Nomadic ruminance.

Preamble

A multivoiced conversation springs from an afternoon picnic with Terry Elliott, shepherd.

https://vialogues.com/vialogues/play/37391

Amble

I can feel the movement slowing, I concentrate on breathing, I feel my muscles relax.  

I am focused on that field.

My fingers hesitate.

RUMI-NANCE

The page backgrounds.

My attention is fixed on time.

Or heart beat?

Seconds...blinking in a cursor.

A lie?

“The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness. And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.” 

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Now. 

Slowed. 

-N-O-W-

LIFE

S-P-A-C-E

Bird Song

RECORD

ONLY

SILENCE

-N-O-W-

The sheep field has become a means to read?
Or to listen?
Or to see?
Or to hear?

"Each field tells a story." 
Terry Elliott

A means to read?

A means to care?

A means to wonder?

A hollow yearning is that?

No! There is joy.

LIFE


"There's another story there: you live in a system that essentially defies understanding."
Terry Elliott


"I can go out on my farm every day and find a mystery."
Terry Elliott

A reason to mourn reason?

"Around the ninth hour, Jesus shouted in a loud voice, saying "Eli Eli lama sabachthani?" which is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"


"Nature has a way and if nature doesn't want to produce grass you have to get rid of sheep."
Terry Elliott

To throw up one's arms and surrender to the evidence.

"Eli Eli lama sabachthani?"

What counts is not visible, is around us, but beyond us and binds us all.

LOVE

"Nature will make you decide things that you don't want to decide."
Terry Elliott

I decide to do this while I can, while I want.

That sheep field has me write this.

It's the nature of it.

WRITING

"You want a little bit of everything in a field."
Terry Elliott

I am not sure

I pull up a few weeds.

I walk the lines.

LINE

"We have no faith in nature." 

Do you have any faith in human nature?

I have resistant faith.

For if not, what?

It's been raining.

LIFE

I have space to think, to wander, to meander...
 ...to get where I shouldn't be, to vagabond...

FLOW

Je me la coule douce.

VAGABOND

The word breaks up.

"There's another story there: you live in a system that essentially defies understanding."
Terry Elliott

VAGA BOND. 

Vague - Vague - indefinite (English) 

Vague - Wave (French) Sea - Waves - Rhythmic - Tides - Influence of moon - Seasons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide

Animation of Tides as Moon Goes Around the Earth With the Sun on The Right

Animation: Todd  Timberlake

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide#/media/File:Tidalwaves1.gif

Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of gravitational forces exerted by the Moon, Sun, and rotation of the Earth. The semi-diurnal range (the difference in height between high and low waters over about half a day) varies in a two-week cycle. Approximately twice a month, around new moon and full moon when the Sun, Moon, and Earth form a line (a condition known as syzygy), the tidal force due to the sun reinforces that due to the Moon. The tide's range is then at its maximum; this is called the spring tide. It is not named after the season, but, like that word, derives from the meaning "jump, burst forth, rise", as in a natural spring. When the Moon is at first quarter or third quarter, the sun and Moon are separated by 90° when viewed from the Earth, and the solar tidal force partially cancels the Moon's. At these points in the lunar cycle, the tide's range is at its minimum; this is called the neap tide, or neaps (a word of uncertain origin).

Va - Go (French) 

Bond - relate to people - make deepening connections (English)

Bond (jump French)

VA-GAGA-  Go GAGA.

Silly; crazy.

Completely absorbed, infatuated, or excited: They were gaga over the rock group's new album.

Senile; doddering.

BOND - James

Charles Dickens, in "The Old Curiosity Shop" has a character say: 

"a gentleman's word is as good as his bond, sometimes better, as in the present case."

"Agriscience and agribusiness is so apposite to agriculture."
Terry Elliott

"There's another story there: you live in a system that essentially defies understanding."
Terry Elliott

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing 
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.” 

Jalaluddin Rumi

Image 

Isle of Skye

Richard Ansdell

1865

Oil on canvas.

183 × 108 cm (72 × 42.5 in)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ansdell_Richard_Isle_of_Syke.jpg

Spring flowers.

"It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.” 

― Vincent Van Gogh

FELT. 

FLOWER. 

FIELD.

FENCE.

FARM.

FELDGANG.

