Dancing for credit.

Let's face it labels are a stumbling block.

I was never a big fan of labels - particularly for people.

We're for ever putting people into categories and then deciding into which box they will go.

Different boxes are given different values.

When that box is your life-raft we need to worry about who is doing the categorising.

"Women and children to the left, men stay on the ship."  

I have been lurking around the edges of Digital Pedagogy Lab's Cairo event.

Am I a participant?

How shall I be counted?

I watched part of a "keynote".

I noted a tweet:

'The instructor can choreograph the dance, but the dancers are the students themselves' @Jessifer #digped

— Sherin Darwish (@EgyptiansReborn) March 20, 2016

"Hmm..."

I thought to myself.

"Is the instructor the lord of the dance?"  
"Whatever happened to co-choreography?"

What actually is the "instructor" bringing to the dance?

I thought of street dance and went and found an image.

#digped who needs choreographers? @Jessifer pic.twitter.com/uFCAwuUtSW

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) March 20, 2016

I got a reply to the tweet from Jesse Stommel.

@sensor63 Yes, good question. Culture? The dancer? Learning as improvisational. But still a negotiation with space where it happens? #digped

— Jesse Stommel (@Jessifer) March 20, 2016

"Hmm..."

So what is key here is the space where it happens...?

@sensor63 I think perhaps--with a broad definition of space. #digped

— Jesse Stommel (@Jessifer) March 20, 2016

So what are these spaces?

I listened in to the Virtually Connecting hangout in which people were talking about:

 "Digital Natives.." (and their death) based on an article which was being annotated in hypothes.is.

"Aghh..."

I thought.

Listening to discussions around death of digital natives. #digped pic.twitter.com/LBkBy5o0Ik

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) March 20, 2016

I took a glance at the hypothes.is stream but felt unmoved to contribute

There were a few parts of the conversation which captured my attention.

Someone talked about innovation - about tech disrupting 'traditional' pedagogy.

I worry about the "disruption discourse" particularly as regards teaching.

What is this "traditional pedagogy" we're talking about and for whom does it require disrupting?

#digped we/they need to "disrupt pedagogy." I am fed up with language of disruption. pic.twitter.com/M63GyMfTBR

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) March 20, 2016

Someone was talking about "open" and the need to "scaffold open".

"How on earth does one scaffold open"? 

I thought.

@rjhogue Is this open? #digped pic.twitter.com/sQeAozxkEQ

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) March 20, 2016

I don't think that "open" is what you scaffold.

"So what is labelled "open" isn't really open at all."

I thought.

It's a label for something that some people want others to do.

"Is it like free?"

I thought.

"Free movement of capital, ideas, information, workers..."

I am not sure.

Labels mean different things to different people.

People gain different things from labels.

People put prices on labels...on tags.

I can put a price on training/choreography/drilling/education to achieve a tag...

Somebody talked about the need for "credit" - "credit" for their "learning."

The reason for needing "credit" concerned gaining money...to live.

For some people, time is money and it requires spending a lot of time to earn a little money.

Someone left a tweet about time.

@amcollier "...the most fruitful critical pedagogy discussions happen with a LOT of time." #digiped pic.twitter.com/bieRENDmYi

— Simon Ensor (@sensor63) March 20, 2016

Is critical pedagogy a conversation for the privileged?

Is critical digital pedagogy a conversation for the privileged?

I don't know.

I thought of kids.

"Are they digital natives?" 

I thought.

My kids dance.

Are they dancers?

They don't need a choreographer.

They follow dancers on Youtube.

Does that make them digital natives?

Kids dance.

Some kids dance in the open.

Is this "open"?

If their dancing appears on Youtube does that make them "digital natives"?

Why do they need a choreographer?

Do you only need a choreographer when you dance for credit?

Censored?

The Empire strikes back!

That's it my secrets have been discovered.
(see cogdog fake ensor here)

Why didn't I protect my brand?

Now they all know.


TOP SECRET RECIPE
A Touches of Sense post includes the following:

Courier Font

Absurd bits of bold text

(which appear for no apparent reason in the middle of a blog post)

Dots....
(He forgot the dots - HA HA HA like a missing hologram - it's clearly a fake)

Life-affirming message/No message/Obscure message/Search the message(s)crypticism

An emotive narrative snatched generally from childhood or some dreary box or Cogdog.

Blood.

Sweat 

Tears.

[LOTS OF TEARS]

Why didn't I protect my brand?

Sh..........(t)

It wasn't as if I didn't have prior warning.

Stolen Cogdog photos in Iceland
Stolen Courosa photos in Canada
Stolen Cormier rhizomatics in Canada
Stolen Dogtrax poems in the Auvergne

Sh......(t)

Cold countries! 
(The Auvergne is very cold in winter)

That's it. Beware Cold countries.

They spend more time on the net.

KimDoTCOM - cold Country.

He will have his MEGAcomeuppance.

Sh...(t)

How did Cogdog know I was about to post about COFFEE?
How did Cogdog know I was about to post about COFFEE?
How did Cogdog know I was about to post  about bored CROWS?

I have been hacked.
I have been counterfeited.
I have been COUNTERFêTED (note clever French reference)

My crows have been hacked.

Then the bit about the WOODWIND band.

That is my grand-father second from the left.

NO you can't use my grandfather's photo. (Search for the link - CLUE it's on the left)

How did he know?
How did he know?
How did he know?

