Mention of safety in relation to online space raises for me the link between space and risk.  With space comes risk and with risk comes ethical responsibility. I would suggest that the more open the space, the greater the risk for both learner and ‘teacher’, and the greater the ethical responsibilities of all participants, but particularly the ‘teacher’.

the ‘virtue of space’ as being freedom, but with this freedom comes a number of risks. He recognises that a common response to these risks in an educational setting is to close down the space, rationalising this as being in the students’ best interests – but as he points out ‘No risk, no space’ – and space is needed if the students/learners are going to become ‘authentically themselves’.

 I like doubters, complications, ideas that break down assumptions and build toward further questions, not answers.

the Tree of Knowledge is not an apple, in my belief systems. It is a weed.

 To ask how it has come to be that participatory networked practices are more likely to be framed as threats than opportunities for education in the 21st century.

The rhizomatic learner, on the other hand, is for me a metaphor which expands our understanding of one thing (the process of learning) in the light of another thing (a botanical rhizome). The metaphor learning is a rhizome is similar, then, to the metaphor love is a rose.

For Nietzsche, Deleuze, and myself, direct engagement is a mistake.  Diffuse or indirect engagement is preferable

The only form of power one can truly wield is the power of action, of affirmation, of creation.

*James Gleick – Chaos: Making a New Science