"It's the greenest spring that I can ever remember. It's just incredible right now. It's stunning. You walk outside when it's sunny and it's like O-M-G! W-T-F! And then there are no words...."

Terry Elliott.

OPEN

@Bali_Maha "I pretty much do most things for love, from a place of love." @Bali_Maha https://t.co/YalsagK5ML

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) May 20, 2017

CARE

Maha Bali

LOVE

bell hooks.

BOND

FRIEND

"This could be part of story...when you ruminate."

Terry Elliott.

Terry, Maha, Kevin, Sarah, Laura, Mary Ann, Wendy, Suzan, Bruno, et al.

SPRING

@telliowkuwp @MaryAnnReilly @sensor63 @dogtrax @wentale @NomadWarMachine (No translation required) pic.twitter.com/aveiu6mM1b

— laura ritchie (@laura_ritchie) May 19, 2017

OPEN 

STORY.

Outward bound.

FOLLOW WITH CARE.

I can hear it in the telephone conversation.

"If you want me to go through the motions, to pay lip service, to fill in a few hours, I'd prefer to look elsewhere."

He didn't really know what I was doing.

He seemed surprised at my fougue.

I wanted it to be clear who I was, how we might meet, what I hoped.

He seemed receptive, he seemed excited with the new suggestions, and started planning ahead.

What might have been a wall which we had hit, or at least that I had hit, had crumbled.

New horizons opened up.

I took a deep breath, I scribbled some notes

I took the dog out for a walk, I felt the sun on my back.

It felt like a release.

It's what I have been reckoning: too many years being able to look out into the open have formed me.

I was brought up on the coast.

I was brought up climbing trees and looking over the wall.

I was brought up praying on my knees.

Was all that about looking up, looking beyond or kneeling down in submission?

I was never quite sure.

I wasn't happy with the submission.

Kneeling felt a sham.

The open sea.

Artists appear as lighthouses to navigate by.

I didn't realise then.

No horizons.

There are houses, there are towns, there are whole regions where I can not live nor dream.

I can not live without the possibility to look beyond, to feel the spray of the waves, to gaze over horizons.

I suppose that is freedom in my eyes.

Outward bound.

I place myself strategically, I look out, I contemplate.

I take my bearings.

I listen.

Unheard voices.

I found it later, those words that I wanted, after having been riddled with his fucking ideas.

SHOT.

“This is how it should be done: lodge yourself on a stratum, experiment with the opportunities it offers, find an advantageous place on it, find potential movements of deterritorialization, possible lines of flight, experience them, produce flow conjunctions here and there, try out continuums of intensities segment by segment, have a small plot of new land at all times.” 
Gilles Deleuze

Fuck Deleuze.

I make notes.

I suppose this is a landmark (event)...this space...here.

I think to myself, all of this is out of order.

The writing I mean.

I don't care.

No that is not true.

I care.

Rhizomes, fucking rhizomes.

I was only a moment down at the bottom, and here I am trapped in the fucking middle.

I keep getting moved everywhichway, helterskelter.

Hold on.

STAND FIRM.

STAND YOUR GROUND.

How the fuck did that appear?

I don't know.

All at sea.

I follow the current.

Swimming against the tide is hopeless.

Where am I now?

Jumping from the sea into a bounded space, leaves me feeling safer.

I shall not drown.

I hold on. I hold fast.

Elements pop up invited (uninvited?) and leave me fuming.

I can't hear myself think let alone speak.

“Writing has nothing to do with meaning. It has to do with landsurveying and cartography, including the mapping of countries yet to come.” 

― Gilles Deleuze

"Go away, go away."

The shame, the shame.

I take a few photos, to take note, to pay attention.

I give myself the respect no man deserves.

“The shame of being a man - is there any better reason to write?” 

Gilles Deleuze

Would a woman fare better?

"Where the fuck is this going?"

"Look, I'm really sorry, I didn't want to bring bloody Deleuze along, but he insisted."

All at sea.

I can fear that you are lost....with me...and them.

"Yes, we are all fucked...sorry."

You will be my guide, my landmark, my event.

The open self.

I am for an instant unsure what constitutes "YOU".

I mean it isn't just "YOU".

It is this, it is I, er...a desire...

“The self is only a threshold, a door, a becoming between two multiplicities” 

Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia

I move into the open.

A coast, my eyes are not drawn to the cliffs, but to what lies beyond.

