Journal or Blog?

playing around with eportfolio ideas for conference discussion and just thinking about whether it is better to use journal  in ePortfolio or this blog.  One is private until I share, and this is almost private because I haven't (while practicing) got terribly public about the blog or sent it to people.

So what to do or both....

Blurring the edges

The use of electronic technologies is blurring the lines between what was traditionally professional and personal. This came into focus a number of times this week:

•  when our marketing manager was writing a draft of a policy about use of electronic media,
• a discussion with a librarian about the use of blogs and referencing them
• Some friends  post really professionally useful articles and references on Facebook.
• LinkedIn groups contain some great ideas and complete rubbish 

The content can't be judged by the medium.  Don't judge a book by its cover?
So many new tools being developed all the time and people using those that they feel comfortable with are quite  a challenge to academic traditions
Just pondering at the moment ...

Meaning or words

moon over the bay

The patterns of nature are not necessarily simple.  

What is hardest though is the words that have been chosen to describe them that make the learning more difficult. I know that I am getting older but I already forget the silly word meaning the moon is closest to earth.  I won't quickly forget however the beauty of it rising over the hills and shining on the water.

Reflecting on the purpose of theory

Learning theories should offer some insight into learning.
For those new to teaching the plethora of view points is somewhat confusing and can get in the way rather than assist understanding.
When I taught science I saw that my task was to uncover meaning that enabled students to build there own understanding.
How to do this with learning theories?
For those I work with I see my task is to provide a practical framework that enables them to create coherent engaging lessons for their students in a wide range of practical areas

abiding interest in learning about life

southcoast reflection

When I was a teenager  one of the first books I purchased were called the chemistry of life,  I just looked it up and there are revised editions still available, and Steven Rose the writer has written much else.
I still remember the area in the bookshop in Princes St Dunedin.  So why the interest?  Chosen because it explored areas not yet being taught in school.
Steven Rose mentions in the preface to the 1999 edition that he is not sure what in this book inspired people.
I think that it was a simple overview made it accessible, and as a teenager studying chemistry it built on what I already knew.  Why wouldn't people be interested in how the chemistry of life works?  The ultimate secret much unraveled in the intervening years but not yet fully understood.

Understanding the brain’s mechanisms and dynamics has proved biology’s most intractable – and fascinating - problem over the three centuries since the birth of modern science. 

Prospects and Perils of the New Brain Sciences: a twenty year timescale*in 2009 by Steven Rose

 So the morning discovery is to find an author who interested me in the late 1960's is still interested in the field and still interests me...
My battered copy is dusty in the bookcase, but says with me

literally in the littoral zone

Beautiful Good Friday day and chance to walk the southcoast, at low tide in the calm.  Still struggling with phone camera at times so today tried a few new things.  in the end the classic shot of course.
Different kinds of learning, but will try to capture panorama soon!

Learning is a living thing

Not a new thought at all but return to it today having explored some thoughts of others.
Found a paper by William E Doll Jr,  Complexity and the Culture of Curriculum  in the online journal complicity
Have thought for some time that complexity thinking would assist in making sense of learning but have struggled to find the direct links .  In this paper Doll looks at the work of Stuart Kauffman who was looking that led to self organisation in living systems

I interpret the single connection in terms of direct instruction from teacher to student as producing ‘mindlessly dull behavior’.38 From toomuch richness in curriculum, a chaotic frame emerges. What one needs, from Kauffman’s point of view and mine, are networks (or curricular structures) that ‘achieve both stability and flexibility' a brief quote from pg 24

Once one moves from data collection to relationships, onealso moves from isolated facts (with all their ‘inertness’) to interconnected or webbed patterns (with their ongoing ‘aliveness’) from page 25

So let this all reverberate for a bit but love the finding and refinding of resonating ideas  

 

searching about

By chance found someone working on a model or theory which assists understanding of why people get involved Affective Context Theory The name is a bit Theoretical but the ideas resonate

Littoral liminality

littoral zone

Caught up in the liminal zone, on the edge of an idea, that makes it possible to change ways of doing things.

I have wanted for sometime to create a much more visual interface to use in teaching and am exploring possibilities.  It may of course mean learning new skills to achieve this still I'll give it a go

Web Possibilities

There are just so many options opened up and which to choose.
Found a site called interactive documentary and that had some really interesting visual examples which I find exciting. The one that immediately appealed was about  life in Patagonia.  It has a totally visual interface, based on map and scenes of peoples lives.
Wow how would I do that ?
Think about it some more anyway

Social Media and learning

I attended a talk yesterday by DK from core education.  I found his perspective useful in thinking about what media I might find useful to use in in teaching and learning situations.
I am finding the forum on moodle a not very user friendly kind of environment and searching for something that might complement it.  So you find me on this fine Saturday looking into this simple blog and thinking about what to use.

Beginagain

Here I go again with detemination this time to get going with a blog.  i have started a few time and the semi dead skeletons must be lurking around in cyberspace.

But this time keep it active and keep trying ...
And at this point add a random recent photo from Womad just to see how it all works