the reaction to their paper is much kinder than mine would be – I have seen a great deal more defensiveness and unwarranted personal attacks than her post may indicate to the casual reader. Of course, unless you have a Facebook account, you will be unable to see the full conversation. The joys of the not so open web. I digress.
What I see foregrounded in these interactions are categories and the application of those categories to a given idea. Interaction is about whether the reported research applies cMOOCs, or to xMOOCs, but not to our MOOC because it is different. Ah! but this research applies to networks not communities, communities have people and networks have nodes. Networks lack caring, no they don’t. Each position taken can, of course, be defended (and I chose the word purposefully) with a long list of references depending on what your particular perspective and interest might be. Clearly there is value in making distinctions that map a territory. Perhaps there is less value in arguing if my food map is truer than your road map of the same territory. I am not interested in taking a position on the issue here, I learn each day from the wisdom with which Jenny and Frances deal with dialogue online. Read their article and make up your own mind about the value of some of the commentary about the paper.
Personally, I have been led back to an old idea in my knowledge map, that of the expert linchpin. A facilitator role to support individuals navigating the tacit seems an important element in any conversation of what can make these open educational spaces safer for us all.
This is what this post is about and the above is offered only by way of context. It feels to me that, sometimes, after we create our ideal structures, procedures and technologies we start to wonder about where and how people might fit in. Do networks have nodes or people? Do communities care about people or not? To me this reasoning is a little back to front.
What is a difference that has made a difference to me in my journey into open education?
It seems I have spent my life talking about stuff. My job as a research psychologist and academic was about finding out and writing about it. It strikes me that since choosing to end my full time academic career in 2010 I have entered a different stage in my development. This post is about that; reflecting on the obvious, that becomes obvious only when we are part way down the new road. I have been reminded of a favourite book by Arthur Koestler, ‘The act of creation’. In Koestler’s bisociation theory of creativity the link with analogy is a central focus. All creative activity is viewed as a kind of analogy-formation. He uses the image of a triptych to explore creative domains.
“The three panels of the rounded triptych … indicate three domains of creativity which shade into each other without sharp boundaries: Humour, Discovery, and Art… Each horizontal line across the triptych stands for a pattern of creative activity which is represented on all three panels; … The first is intended to make us laugh; the second to make us understand; the third to make us marvel.” (Koestler, The Act of Creation, p. 27).
The first he calls the Jester, the second the Sage and the third the Artist. One can view these as unconscious archetypes in the creative process. The sage searches for the ‘ah-ha!’ moment in the world. The jester searches for incongruence or the ‘Ha-Ha!’ moments. The artist searches for that moment when something feels just right, that ‘ah-hh!’ moment.
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