To what lies beyond.

To a movement, to an anticipation, to a trajectory.

I deliberately looked for a quote of Deleuze to help situate myself here now and I feel drawn to this idea, it refuses to let me put it anywhere else. Against my better judgement, I stick it here, it will be a cairn in this desert.

“A book has neither object nor subject; it is made of variously formed matters, and very different dates and speeds.” 

Gilles Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia


Too right Gilles, blogs too!

Back to earth.

A view from my house, my eyes are not drawn to the tree, nor the wall, but what lies beyond.

Beyond, beyond, what was it that Deleuze was going on about?

What is this becoming?

“According to Beckett's or Kafka's law, there is immobility beyond movement: beyond standing up, there is sitting down, and beyond sitting down, lying down, beyond which one finally dissipates.” 

― Gilles Deleuze, Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation

I get that view from my house, it is an anchor, a buoy, a mooring.

All at sea.

I feel myself lunging for a line.

Sea chaos swallows me up.

I see myself flailing under the surface, fighting for the light, for air.

Back to earth.

There it is that view from my house.

A place I can rest...home.

Upside down artists.

I stop.

How will all this fit together?

I think of  those TV artists who paint upside down with broad strokes.

Is this just a crude meaningless splash of paint on a canvas?

I join the audience struggling for the moment recognition.

I find myself swallowed up in a Warhole of my own making.

Another love story.

Then it reappears.

I found that photo.

A father is holding his baby.

LOVE.

HOPE.

The father is transfixed.

The babe in arms, is gazing beyond.

We have love, we have joy, we have life, we have anticipation, we have hope, we have sadness.

Nothing remains. 

A photo lies.

A moment passes.

Preface to Outward Bound.

I fell upon a post of Suzan Koseoglu, thanks to Teresa Mackinnon who retweeted a tweet of Maha Bali.

Boundaries of Openness https://t.co/AwefqrcYEc #selfOER cc @Bali_Maha

— Suzan Koseoglu (@SuzanKoseoglu) May 16, 2017

It converged with a proposal for a journal "Learning in the Wild" (Teresa again), days of mapping, meetings online and here, reflection on landmark events (Maritta Riekki), autoethnography, frames, and this mess.

Little by little, I have learned to trust this my mess.

On first sight, it may be unfamiliar, that is how I deal with beyond.

This is how I learn in the open.

Here. 

Convergence.

Even silence situates.

Silence especially situates.

I get that quote that Suzan shared.

"Space without boundaries in not space, it is a chaotic void, and in such a place no learning is likely to occur." 

Peter J, Parker. 

I note what Suzan writes:

"I"ve become open and stayed open (although intermittently) mainly because it's a learning space for me, and because learning is social, it's a social space for me too."

This space is (and here I refer to this post "Outward Bound - formerly titled Open bound")

"Bounded and open".

"Bounded by subject but open to interpretations and new directions of inquiry."

In writing here, I am honouring "the little stories" - my little stories...our little stories.

In reflecting here on autoethnography, academic discipline, and thesis, I am accepting bonds.

Bonds, he thinks suddenly, bond.

Freedom always includes bonds.

Freedom from language, from social bonds, from love, is chaos.

Multiple voices, distant voices.

I think for a moment of Schizophrenia, and multiple voices.

I think of hoarding, I think of trauma.

I think of making sense.

Is this blog, so full of voices, of others, of mine, bordering on the insane?

BIND ME.

TIE ME DOWN.

STRAIGHT JACKET.

STRAIGHT SUIT.

SWADDLED.

CODDLED.

SLAVE.

BABE.

MMM.

A babe vocalises.

A babe babbles.

BABBLE.

BABEL.

Aren't you following?

Forgive my fougue.

FOLLOW WITH CARE.

Therein lies a paradox.

CARE is not a bond.

I am sorry. 

Don't worry, I'll just venture out a bit further.

I know this is inhospitable. 

But take my hand.

It sometimes takes time, trust, contemplation to make sense of what appears chaos.

OK. 

CHAOS. 

MY CHAOS 

My reason is perhaps inhospitable.

I am sorry.

If you will walk with me a while....

What is that word that Terry uses?

FELDGANG.

You will perhaps see the gravity beyond the cliff.

Safety blogs.

I return to Suzan's blog.

It feels, safe, somehow.

