Open: light & dark.

“The real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize the workings of institutions that appear to be both neutral and independent, to criticize and attack them in such a manner that the political violence that has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that one can fight against them.”  

Michel Foucault

"We couldn't be doing today what we're doing right now without openness." Alec Couros


"By high school you should have a fully developed outside (digital) presence." Alec Couros
 
 "If I ever really wanted to leave Facebook, I couldn't 'cos the imposters would basically subsume, would take over that role, they would take over me." Alec Couros.  

"We let technology into our lives. And now it's starting to control us."

Two years later, in 2000, Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig predicted that the internet would become an apparatus that tracks our every move, erasing important aspects of privacy and free speech in our social and political lives. “Left to itself,” he said, “cyberspace will become a perfect tool of control.” A sceptical reviewer scoffed: “Lessig doesn’t offer much proof that a Soviet-style loss of privacy and freedom is on its way.”


"How can I protect myself from government snoopers?"


"As an ordinary citizen with a life, you can’t hide from the security services, any more than you can defend your house against a tank regiment. If they want to hack your devices, they will."

Jack Schofield 

Information retrieval.

Jill Layton: Doesn't it bother you, the sort of things you do at Information Retrieval?

Sam Lowry: What? I suppose you'd rather have terrorists.

Jill Layton: How many terrorists have you met, Sam? Actual terrorists?

Sam Lowry: Actual terrorists?

Jill Layton: Yeah.

Sam Lowry:... Well... It's only my first day.

Terry Gilliam. Brazil. 

"Google, democracy and the truth about internet search"

I feel like I’ve fallen down a wormhole, entered some parallel universe where black is white, and good is bad. Though later, I think that perhaps what I’ve actually done is scraped the topsoil off the surface of 2016 and found one of the underground springs that has been quietly nurturing it. It’s been there all the time, of course. Just a few keystrokes away… on our laptops, our tablets, our phones. This isn’t a secret Nazi cell lurking in the shadows. It’s hiding in plain sight.

Carole Cadwalladr

 

Footnotes.

"On a lighter note."

"We couldn't be doing today what we're doing right now without openness." Alec Couros

I had no words to add.

Another cycle.

I just remembered my second tricycle.

It was the red one which replaced the small blue one that I used to ride around the house dressed as the Lone Ranger, aged three.

I don't have any photos of my second tricycle.

I am fairly satisfied that it looked pretty much like this one on the left.

It had a boot at the back for the trip to the grocers'.

I seem to remember that the boot was big enough for a packet of cornflakes and a bag of potatoes.

I have vague memories of pedaling for miles.

Surely, it wasn't so far?

It was the first time that I was able to leave the confines of the Rectory garden.

Surely, I can't have been alone?

I don't remember anyone being with me, so taken up was I with my new found freedom.

I had quite forgotten about that red tricycle until now.

A few months later, it seemed rather childish, that tricycle.

Another cycle.

I can't remember the colour of the bicycle.

I remember going around the garden shakily, feeling total exhilaration at the speed, at the feeling of being on two wheels...

Then a catastrophe struck.

I remember distinctly crashing into a patch of nettles and brambles.

I was stung by my overconfidence, by my wounded pride.

It was too late.

There was no going back to the tricycle.

I had outgrown it.

It was consigned to memory.

There was nothing for it.

I would have to learn to keep my balance, to steer correctly and to give hand-signals on the open road.

Another cycle.

"So are you bringing your poems to Reclaim Hosting?" 

I was a little surprised that my 'secret' dabbling in WordPress and my 'secret' domain had been uncovered by Jim Groom.

On the other hand, I felt reassured to be messing around in a sandbox with people that I was familiar with.

I was not alone with the buckets and spades.

Another sandbox.

I have been working on a website for the CLAVIER network.

After exhausting all other "solutions" (excuses),  I resigned myself to figuring out how to set up a domain, how to make a blog look like a website and vice versa.

Another tricycle.

I spent a long time trying to avoid it.

Wouldn't a Google site do it?

Wouldn't a Blogger blog do it?

Nope, they wouldn't do it.

Wouldn't someone else do it?

Nope they wouldn't do it.

I tried to find a hosting solution at the university.

Nope, that wouldn't do it.

I tried to find a hosting solution in France.

Nope, I didn't know those guys, that wouldn't do it.

I need real support.

Another cycle.

I blame the people at Connected Courses.

I was so happy with my red tricycle.

It took me as far as the shops.

