Sunday, July 5, 2009

Flexible Learning Assignment 2 A transition activity for elluminate

Otago Polytechnic, 2009

BODY STOP

Assignment 2 - Flexible Learning.


Slides 1 – 8


Slides 1 - 3 -Introduction: A concise explanation of my flexible learning plan

The concepts of Body Stop address some of the questions and concerns I have experienced as a teacher in my recent exposure to flexible learning. For this presentation I have selected a particular mode of flexible learning as it is directly relevant to the courses I am teaching here at the Otago Polytechnic.


Since the beginning of this year I have been teaching for the most part and for the first time online: Study Skills, Research Methods and Fundamentals of Massage, all integrative theoretical papers, to a range of Massage Therapy Certificate and Diploma students. Therefore I have selected an aspect of Elluminate’s virtual real-time classroom, to see if I could develop an easy transition activity into students’ learning focus.


I noticed that even in their second year, Diploma students are inevitably anxious in the commencement phase of Elluminate sessions and their disconcerted behaviours propounded a feeling that as a teacher of an holistic discipline, with subjects directly related to others’ healthcare, I needed to pay attention to physical, mental and emotional aspects of my students’ wellbeing while learning online.


My background in education encompasses not only massage therapy but also dance performance and somatic studies. In my Master of Education thesis I studied how school children adapt their physical bodies to their site of learning that is, the classroom environment. I have used some of these initial findings to support the concepts that I will discuss today.


Throughout I will allude to issues of access and equity; cultural sensitivity; sustainability as integral and embedded concepts. They are interwoven into this initial discussion and in the same way into the focus activity and expanded for detail and relevance in the subsequent reflection (blog) about this particular presentation.

I welcome your feedback.


Slide 4 -Examples for practice inspiration and a way in to my model

  • Transition

Some of the examples that promoted my conceptual exploration and the development of a transition activity to learning online have been inspired by coming to grips with an obvious online emphasis in the Massage Therapy programme. I regularly witness David McQuillan’s (Massage Therapy Programme Coordinator) teaching style on Elluminate. I have noticed that just prior to the online class starting a sort of silence descends on our shared workspace. Without the articulation of a need or desire for silence to focus, the ambience in the room shifts to the learning site or state. I enjoy this feeling in that I also can focus well. I can listen in an uninterrupted way to a master educator at work as well as continue on with my tasks. I am aware at the time of how my own breathing patterns change and adapt. Focus and breath awareness are two significant and familiar practices of somatics.


  • Wellbeing (and health)

A second example that supports the concept behind my plan came about from the reading I had been doing alongside the Flexible Learning Course Assignment One’s Blogging exercises. While reading Alexenberg’s (2008) selected essays about the intersections of art, science and technology I was reminded about the complex and expanded version of teaching and the implicitly transformative nature of learning in this current era. Herod defines transformative learning as “learning to purposively question one's own assumptions, beliefs, feelings, and perspectives in order to grow or mature personally and intellectually” (2002).


Succinctly stated in a review of his previous book, Piene (2007) describes how Alexenberg, even as “a very sophisticated artist and scholar of much experience in the complex playing field of art-science-technology addresses the rarely asked question: How does the “media magic age communicates content?” On reflection after one of my earlier Elluminate sessions, I noted that I felt responsible for assisting these students to not only transition comfortably into their virtual learning environment but that the online content itself should speak to a sense of wellbeing.


This wellbeing becomes a sensorial and vibrant platform for the transformation of knowledge to learning. Using the great educational theorist Mezirow’s model, Taylor (1998) describes this as a provisional trialling of new roles and competence and self confidence building. In the following short audio sample I hope to demonstrate the potential for the transition activity to make way for this to happen.

  • Holism
The third example and key point from which my Elluminate transition activity has been based on was inspired by reading Simonsen’s, abstract about the geography of practice. Like me she explores an interrelationship between practice, spatiality and embodied emotions (2007).

Slide 5

“…taking off from a social ontology of practice. This means a focus of attention to embodied or practical knowledges and their formation in people’s everyday lives, to the world of experiences and emotions, and to the infinitude of encounters through which we make the world and are made by it in turn.” (Simonsen, 2007, p. 168).


Simonsen also discusses how subjectivity and identity are created in a virtual world and a means to develop a “sensuous character of practice” These ideas have further informed my subsequent preparations when teaching online.


