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Overview of deep metaphors and using visualisation to help clarify them

I am going to take Jen's advice seriously when she says about edupunk "Don't dissect the metaphor". Edupunk, if nothing more, has got many people talking, exploring their beliefs around education, and in some cases, reminiscing of day's long past. The educational community is much too diverse, as it should be, for anyone to cling on to one single metaphor for meaning.

Educational technology advocates claim today's students are technologically savvy content creators and consumers whose mindset differs from previous generations. The digital native-digital immigrant metaphor has been used to make a distinction between those with technology skills and those without. Metaphors such as this one are useful when having initial conversations about an emerging phenomenon, but over time, they become inaccurate and dangerous. Thus, this paper proposes a new metaphor, the digital melting pot, which supports the idea of integrating rather than segregating the natives and the immigrants.

Metaphors being developed by computers in order to track meanings behind a race or nation. For purpose of spying.

Edistorm is brainstorming without the bored room. Using sticky notes on a boardroom wall as a metaphor, users brainstorm ideas online and make better decisions.

The metaphors of education systems speak volumes about what each system ultimately achieves. Ask any student to compare education or school to something completely different, and you'll likely get a list that looks like this: "School is a prison," "School is hell," "School is a babysitter," or "School is a machine." Sadly, many schools are run quite like this last example-students enter the machine, are shuffled through a number of arbitrary gears, are forcefully bent to fit those gears, move according to bells, and leave the machine knowing they'll be back the next day to repeat the process until they become the desired product of the machine.

We make these changes not because we want to include technology but because we understand that there are new skills, new literacies kids need and we can't explore those literacies with students without harnessing the ingenuity technology affords us. (Also note Simpsons 3D metaphor)

The pace of technological change has challenged historical notions of what counts as knowledge. Dave Cormier describes an alternative to the traditional notion of knowledge. In place of the expert-centered pedagogical planning and publishing cycle, Cormier suggests a rhizomatic model of learning. In the rhizomatic model, knowledge is negotiated, and the learning experience is a social as well as a personal knowledge creation process with mutable goals and constantly negotiated premises. The rhizome metaphor, which represents a critical leap in coping with the loss of a canon against which to compare, judge, and value knowledge, may be particularly apt as a model for disciplines on the bleeding edge where the canon is fluid and knowledge is a moving target.

Maggie, no it's not. Learning is a change in long-term memory. These unsubstantiated ideas have led to a disastrous watering-down of standards in Western education. Evidence, not theories, must be the basis of educational practice.

Google, Dictionary.com,Thesaurus.com, Wikipedia, Acronym Finder, NCSU, unitconversion, Bablefish, and Wolfram-Alpha. Click on the MORE link for more options.

Schoolr would like to thank the Reference.com family, Google, Wikipedia, Acrnonym Finder, Urban Dictionary, Altavista Babel Fish, SparkNotes, NCSU, and unitconversion for their great resources.

Love to see metaphor tab search maybe citations too? Ah! there's citations in the drop down tab!

Open teaching is described as the facilitation of learning experiences that are open, transparent, collaborative, and social. Open teachers are advocates of a free and open knowledge society, and support their students in the critical consumption, production, connection, and synthesis of knowledge through the shared development of learning networks.

Visualization techniques - Data, Information, Concept, Strategy, Metaphor, Compound Brilliant.

computers can support learners, open doors to a world of possibilities and learning opportunities and global thinking. They can provide a chance for every child to learn their own way and construct their own knowledge. They can facilitate conversations with other people and other children around the world. They can knock down the isolation of a classroom's four walls and invite in the voices, experience and passion of the entire planet.

Great post!

And at times it is a beautiful thing….and at other times, it might be chaotic, crazy, and seemingly unmanageable. So what do you do….to make this manageable, workable, and productive??

So many quotable quotes in this post! Wonderful 'deep' thinking.

There has been talk in the edtech community for a long time that we need to stop talking about the tools, but I disagree.

My point is, how far are we to go with other educators? If we instruct on the technological skills, isn't our responsibility done? Isn't it the responsibility of individual educators to swim? It seems that too many, I have met them too, educators lack the drive to do things for themselves. We all went to college where we had to study on our own, write papers on our own, take tests on our own. I fail to understand the mindset.

As a Kindergarten teacher, when a child entered my classroom never having held a pair of scissors or not knowing how to tie her shoes, I felt it was my responsibility to teach those skills with support and guidance. It was not for me to judge that that child hadn't been taught those skills at home before coming to school, but to assist in equipping the child with the skills that would be needed as she moved forth in life.