Reclaim your domain

 “Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.”  
George Lakoff

I have been listening with interest to the #ccourses Webinar for week three here.

I had ten minutes before my next class.

I felt moved to jot down a few lines.

I am reflecting on the question of 'Reclaiming your domain.'

I get a lot of what is being said about the Web. I am not sure that the Web for me is what Connected Learning is really about.

There are times that I fear that an insistence on the Web perhaps takes our attention away from our physical domain, our bodies.

Before being on line, perhaps we might investigate the lines of pathways, doors, buildings, forests, clouds, our clothes?

I remember what my art-teacher used to say:

"There is no point doing the colouring before you've got the drawing right."  

I suppose I come back time and time again to Mike Wesch's work.

I shall repeat these lines from his profile on Connected Courses to remind myself:

"After years of experimenting with social media and praising the learning potential of these tools, Wesch realized that they don’t automatically establish either genuine empathy or meaningful bonds between professors and students. Using social media is but one of the many possible ways to connect, but the message that Wesch’s experimentation brings is that only genuine connections may restore the sense of joy and curiosity that we hope to instill in our students."

Perhaps we might start our empowerment of learners by reflecting on the architecture of concrete or organic learning spaces.

Perhaps we might start the process of reflecting on participating on line by encouraging new forms of participation within these spaces.

Perhaps we might start with taking the time to note our breathing?

Is the Web not a metaphor for how we are embodied in our physical spaces?

This idea has got me thinking, what are our metaphors for the Web, for connected learning?

I fell upon a rich vein of reflection of which here are fragments;

• A history of metaphors for the internet
• How conceptual metaphors are stunting web development.

Doesn't the idea of investigating "Crap Detection" start with studying town-planning?


Just wondering...

Note to self.
“You can't understand Twenty-first-Century Politics with an Eighteenth-Century Brain.” 
George Lakoff