The following Elluminate sample is an experiment I undertook this week in an Elluminate session with the first years Study Skills group. This is about their 7th Elluminate session.


Slide 6 - imagery as inspiration


Audio sample: An audacity recording of the Elluminate session 30 06 09 - still to come!!


Slide 7

  • Performance readiness

Keeping in mind that I have come from a dance performance background, I was pleased with the way the students responded by continuing the session with an evidently new calm at least in this early stage of implementing my plan. The effort of focussing, breathe awareness and the use of evocative imagery and metaphor to support releasing unnecessary tension are all familiar learning tools for a dancer when learning new movements and vocabularies for dance.


How my plan fits within this educational organisation


When reading the Otago Polytechnic Charter 2006-2010 I was immediately drawn to the Whakatauaki (Def. ) 1. (verb) (-tia) to utter a proverb.

2. (noun) proverb, saying, aphorism - particularly those urging a type of behaviour. (Te Pihinga Textbook (Ed. 2): 31-32;Te Kōhure Textbook (Ed. 2): 39;)

Kua tawhiti kē te harereka

Kia kore re haere tonu.

He tino nui rawa ōu mahi,

Kia kore e mahi nui tonu.

English translation

We have come too far, not to go further.

We have done too much, not to do more.

I cannot give this proverb justice with my accent but even when reading the poetic somberness of the words struck me. On rereading the Maori again and again even the English translation evokes a sense of pain. Keeping in mind the VISION section on page 2 of the Charter, where applied learning in our chosen areas is for “excellence in vocational education and training”, I have applied the Maori holistic approach to health as a basis for weaving the vision of the Charter with my new learning approach. Hauora is the Maori philosophy of health and unique to New Zealand. It includes Taha Tinana - Pysical well being, Taha Hinengaro - Mental and Emotional well being, Taha Whanau - Social well being and Taha Wairua - Spiritual well being.


The third bullet point of the same section of the documents states that this educational environment is to be recognised for: The flexibility of our delivery and our willingness to accommodate the specific learning aspirations of students through individualised and cross disciplinary programmes of learning. I have employed this statement to incorporate key issues of access, equity and sustainability in my delivery of learning content in Elluminate sessions.


Concluding comments:

As you can see, the Body Stop plan is simple and although not necessarily a must for all students could in effect be used by a wide range of online learners. I see as Elluminate develops a better interface I will be able to produce different selections of slides and a range of meditative or imagery based awareness activities so that each student can individually take their own somatic pre-class readiness activity. The activity only takes four to five minutes. If I get the audio bites synced with BlipTV perhaps they could have it completed on the bus on the way to their community learning centre?

In the meantime the initial results and feedback from the students has been positive and I feel enabled to stay well within the safety and health aspects of my discipline while teaching online. I acknowledge the support of Bronwyn hegarty and Leigh Blackall from the Otago Polytechnic Te kura matatini ki Otago Education Development Centre. Thankyou


Slide 8 -Reference list:

Alexenberg, M. (2008). Educating artists for the future: Learning at the intersections of art, science, technology and culture. US: Intellect Books.

Author note: Mel (Menahem) Alexenberg is an artist and art educator best known for his explorations of the intersections between art, science, technology, and culture through his artworks, teaching, and writing. Retrieved July 2, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Alexenberg

Bond, M. (2007). The new rules of posture. How to sit stand and move in the modern world. Vermont: Healing Arts Press.

Defintion of Hauora. Retrieved July 2 2009 from http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Definition_of_hauora.

Franklin, E. (2002). Relax your neck, liberate your shoulders. Elysian Ed. NJ: Princeton Book Co.

Herod, L. (2002). Adult learning from theory to practice. Retrieved July 3, 2009 from http://www.nald.ca/adultlearningcourse/glossary.html

Some thoughts on flexible learning. Retrieved July 2, 2009 from Jenny's Flexi Learning Blog

Karahasanovic, A. & Folstad, A. (2008). New approaches to requirements elicitation & how HCI can improve social media development. The NordiCHI 2008 Workshops, (TAPIR Tapir akademisk forlag), Trondheim, November 2008. Retrieved June 30, 2009 from http://folk.uio.no/amela/

McQuillan, D. (2007). Study Skills Course notes OT5034, Otago Polytechnic Te kura matatini ki Otago, School of Social Services, New Zealand, pp. 50-53.

