Play for Real : Get Out Otherwise.
Breakout : Rose Grozdanic and Alex Hayes – FLNW – Wellington.
With response to About Those Redundant Teachers Alex !…….
Quote : gwegner
> What the teaching workforce looks like in the classroom as a whole dictates the typical experience of our students < href="http://static.flickr.com/80/255551990_9bf08c3e24.jpg?v=0"> quiet conversations at the back of the room contesting others views on this dont cease. It means I simply listen quietly and then contextualise why fear rises in my soul and what to do of it.
Your acheievements as an individual are fanatastic Graham – you are a committed and great educator Graham and one of the more open educators that i know of….
My experience here, having endured an ego-whiplashing in New Zealand, is that my conceptions of what it was to paint a picture for others of my learners ‘classroom’ is remarkably different to that of your own. Other paint theirs using the most remarkable filters and yet they say nothing of their students nor do they evidence anything other than well paid holidays.
Others speak of where they are going and others still drag it in kicking and screaming for interrogation. What I’ve discovered over the last week or so is that the classroom is merely an architectural edifice within which we contain experience….that our attempts to become real to our students requires more than touting how well we have done rather admit that which we are struggling with…….which you do Graham….thank god.
What I’ve also discovered in the last week is that despite the immense diversity of our merry band of elearning un-learners, we all agreed on one thing.
That was the moment when it became “real ” ……if only momentarily.
A real experience paints a true picture and dosent have to involve faces. A classroom needs a timetable that confuses those who seek to be guided by it.
Read More...Thank ( you ) : Groups / Networks
Spot the banana.
Whether it’s a group or a network makes no difference to me. You’ll either include me or reject me and as we all act as individuals…..to a point ….then all else in between is a bonus.
Personally i dont give a damn for the distinction. What a waste of time to think of fruit as meat.
After a week on the travelling roadshow never have I in the last decade felt so alive. I’m exhausted and exhilirated all in the same breath.
Nor have I seen such extremes of human behaviour – tears, tantrums, silences, confusion…… tiredness and pyschosis aside……
The crash of ego’s, the union of semantics, the tales, stories, lies and other bullshit that threatened to tear apart this ‘group’ for want of a better term, turned out to be the most powerful of all acknowledged differences that bring groups into networks or perhaps in this instance finally pulled the conversation out of a threaded didactic / diatribe / dialectic.
And how more apt that when reduced to play that the audience saw a union of thought……if only for an instant.
Hats off to;
- Stephen Downes for daring to disagree with me over a beer that Lost Highway by David Lynch is the best cinematic depiction of human condition yet
- Rose Grozdanic for taking her tears outside….something I failed to achieve…..
- Barbara Dieu for her beautiful and serene stories of family, friends and foes
- Leigh Blackall for attemting to keep up with my drinking prowess and taking this whole gig on in the second place
- Conrad Glogowski for admitting to enjoying being kicked out high school so that he could study more for his exams
- John Eyles for turning his home over to a band ( of educational misfits some would have us believe ) and expecting it not to get trashed
- Mistisa for smiling and listening and being present to an otherwise rabble babble ( at times )
…but most of all , a massive and continued thankyou for those who felt compelled to engage / disengage in this discussion of what it might mean to be positively working towards a future in a networked and mobile world.
The pedagogy of the compressed was my highlight and the ego-tripping ( me included ) tantrums my low-light.
Thanks Teemu – I now reflect on my days thrashing to MotorHead differently. Thanks Marg – your a mobile magician you 
Grapes.
We are all a bunch of grapes.
Ps. See you all in Hong Kong / Shanghai in a years time.
Read More...Powerhouse: PYT
Anne Paterson dropped this one in for consideration. Any feedback would be appreciated 