[Note absurd repetition for no apparent reason that is part of my BRAND - so don't copy, copy, copy...]

How did he know?

Now I understand why he wants an open web.

It is to take our idea.

MY IDEA.

I shall review privacy settings.

I SHALL LIVE IN A CAVE. 
(with no wifi)
I SHALL ENTER INTO FRIENDSHIP WITH giant killer SPIDERS


NoONE shall read.

NoONE shall know.

NoONE shall care.

MY PRECIOUS, MY PRECIOUS.

AHHHHHHHHHHH

sensor63 falls into MAGMA lake and sizzles like a sausage.

END

Thank you @cogdog for inspiring this tragic investigation into the ownership of cultural CAPITAL
[cash in post]


Please note Social Capital is all MINE.


CASH IN POST

Enclosed:

New Cogdog Bank note:  #d$106 dollars  

Stillness in frenesy.

Crowd scenes

It is a cinematic standard, a lone figure, caught up in a chaotic crowd, moving in the other direction...







It is the noise of Twitter streams, thundering down the valley, while we cling onto a branch struggling, for dear life, not to be swept away to drown.

It is the noise of hardly understood French in an echoing restaurant.

As the evening continues, the speed of banter accelerates, the volume increases, the people around the table speaking...or is it yelling simultaneously?

It is the crowd of unknown people at a conference, a party, a disco, a market,  apparently all following well-tread paths to meet up with their friends, colleagues, partners, loves, accomplices,  while you are left to gape dimly from the wings, dumb to their well-rehearsed performance.

It is the gap separating cultures, separating generations, unwilling or unable to adjust to the noise, to the speed, to the mode of communication, to the language, to the music, to the ways of performing identity, to the ways of making sense.

How shall we be connected together my friends? How shall we learn to respect silence, to respect noise? 

How shall we reach out to save the drowning soul? How shall we realise we are the drowning soul? 

How shall we dissassemble our cliques, our countries, our clubs, to let in new blood?

How shall we see we are part of a whole? How shall we pause to make sense in this chaos...together?

Silent Movie Stars

How did the Silent Movie Stars react to the arrival of the talkies?

Chaplin aside, many would sink bitterly without trace, unable to adapt to a new medium.

For a time, the two genres would live on side by side, until the public voted with their tickets for their preferred entertainment.

How should we preserve the silent master-pieces of another age?

A Gold Rush 

How do pioneers respond to the arrival of a Gold Rush mob ?

Comfortable in their virgin wilderness, the first settlers respond grumpily to the influx of new adventurers who are hungrier, perhaps more desperate for unearthing that rare nugget.

The old-timers mutter amongst themselves, reluctantly pack their belongings and slip away to escape the harranging crowd, that ragged, uncouth rabble.


A place of worship

An Anglican lower-church clergyman is cinematically transported to Harlem, to a Harlem gospel church.

He kneels, takes out his book of Common Prayer , sighs and starts to indulge in silent contemplation.

Deep in prayer, blissfully caught up in his quiet-time, he is suddently blasted off his lowly hassock by a congregation of full-hearted charismatic soul.

A library reading room

There is a feeling of quiet communion in a cathedralesque library reading room.  We are together, we feel connection, we feel peace to study, to savour knowledge...together.

Is there still a place for quiet refuge, for the unsaid, apparently unacted, bond of being one with learning?

A bustling coffee shop

Unexpected encounters, noisily shared ideas, banter, jokes, excited movement, clustering, grouping, whispering, guffaws of laughter. 

We are in the heart of a city, at the hub of intellectual energy, of serendipity, of innovation.

A global village?

Brave new world, shrunk to manageable proportions. 

Web 2.0, a participative promise of prosumer paradise.  

We are caught up in the glory, or might it be mirage, of global-reach. 

Whose artificial limbs are we using? 

Will those limbs be ripped away from us the moment we learn to run faster on our own?

A whole world, becomes a click away. 

What shall be our message? Where shall we speak?

Connnecting courses

It's all so straight-forward, connecting courses. 

We have a  simple bundle of hashtags, a familiar friending on Facebook, a conversation circle on a Google hangout, a glossy website.  

OMG we all feel that longing to be closer. We revel in an illusion of harmony.

Closer to what? Closer for who?

Will we introduce rave-parties into temples of contemplation, money peddlers into temples of worship? 

Will we have to fight to be heard in the town square, while facing up to a mob going in the other direction? 

Will we fight for the right to be badged with a hashtag? 

Will we be the pioneers overwhelmed by the prospectors? 

Town planning?

Shall we set out plans for private dwelling, for public assembly, for drinking and dancing? 

Whose plans should we adopt? To what extent will our voices be respected? 

Down to earth

I am taken back to images of dulling routine, swimming, or is it drowning in water. 

Shall we glory at our lot on Youtube?  

Accept your lot, love your enemy,as yourself... 

Angry thrashing of a drowning man

Is it enough to accept? Is this really water? Is this water not contained in somebody's aquarium?

I am not ready to swallow the bait whole. 

Why don't we thrash this out together?

Shall we not imagine new spaces in which to express our diversity, our laughter, our soul, our belonging, our learning, our connection? 

Lost in a jungle

It would appear, for the moment, that we are lost together in a jungle, where all recognisable calls are cause for reassurance.

Beware the wolves.