Otago Polytechnic Te Kura Matatini ki Otago Charter. First retrieved June 1, 2009 from Otago Polybase, https://webit.tekotago.ac.nz/polybase/

Piene, O. (Professor Emeritus, MIT Centre for Advanced Visual Studies, USA). Review of Alexenberg, M. (2008). Educating artists for the future: Learning at the intersections of art, science, technology and culture. US: Intellect Books. Retrieved July 2, 2009 from http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/241156.ctl

Simonsen, K. (February, 2007). Practice, spatiality and embodied emotions: An outline of a geography of practice. Human Affairs, pp. 168-181.

Taylor, E. W. (1998). The theory and practice of transformative learning: A critical review. Information series, No. 374. Columbus: ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education, Centre on Education and Training for Employment, College of Education, Ohio State University.

Te Kōhure Textbook (Ed. 2): 31-39. Retrieved July 2 2009 from www.maoridictionary.co.nz/index.cfm?prophet&search

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

delicious two

running abbreviated smallish but nicely referenced definition of delicious..

Delicious uses a non-hierarchical classification system in which users can tag each of their bookmarks with freely chosen index terms (generating a kind of folksonomy).

By the way off the top of my head - folksonomy describes the way a bookmark becomes common usage - so all those people using it get to greips with the technology of it and also become a community of knowing the spread of "it" in rwelation to both their common/ shared and speciosu interest.. mebbe

Delicious is one of the most popular social bookmarking services. (Wikipedia)

free - this does mean something peeps

All bookmarks posted to Delicious are publicly viewable by default, although users can mark specific bookmarks as private, and imported bookmarks are private by default. The public aspect is emphasized; the site is not focused on storing private ("not shared") (Wikipedia)

Ok here is a Youtube about using delicious how to do it - can I can I embed the code pliss...




yeehah - that was a double enter moment - copy the mebed code form thje youtube and paste it - lal a and never mind the pixel width of the youtube - cos we dont mind the 425 width moment... youtube carries on.



delicious - not really

a difficult moment - using a prettier word for something which is clearly not
Delicious
by the way:

Noun1.disambiguation - clarification that follows from the removal of ambiguity
clarification, elucidation, illumination - an interpretation that removes obstacles to understanding; "the professor's clarification helped her to understand the textbook"
lexical disambiguation - disambiguation of the sense of a polysemantic word
or
dis⋅am⋅big⋅u⋅ate [dis-am-big-yoo-eyt] Show IPA –verb (used with object), -at⋅ed, -at⋅ing. to remove the ambiguity from; make unambiguous: In order to disambiguate the sentence “She lectured on the famous passenger ship,” you'll have to write either “lectured on board” or “lectured about.”

woah I got side tracked...

socially constructed moodia / calendar

sounds kind of cool - a moodier approach to media.. not sure about media after all..
why are we thinking about mediatisation of learning - I know thats a crazy thing to say but what if we weren't so keen on a grabitalland hang onto it like crazyapproach and instead settled down to the tiny details of learning prowess... more about that on friday... something about the individual.. I wonder if I can pull this off - an ephemereal moment in the oblong history of virtual education..

setting up a calendar is an anathema - timeframing - I was reading about a sequential approach ch to learning - a pace driven by time.. grrr
what if we could pace our own learning - less reliant on calendars... hmm I know its not going to work and I am once a gain a meaningless subject void of institutional desire
err you need a google account - of course you do...
Log into google
2nd link from left is a calendar link
mutter mutter
- enter a few events of the week - thats the next step...
erhem - Im sorry I have a noisy boy as a class mate tonight.. his name is boy stormy - yeah yeah
then
in the left navigation area - click the drop calendar that is next to your calendar and then change the colour
and now having your calendar so pretty and also featuring a different language - how did I get that - wait up - must go back a few steps - always freaky because for some strange reason the machine takes over and decides that it is going to delete all and sundry and strangely even my brain / memory (er)
click the same drop down box and select calendar settings - change the title etc.
when you see the embed code - dont copy it yet...
back to the crazy pixel issue - instead click the link that sez (erf) customise the colour size and other options..
step 6: har har adjust settings to 400 pixels (not 800 cos that was too big and wouldnt fit the our blogsono)
and any other settings...
kinaesthesia
and then the final step is to copy the embed code (its automatically/ magically been updated wow - yep yep yep...) and paste it as a new post in my blog.
La la la
Thomas should see this - he would be so proud of his MUM!!





