Group items tagged

I have a great deal of respect for Stephen, and enjoyed his talk at Vlaencia (referenced in this blog) immensely. It seemed to me though, that he was explaining a landscape rather than prescribing a recipe for a MOOC. Might it be better to examine Rhizo14 in light of what Dave Cormier says about it, rather than force it to be scrutinized through the lens of questions raised by Steven Downes' lecture? Dave Cormier at MIT "MOOCs as a selfish enterprise" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Smt8lsPU_Mo If any "making one" objective(s) existed in Rhizo14, it(they) would be very subjective. Dave says he threw a party to see if anyone would come. I certainly participated as part of my process of "becoming", but without conciously adding "...one of X". I just know by experience that by "hanging out" with groups like this, I am able to do interesting things in teaching that I had not deliberately set out to learn (and I borrow that articulation from Dave Cormier), so from time to time I keep engaging with communities and courses that interest me. Some others have expressed or evidenced more clearly defined objectives - academic research, webtool development, and building a PLN are some examples.

I agree with you that Dave is defferent from S.D. and rhizo should be described with Dave's terms

This again gives us insight into the writer's perspective. It is a valid attitude, but important to recognize. Consciously looking through the same lens will keep a reader who experienced Rhizo14 differently from too easily dismissing parts of the critique that do not resonate with herm.

After listening to Dave Cormier, I have to challenge this assumption. What I hear from him suggests that Dave is very much aware that he is still trying to find out what "works".

I thought that rhizo14 was Dave's first try to facilitate a MOOC his first own experiment

This critique of Rhizo14 accuses it of not producing what it was not intended to produce. Seems a bit like criticizing an alligator because, while it has great hide, it makes an unsatisfactory mount since it was never intended to be a horse. I understand the author's dissatisfaction with the course. Rhizo14 neither met expectations nor satisfied any personal objectives. A dissenting opinion eloquently expressed is very valuable. The underlying tone of the post, however, carries a distinctly subjective disapproval or dismissal of anyone who has received satisfaction in their own experience in Rhizo14. The author speaks repeatedly of observing attempts to silence or marginalize those who did not buy into the opinions of the majority. Yet the author engages in a similar tactic against possible critics.

I hope that after my comment on my blog this feeling has eased in you. I absolutely did not intend to disapprove or dismiss any individual. I disagree with some of the choices made in design and educator intervention precisely because I feel they closed down the possibility of having a space where multiple perspective could be held openly without the need for filtering through an agree/disagree frame. This led to people who we could all have learnt from leaving and I was sad about this. Also - just for clarity I was not at all dissatisfied with the course. It was set up as an experiment and I love experiments. I was dissatisfied with our human inability create more silence and space for listening and the compulsive drive to talk. Nick put it beautifully in his blog: "that kind of dialogue. It is a way of being that one has to learn, but seems to me to be integral to what we might call "deep" learnign. The word retreat is interesting, one of the first pre-requisites of that dialogue is to shut up and listen. Online you are largely characterised by the noise you make, the text you generate. Silence online transmutes to a lack of presence, and described as "lurking". Lurk has too many negative associations to be reframed. But we do have the right to remain silent! Another issue, as you observe, is that dialogue is not transactional, but online interaction does very often seem to devolve to that kind of behaviour…" http://avisodemiranda.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/marram-grass/ I chose to create the space I needed for learning and this may be meant I chose 'no intervention' when intervention may have benefitted us all. I need to take time to reflect on this. I will leave it here for now, let's see if this is a space for us to engage before I spend any more time here :)

Mariana speaks so well but why it is so challenging to hear, I am wondering after reading these notes

I recognise this too and this reminds the storming phase of group process. You must be strong as a facilitator to receive all the complaints. It is a normal phase as long as education is in movement

you said that better than I could, thanks

I belong to this group

As a practicing teacher working under the constraints and affordances that make modern pedagogy such an act of hypocrisy, I find that these generic observations are 'unhandy'. In fact, I get visceral with them. I get pissed off and feel a certain amount of 'how dare you'.

This is what I asked about last week, too. What makes learning different from rhizomatic or deep or knowmadic learning. I think the modifiers (deep, rhizomatic, knowmadic) have a purpose. They allow us to filter learning differently very like having a variety of critical stances. It is, however, like the story of the blind men and the elephant. Which description is correct? All of them--in part.

I tried to address this in my blog post this week: http://impedagogy.com/wp/blog/2014/02/01/hodie-quid-egisti-what-have-ye-done-a-rhizomagic-week-of-blooming-buzzing-confusion/ I don't think I used the word 'uncertainty' once in that post, but the tone is, I think, one of taking that leap.

