Showing posts with label Language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Language. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

This event is brought to you by...




A post event reflection.

Structured unpredictably...

A gif of dynamic systems.

"If one has to start anywhere..."

"Will this animation move when published." He wonders.

"Will it just become static on the net?"

"Whatever."

I keep trying to figure out where this should start.

Narrative(s) attempt(s) fail unmanageable reality.

It will have to do.

Such universal failings are, after all, what connect us.

Darkness that binds us.

"How do I express this with ever-changing feeling?"

"Oh damn it."

This is absurd.

“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

"Fuck IT."

"Fuck Google."

It's all we have.

A fragile agency... 

"A speckulation?"

"I'd like to thank my mother, my father."

"I'd like to thank (GOD?)... er those who missed attempting to kill my grandfather in the war."

This is brought to you by...

A dog barking?

I hurriedly pulled on a pair of boxer shorts and a tshirt.

Modesty saved.

This is brought to you by...

FEDEX

"Do you have ID?" 

I went back for my passport and signed off the parcel slip.

This is brought to you by...

The cable for my laptop.

At two o'clock in the morning attempting hamfistedly...

 "Why do we say that?"

I type a blog post on a smartphone...

I lose the contents of the post three times.

(INSERT: I fall upon a post of Maha talking about the difficulties of dealing without her laptop in the US because of a ban, I think of her while writing this now.)

This is brought to you by...

What was lost.

Sleep. 

A laptop with POWER.

This is brought to you by...

A caring community.

This is brought to you by...

A Slack backchannel.

"I am sorry, my laptop has died on me, I won't be able to set up the session for Eurocall tomorrow."

This is brought to you by....

A response from Helen DeWaard over in Ontario.

At virtually no notice, Helen really backs me up for Virtually Connecting at Eurocall.

She will share her? Google's?  our? POWER to allow? to enable?  us to hang out in Southhampton.

"What about Saturday?"

Ken Bauer, over in Mexico silently interrupts a meeting at his daughter's high school to offer help.

On Saturday, he will be up for 5:00 am in the morning.

This is brought to you by....

Friendship, fellowship, faith, love, hope....a belief in something bigger than each one of us.

This is brought to you by....

Teresa Mackinnon  she offered to be an onsite buddy at Eurocall.

This is brought to you by...

Steve Wheeler  who mentored me on his blog...like so many others.

This is brought to you by....

Rhizomatic learning...Dave Cormier...

"A rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo."

This is brought to you by...

Rhizo14

"Will it ever end?"

"No...nooo!"

Martina Emke started it. 

She kept bringing up rhizomes.

We hadn't even gone live yet.

"A rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo."

I met Maha Bali, Apostolos Koutropoulos, so that's a sort of start to this story here.

"A rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo."

Rhizo15












"A rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo."

(I tire of fighting with html formating. It's small. It's small. )

 "Fuck it."

 This is brought to you by....

A common language...

POWER embodied? disembodied? 

POWER to order chaos? to give semblance of order to chaos? to command? to touch?

POWER to include? to exclude? 

This is brought to you by....

A language.

"An Open Educational Resource" offered AK.

This is brought to you by...

A keynote recording.

"Will it be available openly?" I asked.

"Well what's the point of putting it on a website if it is not available openly?" Martina responded.

"Academic publishing etc....?" I countered?

But will it be accessible?

Will the language be accessible?

This is brought to you by....

My interest in language learning.

It led me to reflect.

The more I reflected, the more I was led to experts.

This is brought to you by...


I fell upon a conversation which spoke to me.

This was accessible.

A recognisable conversation between recognisable humans. 

Humans. Speaking English.

This is brought to you by....

An ex-student and reluctant academic.

I remembered being a student at university.

I remembered struggling with what seemed to me to be densely alien gibberish.

"Why can't they just speak bloody English?" I remember complaining intolerantly.

"Why do they need all these barbaric terms?" I remember thinking.

I think of attitudes to scientists.

"Britain has had enough of experts," says Gove.

This is brought to you by...

Reading articles by Steven Thorne and other experts on the complex reality of language learning.

This is brought to you by....

Combining blogging with reflective practice.

Towards complexity-informed language teaching in higher education.

