Keith's Google Plus page for Rhizo14

"Imagination is bigger than identity." --- Elif Shafak, novelist Look at identity and cultural belonging. Connection to community learning?

I'd say Dave made himself dispensable ;-) See Comments, too.

Beautiful example of community learning with many-to-many creating together!

"Good ideas will also look like bad ideas because they go against social norms." We need more "bad ideas" in education!

Impressive words to visuals

Cool tool for "turning quotes into masterpieces.". @Mdvfunes recommends.

Rhonda waxes poetic about rhizomes and time to learn.

Week 4 response to question about community and curriculum. I introduce the course as gift community idea after Hyde's 1983 Gift Community.

I'll preface with Stephen Downes's commentary in Feb 14 OLDaily. His question about what kind of undergraduate degree is needed for today and the future and how we might best prepare students has #rhizo14 all over it ;-) This came out about a month ago but according to my logs I haven't mentioned here yet, so here goes. First, let me quote Laurillard's five myths: the idea that 'content is free' in education that students can support each other that Moocs solve the problem of expensive undergraduate education that MOOCs address educational scarcity in emerging economies that Education is a mass customer industry The essence of her criticism is that "a course format that copes with large numbers by relying on peer support and assessment is not an undergraduate education... it requires personalised guidance, which is simply not scalable in the same way." I think we both agree that MOOCs - even cMOOCs - are not an undergraduate education. The question, though, is broader. Is an undergraduate education what we need in order to meet the social and economic challenges of the day? If we started our students off differently, could they succeed in a technology-rich environment wihtout the need for so much personal attention and hand-holding? A lot rides on the answer to this question. And the MOOC - even the xMOOC - is an attempt to look at some possible answers.

Interesting infographic. Note books in wisdom category. Some will argue, heh?

Dynamic critical reflection on #rhizo14 specifically and MOOCs in general. "Postman's Third Law: "At any given time, the chief source of bullshit with which you have to contend is yourself."

Bonnie Stewart response to Week 4 question: Do books make us stupid.

Downes's comments in OLDaily, Feb 7: The medium is the message? Jaap Bosman, Hit the balloon, comment, February 6, 2014 Icon "Language needs a medium," said Jaap Bosman. By contrast, to me, language is a medium. "Learning depends on language, the medium (books, blogs) of the language restricts or benefits the learning," he writes. To me, language is only one of the many media we could use to support learning. Becominbg literate in the 21st century means recognizing that literacy applies far beyond language; it's a way of understanding the world.

Stephen Downes' comments in OLDaily, Feb. 7 Is books making us stupid? behind the curtain of #rhizo14 Dave Cormier, Dave's Educational Blog, February 6, 2014 This post actually provides a good overview of the first few weeks of the Rhizomatic Learning course, exploring as it does a set of "challenges" posed by Dave Cormier: Cheating as learning Enforcing independence Embracing uncertainty Is books making us stupid I can certainly be frustrated by some of this sort of discussion - when people express concerns, for example, about "enforcing independence" my reaction is that they just don't know what those words mean. And in another post I've raised some questions about some of the more nebulous aspects of this approach to learning. But I see value in these discussions. And questioning the authority of the book is certainly something I support.

Stephen Downes's comment in OLDaily, Feb. 7 Questions about rhizomatic learning Jenny Mackness, February 6, 2014 At a certain point, perfectly good theories become nonsense. This may be that point. I am sympathetic with the list of questions Jenny Mackness poses to Keith Hamon about rhizomatic learning (a concept I'm increasingly questioning). For example: "I'm not sure that I would know how to distinguish a 'rhizomatic learner' from other learners." And "'A rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo.'" Strictly speaking, this is false of rhizomes (unless you're talking of the specific connection between plant and plant, in which case, one wonders how it is different from any other connection (and wonder why it can't have a middle)). I've commented to Dave Cormier (who seems to have a better handle on this) about this in the past: a rhizome network is a mesh, which is good, but there's no openness, no diversity, not really even any autonomy. And you mix that in with (quite frankly) silly statements from Deleuze and Guattari (like: "'State space is 'striated' or griddled") you get something that really begins to lack coherence. I've long complained of continental philosophers that when they don't understand something, they just make stuff up. There's too much of that in educational theory too.

Response to Dave's question, Week 4, on books and stupidity.

Sounds like Nadella is a rhizomatic leader . . .

Literacy rewired our brains; will digital literacy free us again? Shlain describes the shift from orality to print as one that upset the balance between men and women resulting in lower political status/power for women and ultimately, patriarchy and misogyny. Fascinating book!

So how many MOOCs can I address in one post? Going for my personal record ;-) My Week 3, Embracing Uncertainty post.