Showing posts with label hybridity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hybridity. Show all posts

Friday, August 25, 2017

This stream is not online at present.



This stream is not online at present.

How many hours of preparation go into a conference presentation?

How many hours of transport are necessary to bring people together?

How much money does it cost to present in a foreign country?

How many people are able to see all the presentations?

(NONE)

In 2012 and 2013 I was able to present at Eurocall.

In 2014 we worked for a year on a project, had a paper accepted....

At the last moment, there was no longer the financial means to attend the conference.

Frustration, dismay, disillusion.

Against the odds, it is easy to give up hope.

 It seems to me now that we might have benefited from the opportunity to present online.

In 2015, I co-presented via a Google Hangout with my colleague Marcin Kleban in situ in Krakow.

,
Hybrid conferences...

The ALT conference is one that does a great job facilitating access to its events for remote participants.

The live streamed conferences, available immediately, mean that it is possible to participate not fully, but richly with the conversations around the event.

Virtually Connecting has become more and more important in my learning.

It offers opportunities which are not available to events which are only onsite.

How many people do not have access to learning, to conferences as a result of visa restrictions, financial barriers, family constraints, statutory constraints etc, etc?

This was exemplified by Parisa Mehran who was accepted to present this year, but was uable to attend due to visa rejections.

Frustration, dismay and (very costly) disillusion.

She was able to co-present her session via video conference.

Perhaps from such learning events new opportunities might be developed?

Earlier today, I was fortunate enough to have been able to follow Maritta Riekki and Leena Kuure's presentation thanks to Teresa Mackinnon offering to Periscope it.



I was able to watch Shannon Sauro's keynote (featuring Parisa Mehran's story) thanks to live streaming.



I had already found her slides on SlideShare.




I am looking forward to meeting up with Shannon, Teresa, Kate, Martina, and others on Saturday.

When I look at the program for Eurocall



And the abstracts


I think about all the sessions which will not be streamed or recorded.

I wonder how many live streaming smartphones were available in these sessions...

I wonder how many people wouldn't even try to participate because they believe that it is impossible.

I think of all the missed connections, the missed opportunties for learning, for community building.

Of course technology can never replace the power of people present together bodily but it can enrich, amplify and offer new powerful affordances.

Earlier today, I get notifications that my friend Daniel Bassill over in Chicago is joining in the conversations from Eurocall with Parisa over in Osaka.



 I come back and tweet a photo from Shannon's keynote.



I come back and find a link to some of Daniel Bassill's tutoring/mentoring work in Chicago.



Small actions of sharing learning can lead to big progresses in social justice.



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Sunday, November 29, 2015

Hybrids Rising.



"I love you not for who you are but for who I am with you."
Edward Scissorhands.

This is a declaration of love. 

It came to me suddenly as I was drawing diagrams on a piece of paper.  

As I was drawing on the paper, I became aware of my deep hybridity.

I am becoming increasingly aware of the hybridity of these spaces, these times, these relations.

From these relations am I born, am I growing, am I I i to die, to live on...

We are become multi-handed, multi-brained, multi-eyed monsters...

How shall we draw this our monster?


He is our shadow...

I am reminded of an earlier post....The Darkness



I am reminded of a Twitter profile, that one of Bonnie Stewart:

"educator, researcher, social media fortune teller - part LEGO, all cyborg."


Cyborg, hybrid monsters...

Capable of monstrosity, of poetry...

I think of how my last month has seen emerging, deepening, unpredictable, complex connections through attachments to those who are become part of a hopeful monster.



Let us embrace our monstrosity, let us have compassion.

I surprised myself writing the word compassion to a student in an email today.

I have no memory of using that word in my work before.

It is a first, a first step.

Do androids dream of electric sheep?
(Philip K Dick)

I was reading 'Five ways work will change in the future."

I am thinking of my co-existence with robots...

I am thinking of my co-existence with corporations...

I am thinking of my co-existence with totalitarian sects...

There is cause for fear.

Cause for hope.

I watched a talk of the Dalai Lama, thanks to connections within the #Workingoutloud group 

I fell upon a video, in it the Dalai Lama was talking about ISIS. 

I have become familiar with the actions of ISIS via grieving students.

What do we have to lose, all of us who work in education, each and every one of us, in working towards a more hopeful world?

"The twentieth century was a violent one, and more than 200 million people died due to wars and other conflicts. We now see a spillover of the previous century's bloodshed in this century. If we emphasize more on non-violence and harmony, we can herald a new beginning. Unless we make serious attempts to achieve peace, we will continue to see a replay of the mayhem humanity experienced in the 20th century."

"We need a systematic approach to foster humanistic values, of oneness and harmony. If we start doing it now, there is hope that this century will be different from the previous one. It is in everybody's interest. So let us work for peace within our families and society, and not expect help from God, Buddha or the governments."

Dalai Lama

Fellowships of hope.

I think of my diverse, complex, multifaceted friends around the world.

They are helping me to enable those around me to learn, to be enthused, to be valued.

Shall I name those friends?

Shall I give them away by symbols that they cluster around?

#digiwrimo
#clmooc
#rhizo14
#rhizo15
#ccourses
#wolweek

Symbols count. 

Tags and banners count.

"The Islamic State’s design of the Muslim profession of faith is different from every other attempt to replicate the prophet’s flag: “No god but God” is scrawled in white across the top and “Mohammed is the Messenger of God” is stacked in black inside a white circle."


ISIS counts.

Lives count.

Deaths count.


Hybrids rising.

Our lives are becoming ever more hopelessly intertwined.

Our lives are becoming ever more hopelessly intertwined with robots...

It is our lot.

What is our purpose here?

Swarm life.

Are we simply to be reduced to worker ants in a datamine?

All signs indicate to me that answers to such questions are inevitably ambiguous, inevitablly hybrid...never fixed.

But at heart of this all, there is a deeper, a much deeper quest.

Metamorphosis.

What sense am I, are we, to give to this our existence?

I am aware of my own essential unimportant importance.

I am given meaning by my friends.

I think for an instant of Hybrid Pedagogy.

Yes. 

All learning is necessarily hybrid.

I think of the people that I have met who have compassion.

Then I recognise myself.

We are unfinished monsters....


We are alone, at the mercy of others, helpless...

What is needed my friends is not passion driven learning but compassion driven learning.


"Life is not about creating yourself, it is about finding yourself."

George Bernard Shaw.









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