"The networked spaces, in particular Twitter and the blog you are reading, have become learning spaces for me, spaces that are organically designed around principles of paradox."

" - my blog is the most personal of all because it is a reflective medium and I write not as a gift but to think and to connect with others."

"...."

I stop and I could go on copy paste...copy paste.

I do.

A bit.

"The tensions between discursive identities (emergent, defined by relationships) we create in open spaces and our institutional identities might be one area we might focus on."

I stop myself.

I reason that I need discipline.

I need time.

I reason that I need to connect this mess here with those who are viewfinders, guides.

I suppose this is where, and this what I contemplate.

That is my thesis.

I write it to myself.

An anticipation of negation.

To better think for myself.

“Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same. More than one person, doubtless like me, writes in order to have no face.” 

 Michel Foucault

Footnote.

Fuck it, kids' art was never about depiction.

It is landscape mapping in paint.

Kids toys flung around a bedroom may look like chaos to you.

It ain't.

Come and play.

Treasure maps.

I walk pretty much, every day, that same route, past the pile of free newspapers in the lobby , open a door, walk down a dark corridor.

There, offices each side.

There, people looking at PC screens.

What are they doing?

I really had no idea.






I cross people in the corridor, we nod, smile, say hello, having acknowledged each others' existence, we continue on our route.

How do we discover which person holds clues to the whereabouts of treasure?

I mean you can't go in every office and ask all the people who they are and what they are doing, it would take too long.

That would be ridiculous.

Maybe there are people in offices we need to find?

How do we know which office to choose?

Official charts, organigrams, plans tell us little we need to know....maybe that is their purpose....concealment.

If we sent a message out in a bottle, how many would find it, would read it, would understand it?

Occupation.

We are occupied.

We have so little time.

Fifty five, fifty five, fifty five.

Occupied. Occupied. Occupied.

Occupied, with what...by whom, for what ends?

I went upstairs.

I was met by a stony face.

I don't insist.

Pebbles on the beach.

There are so many pebbles on the beach.

People that is.

I mean, I wasn't looking for anything or anybody in particular.

I bump into a colleague from the library.

Serendipity...really?

Funny, I was just thinking about contacting him.

He is speaking to one of those unknown people from the offices along the corridor.

He is speaking to one of those people with whom I exchange nods and smiles.

He looks vaguely familiar.

I can't for the life of me figure out why.

My library colleague gives us an opportunity, a pretext,  to communicate something other than a nod.

We start talking, as one does around a coffee machine.

It appears that he is interested in the conversations that we are having with my colleague from the library.

I explain  a fair while what I am working on.

I suddenly think of the importance of coffee as a pretext for conversation with strangers.

That recalls a talk of Steve Johnson entitled "Where do good ideas come from?"

I think of the stony look upstairs, of unproductive frosty meeting.

I think of my online friends. They, the ones, who have fuelled much of my creativity.

I think of how these friends have become part of my physical world at this moment.

I explain how these friends know me in a way those who I cross in a teachers' room can not.

What can such "online coffee shops" bring to us locally?

How can we enable people who don't know each other locally to speak together?

How can we signal what we are looking for when we don't know what it is?

I can only think that openness is a prerequisite.

I think of the difficulty of introducing such openness, such ongoing familiarity building such as I have experience via cmoocs and social media, Twitter in particular, to a local institution, to peoples' daily lives.

We speak about maps.

I talk of mapping narratives.

I talk of being able to combine narrative mapping with strategic planning.

I think again of the work of Dave Snowden and Sensemaker.

I think of how in my personal research, I am still looking to use very personal, artisanal means to map.

Merchants, spices, warehouses.

I talk of a university as a port.

Merchant ships bring in wares from afar.

I talk of a book as a port.

Warehouses spring up to stock vittals.

Merchants, help us choose the best rum, the best spices.

Is this blog a ship, a warehouse, a tavern, spice?

I think of my conversations, my journeys, my life online.

I drop into conversations in distant taverns.

They are in my head - conversations fuse, confuse, enlighten, the people, the taverns.

They become part of me...bodily.

I am seeing this/these conversation/s through the lens of a multitude of selves.

How do we open up our minds and those of others to see the interest of virtual taverns?

Treasure maps and occupation.

I talk of looking at a map together, of speaking the same language, of sharing a common understanding.

