lost-in-translation.html

Untameable words...

This is a lively debate, I am not sure lions and tigers share our views on taming.

A tsnunami...chaos.

Whatever, I shall take the bait, whatever the name - web 2.0, web 3.0..., whatever....I fear the providers of this net are more intent on fishing, on reeling us in than on helping us learn how to fish.

I note a concentration on things, objects, numbers which we can grasp. Maybe taxonomy is closer to taxidermy in its need to label life. It is easier to count, to study.it gives us/them? a feeling of control, of security, of knowledge,

Maybe the meaning in learning is not in the consensus but in the conflict, in the commotion... In the communion?

Life cannot be stuffed, cannot be fixed, it's ephemerability is much more vital. What is essential is not what we know, not what we buy, it's what we cannot know..

Thank you for the fish!

27 March 2011 21:28

http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-have-it-within-me.html

Respect. How many failures in life are due to the school system's obsession with 'success' as regards their criteria of the moment. Honesty, openness, how great is the chasm between your aeticle and the outpiddling of self-seeking guardians of sterile academia that I have had the misfortune to cross on my way. I have had the fortune to have come across others whose words struck a chord which had resonance for me. Having heard many such stories, would there not be an audience for a collaborative album, a book, a wilki, which would group together stories of those of us who have found our way despite their 'education'? American Dreams of Stud Terkel comes to mind. Might make a great research project even :-)

Anyway it all helps to keep the mind off retirement - there is a f... of a lot of work to do.

Simon

book

http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2011/03/imagined-worlds.html

I suspect that one's perception of space is rather less important in learning and life than the perception of one's place.

http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2011/03/2020-teachers.html

Simon Ensor said...

We are living in a period of radical social change and we must be the change that we hope for.

Two quotations have come to my eyes just recently:

"It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather than the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young" Bertand Russell

The old system is not fixable. My hope is for a better, more social, less controlling one where real human values are respected. I don't know how or if we will get there but we must.

"In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists".

Eric Hoffer.

21 March 2011 15:30

http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2011/03/dropping-e.html

Simon Ensor said...

Personal E (engagement, enjoyment, enthusiasm, energy, environment, entitlement, emotion, entreprise, encouragement, entertainment...) = Learning.

Personal learning environment, personal learning network are terms which personally have meaning for me today because they encompass my reality - books, boxes, pens, paper, people, connections, networks etc erc

E-learning has as much relevance for me today as 8 track stereo and 'Enry Cooper. But there again I can only speak for me. :-)

23 March 2011 15:28

http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2011/03/learning-in-palm-of-your-hand.html

Simon Ensor said...

Well this learning is being done in my hand, the content is adjusted by the provider to fit the screen. The various applications are personally selected by me. I am using thus platform with my fellow students - there is no question these smartphones offer new affordances. What is the institution doing with the smartphones for the increasing numbers of equipped students? Nothing. The tools are here selected by the learners, owned by the learners, we have to concentrate on enabling them to use all the tools they have. We must not confuse e-learning (often e-teaching) with learning with hands eyes ears feet heads and time and space. If learning is not mobile its not learning.

25 March 2011 08:16

Simon Ensor said...

Smart mobile technology is not just an extension

Of existing learning tools. It's not just the web. Without photography no Pointilisme, without cheaper recording studios no Punk rock No printing press no Mein Kampf. Technolgy doesn't just give us a better way to hammer a nail it actually changes us and our world. Learning is being able to ask different questions. If we have different questions we need new language , with new language we have a different society. Smarter Over-extended Society is not necessarily a freer society...?

25 March 2011 09:59

Thanks to your comments I am getting a bigger picture. As a language teacher I word like to praise inventors of new words. It's not because we can't see the subtlety of snow that the Inuit and their expertise should be laughed into demise. I look to Academics to inform my work and to help me think more widely about my work. it's not because I am not a horticulturalist that I can't benefit from their expertise in the garden. Thanks to this blog post and your comments I have learnt a lovely new word: Cyberbalkanisation. Let's accept our ignorance. We are all ignorant about something - that's the big picture. Together if we give ourselves time, we might, just might learn...respect.

http://www.wordspy.com/

http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2010/11/synching-feelings.html

As a curious learner, this blog post inspired a Google search. I found an interesting article to read. It’s title is below:

“Investigating the myth of the relationship between teaching and research in higher education: A review of empirical research”

An Verburgh, Jan Elen and Sari Lindblom-Ylänne

From the issue entitled "The Universities Revisited: Questioning the Public Role of Universities in the European Knowledge Society

http://bit.ly/dHdbzH

Sounds like an interesting article for someone like myself working in a university. Let’s just see what they are talking about....Oh dear, darn!

“Access to this Content is Restricted

This content is secured to subscribers. Options for obtaining access to this content are indicated below.”

(34 euros! It had better be good!)

What is the interest of academic research? In whose interests is academic research carried out? Empirical research cannot be disconnected from a historical and economic context. If empirical research is based on observation, who decides where we look? Who decides on the most appropriate means to communicate our evidence? Who decides on the right to access this invaluable knowledge? Who decides on its value? How do we have a say on which direction we should take?

As an amateur of sailing, I like to observe the seascape, feel the breeze on my face, discover the the different parts of the (my?) ship. I enjoy meeting the passengers, I hope to find some entertaining companions along the way. My knowledge of history has made me wary of trusting shipping companies. I try to keep close to a life-boat and personally watch out for ice-bergs.

For the moment I have to accept that I am the holder of a second class ticket, I don’t have the right to venture onto the captain’s deck.... I am lucky; the majority of the passengers are in the bilge.