waaah more crazy thingos and now my calendar is in portuguese - an innovative way of learning a language... sort of embedded learning if you think about it

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

bikram review

really a picture

a picture - we know not which yet..


a picture??

a real dance creature

sylvie guillem

a new video

his is a video of a contemporary dance - unknown - I have no critical comment to make yet

moblogging

moblogging and flickr la la
dumb names for these things I tell ya - anatomical names are sooo much prettier and convey so much more...
how exciting is the thought of plantaris or subscapularis
flickr is OK I spose - I used to get called flick..
back to my thoughts about sustainable education and still from a postural - somatic - performative persepctive..
Blanchet writes - before it is there, no one awaits it ; no one recognises it for it is not there- the disaster. It has already diverted the word "be" realizing itself to such a degree that it has not begun." The Writing of the Disaster, M Blanchot.

Step 1. Create an account with flickr.com - er this is the wrong link - just go to the first page you dolt
Step 2. Scroll down the page to - Tools - by help two over..
Step 3. Uploading to your very own precious email - hmm didnt work darn it..
get photo - - on that page - add a tag - its your file name - body stop

Monday, June 1, 2009

examining examples of FL marketing annd articles

Examining examples of marketing and articles about flexible learning - and contrasting them with some writing about arts education...

This blog is partially pre-empted by my previous blog that critiques the chaotic environment of an Elluminate (virtual classroom setting). This blog supports discussion and reflection about transformative thinking which results from chaos. Chaos in this sense means a non-linear learning, where the results of the learning activity are produced as moments in diverse situations (Holland & O’Connor, 2004, pp. 31-32).

 “In a highly competitive international market… …is the first choice of thousands of students”. (Youtube, 2008, 32 secs). This précised comment from a marketing video for University of London, recently released on Youtube, highlights the kind of emphases that have been placed on the advertising profile of flexible learning courses, firstly with a presumption that students respond to the call for higher education primarily through the prompt of competitiveness. Interestingly this clip has been viewed worldwide by just over one thousand viewers (I have seen it 3 times for this assignment).

Paradoxically the clip reveals a key reason that people choose this type of distance learning. “Self pacing” is a term that describes the flexibility of completing study and assessment tasks alongside the ordinary juggle of family roles and responsibilities with work commitments. From this term, several critical notes about this particular presentation and its use as a persuasive tool for recognising the benefits of study access as an educational format spring to mind. Access worldwide is touted as a reason for studying this way, with no real mention about associated fees, course related costs. The very real issue of tutor contact and travel for same were discussed at the end of the video as critical. The costs of travel and sustainability issues for family and work challenged students are hardly mooted, nor the very real carbon footprint issue, engendered by such distance locations.

In describing the University of London as a centre of excellence, the advertising blurb relies on previous standards of qualification. These same criteria define meetings between tutors and students for revision, shared discussion about the subject and challenges to the knowledge input of tutors as critical learning events prior to examination. Once again time dense consideration is not compared with the ongoing schedules of work and family.  Important to note is Annand’s (2007) comment that “despite hopes that social interaction incorporating more characteristics of face-to-face instruction will be facilitated in the ‘post-industrial’ adult distance education era, facilitating significant learner-to-learner interaction requires cohorts of students to move through a course of studies at the same pace. As a result, requirements of social interaction conflict with learner autonomy” Introduction section, para. 2).

Similarly, in this same article about re-organising universities for the information age, Annand (2007) (pre)scribes university education (as) “still generally conducted within pre-Industrial Age organizational structures” and thereby discloses a binary appraisal of different education accesses, somewhat muddled by learning theory, teaching theory and the very real financial problematic of maintaining educational quality in a fiscally disrupted era. The third line of this important article denotes cost effectiveness as a rationale for flexible delivery and becomes highlighted as an anxious and economically driven educational philosophy.

Further to this fear is a very real inhibition created by an increased dependency on technological advancements. Students’ access to learning online and/ or at a distance is to a large extent not yet matched by institutional resources, both human (technical support) and machine (computer and their associated communicational programmes). Alexenberg (2008) describes this same inhibition as “similar to the problem of learning a new language” (p. 16). He states that learners will default to linear or relational pattern of recognition as opposed to the integrative conceptually rich confirmation of learning that occurs in response to learning on site.

