Group items tagged

tug-of-war between our need for survival, which relies on safety and stability, and our desire to thrive, which engenders stimulation, exploration, and innovation.

The three affective foundations underpinning neophilia — surprise, curiosity, and interest — are referred to as “knowledge emotions,

why the filter bubble exists

why the Internet is wired to give us more of what we are already looking for, rather than surprise us with something we didn’t know existed but might find infinitely interesting

Mass media succeeded in creating a common culture, but did nothing to foster the communities that naturally emerge when people tell their stories to each other.

Now, finally, there is a counter-trend.

Howard Rheingold framed it beautifully, when he wrote The Virtual Community, nearly 15 years ago: "Perhaps cyberspace is one of those informal public places, where people can rebuild the aspects of community that were lost when the malt shop became a mall."

newest digital technologies are returning us to the most ancient form of media — one in which a natural order is restored; our individual stories take center stage

It reduces the complexity, yes, but more importantly it provides a starting point for a common process. Without it, we would be lost in theory. 

The same holds for learning to some degree. We look for structure, but if none exists on sight, we combine things until some structure emerges. That structure can be represented in a single symbol, but its foundation might shift as new understanding emerges. Occasionally, there is need to ditch the symbols or invent a new one altogether as emerging learning dictates. That is a healthy and complicated process. The MOOC captures this process a bit and adheres to an open structure to allow pattern language to emerge, a shared vocabulary, a knowledge construct (however ephemeral).

Feedback as friction as forces interact. A spark, a collision, waste, and occasionally a nova. A big (learning) bang. This makes me think a learner's responsibility (among many others) is to be open to this collision of actors, agents, feedback, waste, noise, and then, ideally, pattern, understanding. The only way out is through.

Disturbing- an ontological disturbance, an unknown, an uncanny sense of veering through uncharted, potentially treacherous waters. It is a good place to be as a learner, but it requires a strength and confidence that only an empowered learner could put forth. But in that disturbance, that mess, there is the friction, that meat-grinder of understanding.

This is learning as curiosity and sometimes it can be quite scary. 

Often we seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge (anyone subjected to my endless banal history lessons will understand this), but I do believe that most learning is action oriented. To learn not only to get a job, to live in a world, to subsist, but rather for acting as best as we can. For improvement, for progress, for self-actualization.

disaggregated, emotive, functional machine of interaction. One that has to be tinkered with constantly.