Pinball machine.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, we have lift off...

We launch ourselves with a high initial velocity, to be thrust into space.

Our trajectory is unpredictable...

Not all of the players will enjoy the ride.

Not all of the players get anywhere.

We strike lucky.

We get past the initial obstacles, we fly around the play space.

We touch unexpected energy sources which send us off in unimaginable directions.

As we rebound off key accelerators, we are dazed by unforeseen illuminations.

We ourselves become accelerators of the machine, driving it, driving others, driving ourselves.

At first, the experience is both destabilising and exhilarating. 

Woah, hang on, help!!

Multimodality of expression: 

• music, 
• text
• poetry
• comics
• academic articles
• sound 
• video
• dance
• electric paper

[the list is long]

reveal unfamiliar juxtapositions of meaning.

Remixing, repurposing, reordering, rebooting, revolution.

Multicultural participants met randomly from across continents reveal unfamiliar interpretations of meaning.

The colour, sound, and whoops of excitement attracts others who gather around. 

They point out new means to play, new ways of seeing things,  they show us expert hacks...

A neon cloud lights up.

Pinball is an image which came to me yesterday.

I was thinking about my experience of connected learning in 2014.

• Rhizomatic Learning. #rhizo14
• Digital Storytelling #ds106
• Connected Learning MOOC #clmooc
• Connected Courses #ccourses
• Digital Writing Month #digiwrimo
• Rhizomatic Learning #rhizo15

So many hashtags, so many people, so many ideas...

I started playing around with a new version of one of my favourite apps #Picplaypost which I use for collages. 

I discovered new features which enabled me to add music, to create slideshows within the collage frame.  

I discovered new integration of Giphy for animated gifs, and Soundcloud.  

I played around with Strip Design to add text layers over the image. 

With each step of the process, a new tool came to the fore.  

With each new tool, a new way of expressing emotion, ideas became possible.

Maybe I should Zeega the pinball idea, I thought. 

I switched to the PC, I generally use it for blogging but not images or sound. 

I put together a Zeega and tweeted it out to friends in #ccourses, #rhizo14 and #clmooc.  

The link to Conected Courses Pinball is here.

None of this activity would have happened in 2013 before I started #rhizo14. 

I had no idea how to make an animated gif. 

I had never heard of Giphy. 

I had never seen Zeega. 

I had never met a large number of friends that now enrich my life.  

I had no idea about Wordpress. 

I had never played around with Martin Hawksey's Tag Explorer.

I had never organised a Google Hangout on Air. 

I had never studied Deleuze and Guattari.

I had never spent much time studying learning theory. 

I had never written a haiku.

I had never had any feedback for my artwork.

I had never seen a make bank.

I had virtually never spent any time blogging...

I could go on...

Yes of course, you need to have the courage, and desire to launch yourself. 

Yes of course, you need to to choose the type of connected course you are starting with.

Yes of course, you need to have some start up competences to get yourself connected.

Yes of course, it takes time, openness and luck to hit the right combinations.

If somebody were to ask me about the learning outcomes of connected learning, I could provide them with some hard data. 

I could show them quantitative and qualitative data demonstrating an exponential increase in my knowledge and competences, and introduce them to valued members of my personal learning network.  

I could show them traces of this development over a long period. 

I could show them the knock-on effects on my professional work.

• on the CLAVIER project  
• on my colleagues
• on my students
• on my institution. 

I could also explain in quite a lot of detail, how I learn, how learning is unpredictable, how learning is unlinear, how learning is exponential when we are placed in an environment where we are valued for our difference, encouraged in our experiments, and challenged in our analysis. 

Does connected learning work?

Yes, my conclusions are clear, it works.

Does connected learning work in the same way without the internet without digital tools?

No, my conclusions are clear, learning is accelerated and transformed by the internet and digital tools.

I suppose this will underline what Alan Levine or @cogdog was going on about yesterday on this blog in his comments.  

Learning on and off the web, learning in the company of a network of widely distributed caring, creative, co-learners is learning pinball. 

One, two, three, four...hit it.

Where will I be in a year from now?