Keeping in mind the threads of my crituique, I argue that the same resistance to learning through technologically driven media may catalyse a new model for thinking, where the digital world becomes a conceptual agent, and students are provided with unique pathways to think. Annand (2007) concurs by naming this as a consequence (where) learning can be more autonomous and self-directed. However, Peters (2004) also points out that as this kind of learning is “technically mediated” it must be also be “carefully planned and structured”.

A secondary benefit from flexible learning education is described by this same author as “text-based rather than orally based” (Peters, 2004). In a previous blog I have briefly examined the anomaly which resides in the expectation that the whole world knows how to read. Without diverting this essay into a discussion about such an unreal statistic, this discussion points the way to a surfacing problem with flexible learning of the high level reliance on face to face or tutor to student communication. Both the Youtube clip and the article report the desire for students to be in close communication with their teacher albeit little or no desire to know them.

In the article, Anderson (2003) posits the following equivalency theorem: Deep and meaningful formal learning is supported as long as one of the three forms of interaction (student–teacher; student-student; student-content) is at a high level. The other two may be offered at minimal levels, or even eliminated, without degrading the educational experience. High levels of more than one of these three modes will likely provide a more satisfying educational experience, though these experiences may not be as cost or time effective as less interactive learning sequences. (p. 5). In conclusion, the economically driven decisions of distance and flexible learning has not yet made inroads into the teacher hours to student self directed learning ratio.

Reference list

Alexenberg, M, (2008). Educating artists for the future: Learning at the intersections of art, science, technology and culture. Bristol: UK, Chicago: US. Intellect

Anderson, T. (2003). Getting the mix right again: An updated and theoretical rationale for interaction. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 4(2). Retrieved June1, 2009 from: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/149/230

Annand, D. (2007). Re-organizing universities for the information age. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 8(3). Retrieved June 1, 2009 from http://www.unescobkk.org/information/news-display/article/re-organizing-universities-for-the-information-age/

Distance Learning & Flexible Study - University of London External System. Retrieved June 1, 2009 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLyEiYC_0Xg

Holland, C. & O’Connor, P. (2004). Like writing off the paper: report on student learning in the arts. Ministry of Education: New Zealand

Peters, O. (2004). Distance Education in Transition. New trends and challenges (4th Ed.). Oldenburg : Bibliotheks-und Informationssytems der Universitat Oldenburg.

Flexible Learning Practice Blog - orientation and introduction

I am Felicity Molloy - just come back from a massage conference in Invercargill - the most significant thing about this period of time (not the event) was a trip (hauntingly ugly Mataura - we chose to go through the back roads and came by the mill and a dirty sad river and crumbling houses - is this who I am - a traveller on a misused pathway??
Felicity means happiness and Molloy is an oldish Irish name. Born in England of Irish/ New Zealand heritage. I live here but I am not from here. Nor am I from there because I have not lived there for the last so many years - so in many ways I see myself as a gypsy - this informs how I think - about myself and about thinking. Also about knowledge - that it is transient - fixed impermanently in the scribes who care to write it and it seems more recently - I have come upon a perhaps gross assumption - that all people have a capability for flexible learning because all people are capable of reading and writing.
I (dont think of myself as an expert in anything but I have been doing and integrating these things for a long time)
parent
wife
read
write
dance - perform teach critic choreograph direct
massage - clinic teach
practice and teach yoga/ somatics
cook
think
research
there's more but I always get bored with this as a list - the lables are as transient as the emphases on why I do them
I am interested speciously in this flexible learning course. As always I am tempted by the thought of more ways of thinking about learning to inform the framework from which I teach. I had no real aim before starting and my previous aim since was to use it as a way of skills building into technology/ blended delivery.. - I have found disappointingly that this is not the case so instead I maintain my focus and interest (spurious) in the attempts of others to endorse learning through technology as a way of reachnig all students. As a student I have not found this to be the case so suffer. Once again flung about as gypsy - unbelonging.. etc. etc.
as a flexible learner - I find this course more of a brainwash attempt. Oh well. Safe in the thought that no one reads stuff - my absent teachers..
I have no questions or demands on either the schedule or the orientation. My demand for learning skills was met with a negation. Suffering is part of the learning pathway - I am familiar with that.
Some other course I had I realised that what I learnt most was about how other people experience things - Nussbaum (2008) calls this the capabilities approach... more about that later..

Nussbaum M.C. (2000). Women and human development: The capabilities approach.