How do we know which people will be able to see meaning in a map?

Perhaps, I think to myself, it is our occupation which is already mapped.

Perhaps, I reason, it is pointless to offer any alternative map, if it doesn't correspond to existing charts.

Perhaps, I conclude, that is what one must do first, one must fully understand how occupation is mapped in peoples' minds, bodies and spirits.

I talk of my friend Daniel in Chicago.

How do we bring others together to discover treasure in our maps, particularly when they are otherwise occcupied?

Perhaps we don't.

Treasure mapped.

I think of treasure.

For myself, treasure is in personal mapping.

X does not mark the spot, X marks the questions, the curiosity, the wonder.

What is this treasure?

I think of my nephew in Glasgow.

I think of his new project selling beer in Glasgow and building wells in Africa.

I think of how his eyes light up.

I think of the dull gleam of unburnished metal.

That is not his treasure.

Treasure is not a lonely acquisition.

Is treasure meaning and fellowship?

Is meaning fellowship?


Post Scripts.

"Once you see the boundaries of your environment, they are no longer the boundaries of your environment."

Marshall McLuhan.

Questions of mapping.

Movements

Where/how do I move/travel, where/how do I walk (to/into/out of/around/up/down) ?

Senses

Who/what do I see/hear/smell/touch/?

Feelings.

How do I feel?

Lenses.

What sense/thoughts/memories/feelings make me see/feel things in a particular way?

Actions

What do I do?

Who do I do these actions with?

Who do I speak to, write to, draw to, sing to, touch and where do I write/speak/draw?

Where do I speak, write, draw, sing, touch, walk, run, fly, eat, drink?

What do I do else?

More stories.

He was standing there at the bar.

He turned to me.

Somehow he told me he had been in the Falklands.



In their bloody war.

I made that out despite being handicapped by my fucking elementary Glaswegian.

He had been left disabled.

In their bloody war.

Somehow we connected.

Somehow there was movement...against.

Their bloody war.

Only a moment.

Our lives..... Go on.

No time left.

So many people to meet.

Choices had to be made.

Priorities, priorities...you know....life.

I left with the glasses.

I felt emptiness on leaving him so.

I felt a sort of regret.

There were more stories.

More stories.

He went back to downing his glass, alone, at the bar.

I went back to be with my present friends:  a Puffin and a knitting cartoon with glasses.

We took a whole evening.

We laughed, she knitted, we spoke, she knitted, we conspired.

I spilt the beer.

There are more stories.

We hugged.

We left.

There are more stories.

You will never hear.

Not the words.

It takes time you know.

Not words.

Time.

Breathing together.

Touching or just not touching.

Speaking or just not speaking.

Knitting.

Not bloody words.

Knitting.

No.

Knitting.

Time.

Mark my words.

Not the words.

They are a distraction.

They get all the attention.

When will we ever learn?

The value of .....?

Knitting....silence....prog rock.

I am not hopeful.

Let's face it.

On line.

Who fucking notices .....

Who is really there?

On line I mean.

I know you are there.

Well one lives in hope.

Doesn't one?

After all our effort....our cheer...our flag waving.

He was on the line.

In their fucking war.

Now he is there.

At a bar.

In a fucking blog.

An object of our attention.

Disabled.

OER. an object fuck. i. him. us. her.

It hit him.

More stories.

I was reading David Riley's blog Open Content (as one does), a post entitled: Wandering through the "open pedagogy" maze.

Well one has to keep oneself occupied wot?

"What we do with tools and resources is more important than the tools and resources themselves. However, without tools and resources there is precious little we can do.

Many (e.g., Vygotsky, Leont’ev, Wertsch) have argued persuasively that learning is mediated. Some have argued (again, I think persuasively) that the primary tool that mediates learning is language. Whether learning is being supported through conversation, lecture, argument, video, adaptive courseware, plain old textbook, or Google Hangout, words are absolutely critical to supporting learning."

Now, I think I am going to scream.

"Aaaagggghhh."

Is that a word?

More stories.

We hugged. 

We said nothing.

More stories.

I am hugging you now.

Do you feel it?

Do you feel better now?

Sorry.

No worries.

More stories.

"Aaagggghhh."

He screamed, as it hit his leg.

I remember a song.

A song for when there are no words.

They never learn.

Maybe because there are no words for their fucking war.