I am way off my beaten track now...

I tweeted a message to Maha. 

"Help!"

She tweeted a message to Reclaim Hosting.

I tweeted a message to Cogdog.

"Help!"

I tweeted a message to Cogdog.

"Help!"

Another cycle.

I studied the CLMOOC website.
I studied the CCourses website.
I studied the Virtually Connecting Website.
I studied Cogdog's website.
I studied websites...

I know pretty much nothing about bicycle maintenance...er code.

I cheated and found an application: "WordPress Theme Detector"

I started to understand a bit more about Themes and Plug ins.

I read the posts on setting up a blog hub.

I looked again at the posts on setting up an Activity Bank.

I studied the Youshow: Unit 5 found on Cogdog's website.

Another cycle.

I signed up to Reclaim Hosting.

I was so shocked how easy it was to create a domain that I did it three times, just because I could.

The euphoria was short-clicked.

Ugh, CPanel.
Ugh, MYSQYL.

Those sounded like nettles and brambles.

I rode shakily around them.

I found a Theme.

I was on familiar territory.

It was rather like Blogger.

I found pages.

It was rather like Google Sites.

I started getting adventurous.

"Oooherrrr....fuck."

I crashed into the brambles and the nettles.

What TF is a sticky post?
What TF is a sticky header?
What TF is a featured picture?

I was beginning to miss the red tricycle.

I could almost hear my brother laughing at my desperate crash.

Oh the shame...

Another cycle.

I have resigned myself.

It's too late now.

In a few months, I will have forgotten about the trip to the shops for the cornflakes.

I will be going further afield.

I will be roaming new domains.

Now what shall it be?

Sensor63.WTF
Touchesofsense.com
Tachesdessens.fr

Another cycle...

Another crash in the brambles and the nettles...

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?

Souk.

Spices, leatherwork, tea-shops, nargilés, craftsmen working, hand-made carpets, sheep, goats, chicken, camels resting...

the stream of sensory information is positively overwhelming.

We are quite lost in cultural profusion.

A vortex of colour, sound, conversation, commerce and perfume.

There have been times when I have found myself wandering as if through an on-line souk.


Rhizosouk

It was an image which immediately came to the fore during Dave Cormier's Rhizomatic Learning Course.

There have been times when I suppose I have been responsible for turning courses into a souk.

I have not been alone in this. That is the nature of souks. There is a place, people arrive.

Hanging out

I have hung around for those reasons.

Navigating through formatted academic wasteland where orderly discussion is the order of the day,
I soon start tapping my fingers, looking out of the window, find any distraction from the monotony.

Yes you are right. You are right.

I was reflecting with Kevin Hodgson on what constitutes the specificity of digital writing.

I made a list of points which require further reflection, so what the hell, this is as good place as any to lay out a stall.

I am revelling in the mulitmodal possibilities that these media allow.

Market stalls, tea-shops and conversation

I have a play-space.

The dialogue with Kevin, went from blog, to sound, to sound remixed, to collaborative text editor, to tweet, to animated gifs, to music, to collage, to poetry, to reflection, to multimodal scrap book, to blog post and back again.

This is where the conversation takes us. 

It takes us to a souk.

I am loving the Zeega of Terry Elliot.

I am loving the investigations of Jim Groom, Alan Levine et al combining art, cultural exploration with reflection.

I love the literary, theatrical stimulation of Gardner Campbell's conferences,

I love the constant flow of Kevin Hodgson's music, comic, poetic, output.

How not to be stimulated by all of that?

There is so much to investigate here.

Serendipity and flea markets

I am seeing search in a quite different serendipitous way to enhance creativity.

From dawn to dusk

I am continuously jumping, hanging out from time zone to time zone, living simultaneously, it feels, at dawn in Kentucky, in the early morning in Florida,in the afternoon in France and in the evening in Thailand.

Open all hours

This is a souk which is not quite sure of its opening times.

Thanks to my discussions with my friends, I am far less worried about being weird.

Fellow travellers.

OK I am weird but I am not alone.  I had forgotten that feeling.

It's OK to be creative, to doodle, to scribble, to share half-finished ideas.

I  feel at home in this souk.

I shall hang around for a while.


Oasis party

There is one thing which I want to do.

There are places that I want to visit unplugged.

It is what I have done with some of my CLAVIER friends.

I'd like to get these people together sometime in an offline learning party sometime.

It will be a veritable oasis compared to some offline learning deserts I know.