Oh and I think for this course I will endeavour to only use books as a resource - this may not be possible. I hope that some readers - if anyone does read this blog will make there way in cool clear air to a library (maybe smile at some other human on the way) and find the volume (asking for help from a real live person?) - smell the rich read smell of books and feel that lovely feeling of opening the "right" book, finding the page and wondering how many others have touched those pages, connected their thoughts slowly single focussed like I do, and thought how those same thoughts are then revealed as a shared sensorial moment. Spend time in the roomy silence of a vast spacious cavern of mingled thought. Touched, smelt, seen..
The massage conference was great!
FM

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

synaesthesia

synaesthesia - being able to capture a sensation through a different sense - the author Boucher - uses the example of coloured hearing - examples which give you/ me a sense of visceral - ity - gut response! may be a good way in - can I feel it (although I am then submerged in this awful feeling that i shouldnt be asking others to feel anything - thinking (notetaking about "access")
and
wow I found this tonight on socially constructed media time.. its about the craziness of dance gesture (there is an interestingly absttract abstract which contains language abuot this subject form a technology perspective... - here it is
the full document was freakishly unwieldy - I ll read it mebbe

in the meantime I thnk of dance gesure as a yet to be articulated vocabulary - reaching to distinctive ways of expressing human evolution..
PRACTICE, SPATIALITY AND EMBODIED EMOTIONS: AN OUTLINE OF A GEOGRAPHY OF PRACTICE



and the way we / me - you / audience / performer interact..this is the next condition of my presentation - more about this later... ps virtual classmates - I will be catching up with you quite soon!

FM

Thursday, May 7, 2009

a perspective about the desire to learn

A students perspective about a desire to learn something they don't know much about - a critique?

On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 4:47 PM, Felicity wrote:

I am often struck dumb by the fragmentation of communication that goes on in an Elluminate session..
I have come lately to teaching through this medium myself - its like a really really noisy classroom and hard for a girly swat (pre-interactivity I know I know) to establish emphasetic learnings. (learning based on emphases - my word!)
This made me think about me - as a student learner model (not a model learning student) - and my current freakish experience of teaching stuff through a medium I am so new in - I was thinking about how I asked you if I could go back to the Socially Constructed Media course without actually knowing if there is a timetable but trusting that I can fill out some of the (sensed) gaps in my tecknowledge - this trust is based on three assumptions.
1
That there is stuff to know and that will help
2
That whatever I practice will support knowing - its all going somewhere
3
That the order of its knowledge lodging is not so critical?..

Example - going to a dance show the other night and watching the choreographer struggle with a linear narrative - I was reviewing - see Theatreview - Finders Keepers

and as I was watching - re-placing sections in my mind to see if she - the choreographer would be more successful (clear) if she were to edit/ place the dance sections less in narrative order - so that the final piece/ dance became a whole but more through the attempts by the audience to make sense of it.. not the choreographer telling the story.

It seems odd but, for me when watching contemporary dance, often a more successful way of promoting the intricacies of a "story" - hmm filmwise like Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow..

so whilst chatting to David McQ afta - I thought up something... if Blogging weren't designed as a list - shopping list styles or worse even that what has been stated previously is lost because it has so easily been replaced by whatever else is next (shame on this post colonialist way of thinking) -

but instead was tiled as its interface or even thumb nailed on a page with a graphic "arrow " tool that could link (bit like a database keywords link - see Eric Educational) themes/ topics/ words to produce the next RSS - hmm my techno language is daunted again - imagine how steady the flow of ideas could become - learning to learner..
sort of like Delicious but forward facing (communicative) rather than accumulative..
Is there such a widget that would cope? gasp!!

- would we then be able to install a different face (not interface but a lisable face - say profile) of the learner?

and Response from leigh B - permission to use this feedback below ... and for efficiency sake I have inserted some responses/reactions in brackets - like a dialogue between words.. (FM... )

Indeed, blogging is as you suggest it should be. To you (FM...who? me - or the student that Leigh thinks I might be - the "unknower - the outsider even? or the cause of the session - i.e. the student who doesnt really exist - or the student who reports the process of learning - may be this can become the presentation assignment?),
LBcont. -it is linear. To your committed followers it is too. But to everyone else it is a patchwork or stumbled upon search result, emailed link recommending a post, or a stretch and a yawn followed by an "oh, why not. I have 5 minutes to read it". To most people, blogging is all interconnected and a "hypertext reality" - very non linear. I think I recall a dance performance in Melbourne back in 2001 inspired by hypertext. I'm sure it hasn't made its way to Dunedin yet - just as the Internet hasn't really either. (FM... aaaargh - how is it we have defaulted to your dance experience.. is this what I mean? Is it all I can mean?)