It is unnatural to leap into the total darkness of the unknown. In fact I think that by definition it is impossible. Instead I think we leap into the partly known. My analogy is the Kentucky pioneer Daniel Boone. Some might say that he worked his way into virgin, unknown territory. I would say yes and no. He did blaze trails into places no Euro-American had ever been, but the territory itelf shared lots of known traits with where he had already been. For example, water flows downhill to larger streams. The sun rises in the east. And the thousand other 'knowns' that come from a lifetime of living close to ground. And, of course, he really did blaze the trails he made by walking. He emblazened trees with marks for others to follow. Now that must've been an ego trip and a half! The other half of the analogy is that we too have general knowledge that we take with us into the knowmadic life and the rhizomatic wilderness of learning. We have theoretical knowledge. I would include the whole baggage of ed school in that. But we have to dump most of that when we move into the partly known territory of deep, rhizomatic knowmadicism. You need to travel light when you are blazing the trail. You need the practical stuff in your backpack. All week and every week I will be bringing back news as I light out into the territories. I expect to get well and truly turned around on occasion, but I don't plan on backtracking much except to send back reports. Boone wasn't much good at this part, but Lewis and Clark were, but I daresay I call more on the Kentuckian than I do the Virginian. All I know is that every one who reads this could be my Sacajewia, a real guide to the undiscovered country. Amen.

Is democratizing uncertainty like trying to formalize the informal?

Seems like predictability is worming its way into your discussion of uncertainty. Uncertainty is largely complex and unmanageable. Should we be focusing more on the processes and products that emerge from uncertainty? I don't think we can do a whole lot more than that, but I am certainly open to being informed more on this.

Perhaps your last paragraph addresses obliquely what I asked above.

Social model of human knowings v. Cartesian knowing

We see ourselves through the constraining influences of other people, through the 'peopling' of others.  Others people us.  It is a limited recursion.  I think this has significance in #rhizo15. How? We are all seeing ourselves through the eyes of others.  How accurate is that subjective view?  Sometimes it is off by degrees of magnitude.  For example, I see some pretty effusive praise for stuff that by its nature is half-baked.  Yes, some is very good for a first draft, but most goes little past the initial draft and into further revision.  I expect further recursion, further refinement through reciprocal action, sometimes I get it, mostly I don't. Part of me take no offense while another part is deeply disturbed that the responses I get are so cursory.  And the cursory nature of most responses,  the desultory considerations of others we have come to respect become the default.  And, worse, they become internalized as the default mutual mental modeling.  Shallow of necessity, quick by force of circumstance, and a bare reciprocal exigency.  

How much of that is on other people? How much of it is on us? How inviting are we to gather up ideas, particularly those who challenge our thinking? That "infinite" word in there .. that's a lot of recursive thinking going back and forth, toppling on itself ...

Therefore, we have different subjective reflections from among different folk.  Each reflection is a unique self simulated by another's mind.  The same is true for social context.  We have a Rhizo15 self created by our Rhizo15 folk.  My question here is whether it is in any way an objective measure and does that matter?   Should any of us care about the simulations of others?  Should we rebel and subvert these simulacra because they are not 'us'?  It is hard to argue for this position simply because this acceptance of the peopling of others seems quite natural.  It is natural for us to consider this subjective and recursive view from others as the real deal.  Or is it just the default view?  Can we generate another way toward identity that is a balance between outer and inner subjectivity?

We are many selves.  No one reflection gets them all not even our own. Especially not our own.

This reminds me of how to think of our students -- of their lives outside of our classroom,our building ... what literacies are authentic for them?

Powerful assertion here.  And the proof is in asking what happens when we do not maintain that identity.

I wonder how much of our cognitive load is spent maintaining (breaking down and building up) identity, the metabolism of identity?

Three views of this social model of cognition: 1. Baumeister and Masicampo: conscious thought is the transport mechanism for moving between inner identity and outer identity. 2.Rochat: we become conscious because of others, 'constrained by folk' in order to be. 3. Simler: we infect each other with consciousness through the interaction of identity.

I have never seen the problem of identity so succinctly put.  And it explains why there is and can be no permanent solution to the conflict here except perhaps the meditative one of observing the breath and making that identity.

So how do we play this infinite game of mutually modelling each other's identities to each the other? Language and ritual Language for the easy stuff and ritual for the hard stuff. So what are the #rhizo15 rituals?

The sparseness of ritual environment in rhizo15 is very painful to me.  The sparseness of feedback from language is just as painful, but the lack of ritual makes it even more so.  Dreadfully more so.  In fact I am on the edge of withdrawing all the time.  I think it is the ritual that will save me.

So bring on the salve of ritual to rhizo15.

Ritual 1: greeting everyone, every day.

Thank you for this. Here is the crux of how I think about subjective thinking ... tossed into the subjunctive salad bowl. Or have I been mistaken in my own beliefs about what subjective is?

For good and for bad .... it could be that we are shaped by the positive energy and the positive experiences. I am thinking of being part of networks liked CLMOOC and DS106 and Connected Courses ... those shape my expectations of what a course should look like these days.

Great phrase embedded in a deep paragraph .... We should get this tattooed on our web/head.

I am tempted to make a comic with this line .... Yeehaw!

OMG. I had a ball with this. I think I failed. I think I passed. I think I succeeded. I think I thought .... "Thank God, I have people like Susan to lead me astray."

This line between subjective and objective is both intriguing and confusing (for me, anyway). This post by Susan really helped clarify some of the ideas. My annotations are my way of interacting with her text.