Alls well…..
May 2, 2008 · Print This Article
…….that ends well and by the sounds of it at least 8 out of 10 things were covered in the Learning In The 21st Century gig hosted by education.au in Adelaide today.
Many thanks to all who attended both physically, virtually or in spirit.
Mike Seyfrang has preliminary thoughts and I’m sure Michael Coghlan and Graham Wegner will add their piece later.
Graham passed on some links also - http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/view.php?id=1843
Framework - http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=51520
Al upton said hello via Skype.
I was driven to Dubbo NSW and sat with three groups of educators talking about networked learning and wikispaces. The knees gradually on the mend.
So is the head 
Thanks for the hat-tip Alex, muchos kudos for inspiring the whole shebang and all that ensued. Is still the Symposium of Reason in my heart.
Fang - Mike Seyfang
Likewise.
Even titles seem to cause titilations.
titles = stated intent
if the intent is to say i have reason and youre a fool then that kind of stated intent will attract that kind of energy and tend to make that kind of outcome. biploar conflict is not a starting posture for constructive work.
the people who are trying to mesh their individual, educational and systemic selves in a way which takes into account the new opportunities and challenges chose a title which did not ‘other’ half of the participants. i think they were right in that choice.
i am hoping that there is a model for a process which might feel useful from the day and that the process could be used in school communities to talk through the same issues.
to move forward in a generative non industrial context we need to be able to negotiate with out the system v maverick polarisation.
some events need enough presence and space to make a new possibility. i think it was a useful beginning. the long term impact depends on people being able to sustain a sense of shared responsibility for good outcomes and not reverting to kicking systems and squashing difference.
would be great to see a focus on constructive power and constructive use of voice, presence. win win rather than win lose.
winning at the expense of other participants is just a more distributed loss.
it would be great for people to take that kind of shared responsibility forward in their own local areas. parents, students, teachers, departments, community. it cant work with half the folks thinking the other half are unreasonable. it comes from accepting what is and trying to work with that.
j
I agree with all your sentiments Janet.
Middle ground always seems to shift so markedly when ego’s are prodded or jurisdictions challenged. In my lifetime I have watched the most placid and wholistic souls revert to the most insidious forms of malice and likewise the most stony faced crows show beautiful colours under their blackened coats.
That maverick term has arisen again as has bipolar and constructive and winning and so on.
As I stated in my chat with you the other night the jury is still out. The process to re-conciliation has just begun.
Locally I’m watching others battling marginalisation, prejudice and colourful jabs for using networked communication as part of their education experience.
Glocally I’m enrolled in powerful conversations that ensure that good outcomes result in people continuing to keep blogging professionally without fear and loathing.
Reasonable is a powerful term as it is a socio-pathic descriptor for tolerance and understanding occuring as law and order.
Symposium of Reason still stands.
I’m no more a contributor than any other person in this conversation. I have attempted to inform it from a number or perspectives rather than just one of utter contempt and disgust.
I lean one way and it’s towards trying to help not hinder.
juries are traditionally structures for judging others.
what structures or models do you use when we are working for progress or aiming to contribute to a new mode for the collective self? looking for something new rather than making a binary call based on where we have been before.
True.
It’s a shame that they are being used as an architecture for participation where once blogs sufficed and served to wikify dynamically where we were headed.
Our entire existence is Base2. In the absence of zero’s… add 1.
I’ve embedded EDNA’s news java widget in the front end of my ‘home’ page so thats one step forward ….informing my collective self at the front door rather than hiding it out the back….a simple contribution that would better serve a community needing safe platforms to blog with rather than around.
Considering that teachers have no need for LearnScopian principles any further and that industry-is-king, the models and structures that I tend to employ havent changed in 20 years when looking for new modes…… osciallating from the collective constructivist, the marginal connectivist and almost invariably from the individual ecelectic - invariably haolistic - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holistic_education
I can see great sense in Stephen Downes insisting on taking his own photos whilst in NZ.
The more I reflect on that profound learning experience the more I realise that it takes courage to view things through a cultural kaleidiscope and avoid expecting clarity and surety to emerge from actions otherwise governed by container, colour and form (mandate).
The best we can sometimes do is realise that in some circles ‘activist’ is in maintaining an acronym beyond the funding round.