As for the difficulty to focus on such a session as this afternoon. I agree. I get that too.. its a different type of listening, requiring a pretty intense level of concentration. (FM - multitasking is not necessarily the best way of learning? see.. The multitasking generation and Attention literacy -What I found interesting is the way I somatically whirled out of the chaotic assemblage of multi techno learning tools and sorted a vortex - a calm place in the eye of the storm - to postion myself as a reflexive learner - i.e. what was I learning about this situation - therefore not soo much content driven knowledge accumulation - but questioning how do students (like me - distressed? ) learn?).

LB - Which is to say - its not for everyone. Part of that had a lot to do with the fact that we were trying to do a panel. Much the same as a radio panel. Which is inherently very non linear and difficult to do well. Even Radio NZ do it badly. Elluminate is much better used as a lecture delivery tool.. where you, Felicity can relax and watch passively (FM I actively resent this - I dont think I am passive by not being reliant on hyperactivity! - ouch Leigh! You dont know my history - just a virtual- ly empty space of your prejudgement!!)

The rest is back to Leigh...as you would in your average lecture. And perk up again when a prompt for "questions" was given. Personally, I think todays panel was not a great success. But it was worth a try.

Check the course blog for the recording, and see if that makes a difference. Have a listen while you cook a pasta in your PJs after a relaxing bath and wearing your fav slippers (or your equivalent depiction of a relaxed state). If you feel inclined, email one of the panel members (as you have me) and consider how very personal that is as a q and a session - that could go on for ever! Then compare that to attending a panel in a classroom at the Polytechnic, on a cold and windy day at around 4 in the afternoon, with 10 minutes left for questions. Precious are those classrooms. Over all, I'd prefer a panel discussion on a train ride up the gorge. We did that in 2006 with a packed carriage. It was a great success! Equal in distractions and requiring intense concentration some of the time.

LB - PS. Please add your notes to your blog. You're welcome to take anything I typed here btw.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

some text even

A short story about a day in the life of someone who is considering doing my flexible learning course. This person is not called X because it is a sad name for a human who may have a range of flexible learning needs. Instead I am calling her Singe.

This story highlight issues that Singe may have for NOT doing my flexible learning course, as it is set up at the present time. At the same time these very same reflectiosn hold the potential for achievement on a deeply satisfying personal level. More about this another time...

Singe is a dancer - for the last thirty seven years she has spent between two and twelve hours daily manoeuvering her body around space - learning bodily intelligence. A synchronous application of mind participating with body. This place in bodily tissues became her training ground and also her job... when she had children, she became a mother's body too.. fluid, vast and ultimately singed.

Singe has had some of the following issues: not only does she have several jobs - managing a clinical practice for others' sore bodies, directing creative acts in dancers' choreographies and teaching other bodies about movement vocabularies, she never wonders about the problems of affording study but implicitly trusts that there is space in the world for her learning - it is a juggle but she knows that she can find the reasons to leave the precarious heave of employment for study.

Further to these spacious deliberations, Singe has had to be able to move (between) cities to find new sites of work, to attend classes and to invade new bodies. Difficulties range between straddling conceptual differences in learning in classrooms and learning within a sort of extreme virtual space. We could replace those two learning words simultaneously with teaching... and therein lies the what is not yet known - a curious and deliciously scary space.

Singe seeks to maintain self clarity and serenity at the pace of others, so that the belief that her new courses do not fit exactly with the range of things she wants to learn settles in to a list of simpler problems: she may not feel comfortable using computers (partly due to a rejection of the micro movement range which engenders pain and thickening in valuable connective tissues), her disability in managing relationships in a student centred environment and loneliness from missing her faraway family can only enrich her journey.

The purpose of me writing this story is to consider as many reasons as I can where people like me might be better able to access a flexible learning course. HINT: If you are able, it is best to read my story about a real situation as it has already been encountered if not heard about, and not necessarily confirmed.

wateva


Baby Charlie maybe

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

scary feature

there isn't a lot to say at this time of night - I guess its a bit like a diary... mind over vitality - I tried to write virtuality