To what extent is it possible to adopt “complexity-informed perspectives” (Mercer, 2013) for language teaching in higher education? Considering the classroom as a complex adaptive system (Larsen-Freeman, 1997; Ellis & Larsen-Freeman, 2009), we use mixed methods adapted from Nexus Analysis (Scollon & Scollon, 2004) to explore evolving ecologies of learning (Van Lier, 2010) in a French university language centre’s English classes for non-specialist undergraduate and postgraduate students. Using qualitative and quantitative survey, pedagogical programs, capture of interactions: photo, video, and learner portfolios, we trace discourses in place and interaction orders. We study teacher and learner reflection, narratives and interview to highlight divergent perceptions of affordances. We observe how network-connected technology offers the potential to modify pedagogical practices and assessment in the classroom, to better respect learner diversity and to “situate learning” (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Gee, 2004) in diverse contexts, to facilitate observation and analysis of learners and learning activities. We attempt to identify “core components of the system - hubs where the effect of change is more likely to spread throughout the system” both of the learner and the institution (Mercer, 2013).  If research may enable us to identify “general principles which language educators can use to guide their actions” (Tudor, 2003), analysis of individual stories illustrates the complex, unpredictable, emergent nature of learning. What strategies might teachers adopt to facilitate dramatic progress in learning? In an institutional context ordered by program outcomes, marking grids, and time constraints, learners may be more concerned with gaming the system for credit rather than actually learning a language. Teachers’ “historical bodies” (Scollon and Scollon, 2004): experiences, beliefs, attitudes, competences,  and time and or financial constraints may enable or limit their desire or means to adapt practices. Going forward, we consider it essential to develop connected, reflective communities of exploratory practice (Allwright, 2003) including learners, teachers and researchers to work towards manageable pedagogical solutions and the recognition of diverse perspectives, competences and roles.

This is brought to you by....

A growing feeling of becoming part of academic communities.

Thanks to people that I can share common VALUES with.

Despite past feelings of disgust for everything academia.

"What are you?" He scowled.

This is brought to you by...

Something greater than the sum of its parts.

"What is it that brings us to work together here in these spaces?" Wonders Apostolos.

 Words emerge chaotically.

This is brought to you by...

Virtually connecting, really connecting people who really desire to connect.





This is brought to you by...

An accessibly human American researcher, Steven Thorne packing an hour long keynote into 45 seconds, responding in dynamic whispers so as not to disturb adjacent partner/sponsor event...

"THIS EVENT IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY...."

speaking volumes about social issues in conversation with Parisa Mehran, an Iranian researcher refused a visa to attend Eurocall.

"SHHH!"


This is brought to you by....

Questions from Joe Dale and Teresa Mackinnon to Steven Thorne about how to connect theory to pedagogical practice.

Questions of how to be a teacher in a complex age of change.
("Was there ever an age that was not one of change?")

Questions of how to enable the work of researchers to be accessible.

Questions of what constitutes citizenship in a connected world.

Questions of identity, of language, of meaning, of POWER.

Questions of frontiers, of who defines our boundaries, our bodies, our movement....our lives.

"Teachers have never been so necessary." Steven Thorne.

"Accessibly human, caring, experts have never been so necessary." I think to myself.

"Working together across artificial frontiers has never been so necessary." I conclude.

"On est ensemble dans cette merde. On a chacun sa responsabilité." He thinks in French.

"Working outside the box, inside the box...tricky...hmm" I contemplate.


Postscript.

This is brought to you by....

Vialogues...



A desire to go back and listen again so as to better act.




Thank you to

Helen, Ken, Maha, Autumm, Vconnecting, Eurocall, Teresa, Kate, Joe, AK, Parisa, Dave, Steve, Steve, Francesca, Uncle Tom Cobley et al. (and er... Google)



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Tuesday, May 16, 2017

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.



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.

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Wednesday, May 3, 2017

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."


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.
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Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Incommunicado.

"mlmkùkdfd..."

Incommunicado.

Incomprehensible.

Speech.

Resistance.

Rebellion.

I know what I mean.

"mlmkùkdfd..."

Incommunicado.

"You want me to repeat?"

 "mlmkùkdfd..."

 Incommunicado.

"You want me to repeat?"

 "mlmkùkdfd..."

Incommunicado.

"Méfiance."

"Médisance."

"Mépris".

 Incommunicado.

"mlmkùkdfd..."

"Mais non!"

You know what I mean.

Footnotes

A)

incommunicado
ˌɪnkəmjuːnɪˈkɑːdəʊ/
adjective
adjective: incommunicado
  1. not able, wanting, or allowed to communicate with other people.

    "they were separated and detained incommunicado"
Origin
mid 19th century: from Spanish incomunicado, past participle of incomunicar ‘deprive of communication’.


 B)
Thinking Aloud, inspired by an article shared by Paul Prinsloo, non dialogue, and discussions about "marginalisation".
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