Missing links...

It's difficult to see from this photo.

You'll have to take my word for it.

I was attending a conference, the Unicollaboration conference in Krakow.

On the photo we can see Maha Bali, one of the keynote speakers who was over in Cairo.

She spotted me, a rather small head, sitting towards the back of the lecture theatre.

"Come to the front," she said.

"So that I can see a familiar face."  

I gave her a big wave and moved forward.

"Oh hi Simon!" she beamed...as only Maha can beam.

I wonder an instant.

What sense can we make of a "keynote", a conference "paper" when we know nothing of the people?

What sense can we make of a "keynote" slide, or an academic paper, when we know nothing of the people?

What is the exchange that we are engaged in?

I met Francesca and Steve, keynoters both, in Krakow and we quite naturally hugged.

How is this possible?

I had never actually "met them" before.

To be honest, I have never "actually met" Maha before either even if we have been in conversation for four years...

I had been following a small part of their extensive academic output over the past few years.

I had read their words and felt drawn to them, they became a part of my intellectual world...they became important "references."

In conferences past, I might have eyed them from afar, seen them surrounded by those closer and felt quite apart...excluded from conversations which I feared were way over my head.

I might have eyed them critically.

Missing links...

Well, being somewhat resident online has enabled me to make many important connections.

I have been able to learn from, participate in, contribute to, many conversations over the past few years.

I have wandered around behind my "icon" avatar, my twitter pseudonym, @sensor63 and become partially recognisable in some haunts to which I have become accustomed to.

I have written and created in a way that comes naturally to me.

It is not a genre that I have had to be drilled in.

It is a personal genre which, only the other day I learnt from Wendy Taleo has a recognisable form, that some might call "lyrical essay"...whatever.

I am whatever you call me...for better and for worse.

Missing links....

So there we were with

Final @VConnecting
In April from #unicollab2018 w onsite guests @shansauro @stevenlthorne onsite buddies @WarwickLanguage@sensor63 and virtual buddies @Bali_Maha@ParisaMehran and participants@villaronrubia
And @BatardiereMT - room for a few more to join us!

— Virtually Connecting conversation not presentation (@VConnecting) April 26, 2018

• my friend Teresa Mackinnon, 
• Shannon:Sauro, who I had met in Krakow a couple of years back 
• Steven Thorne
• Maha Bali in Cairo
• Parisa (That's Paris with an a) over in Japan.

Teresa and I have been working together for seven years.
We met online.
We have been back and forwards between our respective countries.
Teresa is an incredibly important linking node in my learning and academic development.
It is no exaggeration to say that I was in Krakow thanks to her.

Teresa was holding the laptop.

@warwicklanguage presents @vconnecting @Bali_Maha “Does she have to hold the laptop all the time?” @stevenlthorne @shansauro #unicollab2018 pic.twitter.com/ZLgncugTdL

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) April 28, 2018

I would never have been able to greet Steve, Francesca and Shannon, without  being active online.

I would never have been able to meet Steve, Francesca, Parisa, and so many more if it hadn't been for Maha and Virtually Connecting.

I went back to find the blog post referencing Eurocall 2017.

I find its title ironic retrospectively.

This stream is not online at present.

I add the photo as a reminder.

There is nothing virtual about this moment: Teresa holding the laptop, the beaming smiles of the participants.

There is e(nergy)motion...captured.


Missing links...

I am sorry that I hadn't got to know the human that is Steven Thorne before I started reading his articles, looking at his slides shared.

During the keynote, a couple of friends saw one of the slides from his "set" that I had tweeted out.

“Culture is temporal, emergent, and disputed.” Clifford We are temporal, emergent and disputed. #unicollab2018 @snowded @stevenlthorne pic.twitter.com/FZKYO1OPoJ

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) April 27, 2018

Opaque

— Moshie🐝 (@EatcherVeggies) April 27, 2018

They responded to the density of the language and the concepts written on the slides.

They felt quite apart...excluded even.


At this point I add:

“A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.”

― Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism

And I leave it here in suspense to see how it might resonate with this stream.


I remember feeling excluded by such language when I had been a university undergraduate.

I brought up these comments with Steve and Shannon during the Virtually Connecting Hangout.

"Well of course," Shannon said "You can't really appreciate the meaning of the keynote if you only have the slides. You need to have Steve who is communicating with all his energy"  
(or words to that effect)

At this point in the conversation, Steve announces to the world: "Yeah, and I am not wearing any pants."  (framed by the screen)

“A little learning is a dangerous thing."

Shannon, rightly, questioned the interest of tweeting out slides without comment to contextualise. 

She is right that if one sees just one slide one might react negatively, and critically, or totally miss the meaning intended.

Missing links....

During the keynote, Maha was messaging us to try to work out what was going on with the keynote, as it was running late.

It maybe stressful to be waiting around to participate with others when there is an absence of information as to what is going on.

I thought of Periscoping the session so that Maha could follow the proceedings.

Then, I thought better of it.

I thought it wouldn't be right to livestream an event without asking the people beforehand.

We spoke of this during the Vconnecting session.

Shannon said she was relieved that I hadn't Periscoped the session.

Missing links....