More stories.

I commented on David's blog.

"Language and learning is much more than words. 
What you can't pick up are relationships, moments, emotion, motivation."

I commented on David's blog.

"Aren't people always objectified? Isn't content people objectified?"

 I commented on David's blog.

"I agree with the problem of seeing people as simply resources."

David didn't reply.

Sometimes no words speak louder.

I saw he has defined a new term.

"OER-enabled pedagogy"  

"OOER!! Blimey guv!" an invented character said in fake Cockney.

I didn't see any point in leaving comment.

I left that to the other.

Sometimes no words speak louder.

More stories.

I saw a tweet. 

I think Maha shared it.

It appeared in "my stream".

Fancy that.

Someone didn't see themselves as an OER.

I couldn't see myself as an OER either.

I sometimes can see myselves as an OthER or OthERs.

I had a momentary lapse of reason.

Sorry.

No words...frankly.

"Aaagggghhh."



An OthER


More stories

You know something?

I sometimes think that selfies are insult to our many selves and yours.

People don't take selfies when they hug to say good bye.

People don't take selfies with the fucking coffin...do they?

More stories.

There are so many more stories.

I found a quote of Bell Hooks.

That's thanks to Suzan and her stories...I have never heard.

And then.

More stories.

Yes.

Yours.

What is possible?

Thanks.

Keep it in mind.

Faithfully.

Simon.

With thanks to you, my friends and a man at a bar.

Open hearts, open minds, crossed purposes.

Pirate's bay play area.

Play mats, play house to hide in, to climb on, to run around, wheels to turn, seesaw to rock...





Kids of varying sizes were rushing around shrieking, babbling, laughing in varying languages, often at crossed purposes.

There were moments of understanding, moments of perplexity.

There were moments of synchronicity of action, moments of chaos, moments of inertia.

The ship sailed on on the grey, grey sea.

Parents looked on, only too happy to see their offspring safely occupied.

God's space.

One parent, stepped into the kids' play area, took out a towel, laid it down in a corner, stood still a few moments, eyes closed, silently held her hands raised, angled outwards away from her heart, then in one slow, graceful rhythmic movement knelt.

She then bowed down, head and hands to the deck, prostrate.

She waited a few moments in embryonic prayer, stood up, stood still then repeated the ritual.

An older woman, similarly veiled looked after two small children who continued to play.

The ship sailed on.

The kids continued to play their different games, in their different languages, oblivious to all else.

Two parents, perhaps Dutch, I saw, staring quizzically, perhaps critically at the prayer ritual.

Was it an incongruous adult intrusion here?

Or something else?

I was thankful that I was questioned thus.

I made notes quickly in Evernote.

I wrote the words to a song.

"Oh Lord. Please don't let me be misunderstood."

I don't know why.

I couldn't quite remember the rest of the words.

I went to find it.

Language lessons.

My daughter came over to see me.

"How do you say: I am French, in German?" she asked.

I tried to remember.

I must have learnt that once.

Open hearts, open minds, crossed purposes.

I have been thinking today about discussions which have been going on about "Open Pedagogy".

I watched a discussion on attempts to define the term, it was brought about thanks to the opening efforts of Maha Bali.

If the video of the discussion is openly available on Youtube.

Is that video an open educational resource? I think to myself.

Open educational resources.

It is only open to those who have

• internet access.
• Youtube access
• time to watch it.
• permission to watch it
• understanding of the language used.

If I am watching this discussion, it is because my attention has been drawn to it by people that I find myself identifying with, and by questions which I myself am concerned by.

If I am able to identify with these people is it not because I become part of an (academic) language community?

It is only an educational resource in so far as I choose, or someone chooses that I might learn from watching it.

If I say it is educational but you don't learn from it, how is it an educational resource?

"Open", it appears, has pretty much become a brand for what are termed OER or Open Education(al?) Resources.

Such "resources" or "content" are open to retain, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute and are licensed accordingly.

Such "resources" may be packaged as courses with more or less clearly defined didacticisation.

Such "resources" seem to be associated very closely with the internet.

Licenses however open are surely a recognition of enclosure, and a desire for attribution.

One might ask if folk songs, music, tales, games shared before the internet, sound recordings, books might be considered as "open content", and/or "open education resources".

Many of  "Open Education Resources" seem to be so named because they are made by people who are employed in closed institutions of "education".

