I like clusters, soups and smoothies, putting things together and feeling the energy generated between the one and the many. My cluster of three: individuation, compassion and capacity. Individuation: each person, place and thing is unique, a moment, a point, an instance. Compassion: treat each and all with kindness. Capacity: know your shit; have allies. … Continue reading What I want from my poetry
Tag: teaching
Small cosmos: virtual hypertext
The magic in poetry is that not only is a poem LIKE a cosmos, it can BE, maybe simply, IS a cosmos of reader, hearer, speaker, writer, words, sounds, spaces, histories, intentions, interpretations, meanings, etc. Every poem carries its shadow and illuminates third spaces. There is a lot of dark matter under and behind and dark energy throughout.
Reflection in action: professional development study visits
How close to the moment can you get? "Be here now," urges 1960s psychologist Richard Alpert. A mythical Google aspires to a perfect concurrent rendering of this reality: in real-time, in software. How much rewinding can we do before anyone notices the pause for thought? Reflection in action often has the effect of: "Oops! Don't … Continue reading Reflection in action: professional development study visits
Beginning of term
Systems or people? We can model learning in order to develop ways for our machines to acquire, store, process and apply data: information gathered from the world around. Although I put it as a vague question of preference at the start of this essay, it has many ramifications. Are people not just quite complex systems? … Continue reading Beginning of term
One notebook warning
One notebook I write. Not as much or as well as I should. But I write. Two very broad forms interest me: poetry and philosophy of learning, knowledge, theory. What is true and good? Do these concepts mean anything? I believe they do. My job, and much of this writing, here, has to do with … Continue reading One notebook warning
How much of what kind of assessment?
Chris Rust and Mandy Jack initiated an exchange about assessment volume, kind and equivalence on the SEDA maillist. Hours are most easily countable (and even that is not easy). There are also the number of assessment points and the "weight" given to each assessed point. Chris asserted that: the only meaningful comparison is student hours … Continue reading How much of what kind of assessment?
Backpacks, badges and epistemology: an interesting conversation that leads to happily ever after
Grant (2014) asks in the title to her book about digital badges, "What Counts as Learning?" This succinctly expresses the question of higher education and explains the continuing interest in badges, and in learning technologies in general. The fact this is less explored, gives me an opportunity to explore both learning technology and epistemology. I have developed … Continue reading Backpacks, badges and epistemology: an interesting conversation that leads to happily ever after
Academic multimedia is where TEL becomes real
Learning technologies and technology enhanced learning are not quite the same thing. The position and semantic force of the words is different. Learning as adjective and learning as noun; technology as nominal object and technology as agent of change: learning enhanced by technology. There is a greater degree of abstraction in TEL, somewhat more particularity … Continue reading Academic multimedia is where TEL becomes real
FSLT16 Week 1
Week one has flown by like a simile. There are 58 participants on the course of whom 22 are doing the module for academic credit (10 credits, level 7) towards a PG Cert in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (PCTHE). Sixteen (16) of the assessed participants are from Brookes and six are from other … Continue reading FSLT16 Week 1
FSLT16 Kicking off
It has been a lot of work this year getting FSLT ready to go. Partly this is because as ever, I start too late. We also pulled the starting date forward from last year by two weeks so not only am I late the course is early. There were several reasons to do this, but … Continue reading FSLT16 Kicking off