So, I remember sharing with others following the #unicollab2018 Twitter stream a couple of talks from #OER17. One had been a talk of Catherine Cronin.

What are « safe learning spaces »? #unicollab2018 https://t.co/ceNwNBTdcq

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) April 25, 2018

In other tweets from #unicollab2018, I could note convergences of online communities, #clmooc, #digped, #alt, #rhizo14 etc.

These convergences I started to find in Krakow, over and over again.

I felt that my various identity strands were coming together and meeting.

I feel that there is a space of action which is emerging.

Missing links...

So, here I am, with all of these links, dots, spaces, places, questions connecting.

I know that I have work to do here.

This is a start.

I am gradually mapping out acts.

(acte manqué...)
I leave it in suspense to return to.

Missing links....

So I thought about live-streaming at #OER18.

What is stopping conferences like #unicollab from doing more live-streaming, from having a more hybrid conference?

So I thought I had better investigate.

How have I learnt for the past decade or so?

Well, I go and speak with those who are in the know....

"Learning is about making the right connections...." 
Downes.

no future? RISE UP.

NO FUTURE

"God save the queen, we mean it man.
There is no future in England's dreaming.
No future for you, no foture for me.
No future, no future, for you."
"God save the queen, we mean it, man
There is no future in England's dreaming
No future for you, no future for me
No future, no future for you"

Nobody is reading, nobody is listening. 
I am reading a TERRy pOST.
and the void sounds back.

I am feeling pretty vacant. PRETTY
VACANT

ANDI don't care. I DON'T CARE. DON'T CARE.

I read a Susan post. 

Work. More work. 
No walks.  No exercise. 
No real feeling of accomplishment other than not falling off of a mental treadmill. 
NO outlet
NO OUTLET

There is a SIGN
ENERGY.
STOP ENERGY.

We are on the edge
We are on the edge

NOT LE OUT...
We are pushed to the limits of reason.
CHAINS. WE ARE IN CHAINS.
BLUES
CONSTRAINTS.

WELCOME
STOP.YELL.SHRIEK. RAGE. CRY.STOP.YELL.SHRIEK. RAGE. CRY.STOP.YELL.SHRIEK. RAGE. CRY.STOP.YELL.SHRIEK. RAGE. CRY.STOP.YELL.SHRIEK. RAGE. CRY.STOP.YELL.SHRIEK. RAGE. CRY.

RISE.RISE.
UP.RISE.
UP.RISE.
UP.RISE.
UP.RISE.
UP.
UP.
I read a thank you post. A SUSAN POST. IT Had an idea.  It was a connection. It was the idea.

Read a TERRY post. 

It speaks of an enclosure that we are closing our kids in.
It speaks of freedom lost.


There is a connection in all this... ANGER.  We are reaching our limits. We are reaching our limits. 

I have hope. 

I have hope in anger.  

HOPE.  FUcking hope. The fucking hope is in the anger.the anger.

IT's yOU.the anger.

IT's yOU.the anger.

IT's yOU.the anger.

IT's yOU.the anger.

IT's yOU.

IT's yOU.

IT's yOU.

IT's yOU.

IT's yOU.

ANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGY

ANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGYANGER IS AN ENERGY

“Anger is an energy. It really bloody is. It’s possibly the most powerful one-liner I’ve ever come up with. When I was writing the Public Image Ltd song ‘Rise’, I didn’t quite realize the emotional impact that it would have on me, or anyone who’s ever heard it since. I wrote it in an almost throwaway fashion, off the top of my head, pretty much when I was about to sing the whole song for the first time, at my then new home in Los Angeles. It’s a tough, spontaneous idea. ‘Rise’ was looking at the context of South Africa under apartheid. I’d be watching these horrendous news reports on CNN, and so lines like ‘They put a hotwire to my head, because of the things I did and said’, are a reference to the torture techniques that the apartheid government was using out there. Insufferable. You’d see these reports on TV and in the papers, and feel that this was a reality that simply couldn’t be changed. So, in the context of ‘Rise’, ‘Anger is an energy’ was an open statement, saying, ‘Don’t view anger negatively, don’t deny it – use it to be creative.’ I combined that with another refrain, ‘May the road rise with you’. When I was growing up, that was a phrase my mum and dad – and half the surrounding neighbourhood, who happened to be Irish also – used to say. ‘May the road rise, and your enemies always be behind you!’ So it’s saying, ‘There’s always hope’, and that you don’t always have to resort to violence to resolve an issue. Anger doesn’t necessarily equate directly to violence. Violence very rarely resolves anything. In South Africa, they eventually found a relatively peaceful way out. Using that supposedly negative energy called anger, it can take just one positive move to change things for the better. When I came to record the song properly, the producer and I were arguing all the time, as we always tend to do, but sometimes the arguing actually helps; it feeds in. When it was released in early 1986, ‘Rise’ then became a total anthem, in a period when the press were saying that I was finished, and there was nowhere left for me to go. Well, there was, and I went there. Anger is an energy. Unstoppable.” 
― John Lydon, Anger is an Energy: My Life Uncensored

MAHA via SHYAM adds another refrain. 

RISE

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise. 

Maya Angelou