I am not sure how far one can use the word "education" for "resources" even if they are aimed at being "educative", "educational" puposes, or use in an institution of "education".

It is not open or educational or a resource because you stick a logo on it.

Your open education maybe my/our oppression.

Is Wikipedia an educational resource or an informational resource?

Is informational synonymous with educational?

I think (hope) not.

Is this blog a resource or a pile of crap? (both/and?)

Is a pile of crap a resource?

Is a conversation a resource?

Is a memory a resource?

"Open Educational Practices" or OEP  are, it appears, closely associated with the internet.

(I note my hesitation around education or educational - are we talking about open education or open educational practice/open education resources or open educational resources?)

The discussion in the Youtube video is closely associated with academia.

Academia and academics depend on citations, on attribution, on licensing for their living.

Academia might be a jungle but it ain't (very) open.

Conferences and journals are generally open to those who pay/are paid.

Martin Weller in this recent post gives a working definition of OEP

"Open educational practice covers any significant change in educational practice afforded by the open nature of the internet."

Well, surely we can have significant change in educational practice which is afforded by the open nature of the internet which is anything but "open" in terms of education.

Open pedagogy.

So can open pedagogy only be open if it is closely associated with the internet? (I think not)

I went and read (on internet) a useful post of Jim Luke's entitled "What's open? Are OER necessary?"

I found that educational in its stimulating of reflection to engage in anotation.

The link is here.

https://via.hypothes.is/https://econproph.com/2017/04/23/whats-open-are-oer-necessary/

Well, before rambling on, I thought I would find an OER which would help me unravel a few terms.

• education
• teaching
• pedagogy
• didactics
• instruction
• schooling.

I have the impression that often when speaking about pedagogy we speak at crossed purposes.

Here it is: What is pedagogy?

We are hasty to define "Open pedagogy", "Open resources" at our peril.

We need first to start unpicking such terms in our own contexts.

• education from schooling
• history from propaganda
• teaching from drilling.
• teaching from informing
• knowing from memorising
• knowing how from knowing to do
• pedagogy from didactics

We need to unpick our connections to what appears an "open" space to see how it is framed.

What I take away from the hangout about open is the enthusiasm for learning and joy at engaging in conversation.

What I feel is that this work of conversing across boundaries within the bounds of a Google hangout has value only if it is fun, ongoing, and leads us out from our local contexts to question our differing and universal boundaries to further our mutual educations.

The value of having open hearts and minds is to appreciate and respect divergence.

Bumping into each other and speaking with our crossed purposes, we need at least, a feeling of reassurance and safety that our play space is a safe space.

Do definitions really count?

Don't we simply need places/spaces/concepts/yearnings/fears to bring us together?

Does it matter if you can't define love?

Maybe I should put it another way: are god, open, love, as concepts, awesome precisely because of the struggle to define them?

Fuzzy understanding.

My daughter was terribly excited to communicate her new German to the little boy with blonde hair.

I am not sure she pronounced the term for French correctly.

He smiled.

She smiled.

What counts?

The ship sails on.

@cogdog @slamteacher @Bali_Maha @sheilmcn @josiefraser @jimgroom @LornaMCampbell @KellyATerrell @BryanMMathers @mhawksey @davecormier @gsiemens @WarwickLanguage @Wikipedia @Wikimedia @creativecommons WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU WANT TO GET OFF?? THIS IS OPEN! pic.twitter.com/PenzG7rWSz

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) April 15, 2017

We really need to go back to what we mean by education, I think.

We really need to go back and think about what values are carried within education.

Is open education like taking kids to the zoo to look at other animals behind their bars?

Does open imply colonial?

Does open imply capitalistic?

Is the internet simply a means to extract resources from subject humans?

Return to Pirates' Bay

I think back to Pirates' Bay.

Do we have space in our education systems for play, fun, peace, silence, respect, spirituality?

If not, what can we do about it...together?

Can one have open pedagogy with out open minds and open hearts?

Can one have pedagogy without open minds and open hearts?

Can one have science without wonder, without poetry, without art, without unknowing, without others?

"Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living." 

John  Dewey.

"Education is a social process; education is growth; education is not a preparation for life but is life itself."

John Dewey.


Footnote.

Thought for day. pic.twitter.com/FPARrVJad1

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) April 9, 2017