Training

Efficiency As Fetish

[ image : mobology ]

In the privacy of my own private contemplation this week I’ve successfully avoided employing with others the more avid forms of cognitive audiosonic dissonance which would otherwise surface my silent utterances.

Forms collided in my collective as clear as clockwork.

Coffee.
Retorts and enrapture from work colleagues.
Patience.
Silence.

Factors which added together all produce some effervescent synapsial moments like an orchestra of syllables coming to rest in a tin of grammatical chocolates. Memories colliding in a whirling dervish punctuated with the odd moment of awful………. silence.

It’s the silent times that make it all the more absurd. Points where pictures form of politicians propounding brevity and bravery whilst the ‘nodders’ bob and weave in the background rows.

Ever noticed that ? Wherever politicians plunder they have nodders and hanger-on-ers’ keenly massaging the crowds egocentric aptitudes and auditory desires.

A moment in this time of avid observence this week surfaced as edu-punk…a notion that even for the most vested creative educator, the sameness of system best suits…..debunked effectievely one hopes.

We have ties to match for those with permissions to do so.

The anthropocentrism of it all makes for frightening fare. The petulance and the flatulent flattery seems to be getting everybody nowhere at once.

We so aptly wrap our workplace efficiencies and our heart felt wanderings in a wanderlust that better resembles haiku having a hernia.

Why must every day equal a dollar and every week be month divided by four.

Are we free ? Is this freedom ?

Or is this within constraint…..

Wacky Gifs

One from Burning Pixel;

Thinkgeek | Tightness

[image : javier Aroche]

It’s difficult to comprehend how deep the act of logging in resonates for those whose voice is otherwise unheard.

Changing systems means changing the gears on something racing into tightness.

Edupunk : Oi Oi Oi !

…………………….

[ image : me in 2007 ]

It would seem our most illustrious educationalists are now engaged in a race to rhetoric to rid themselves of the web 2.0 moniker they so lovingly have coveted for so long ….for so little some would retort.

D’Arcy Norman threatens self immolation in a land of machines and Leigh Blackall quotes 1975 as being one of the best years in his short life, both it would seem  in their reference and abhorence to straight-edge geek-boys desiring dirt amongst tech-smarm and power hungry industrialised neck-bearded hegemonists.

Yet, on reflection, a trillion social bookmarks and three hundred billion lost passwords and associated personal information fields later, we now have a better picture of what we could perhaps should now be working away from…but how ?

Well, perhaps we could all get web 2.0 and 21st century ( finger down throat ) about it and address it as all good fcuking edu-mcationalists should in a list of ten ‘edupunk’ behaviours ( or considerations of reality ) that you think define our move away from reframing and bundling emerging technologies into cookie-cutter products with pre-defined application….

Here’s my ten;

1. Resolving The Identity Crisis - I now know who I dont know because of the technologies I find myself using day to day….what was my name again and who do you want me to be ?
2. Avoiding Robotic Gesticulations - The machine is in me
3. Head Banging For A Living - I’d shave my head and bang it only its all fallen out
4. Google Maps My Arse - I’m already covered in tattoos and they still gave me a job as a pre-school teacher
5. Beazley For President - Johnny Rotten was the last Australian Prime Minister right ?
6. Networking Mayhem - My RSS reader looks like Sid & Nancy on crack
7. Avoiding Detention - I’d happily trash a classroom if I had one
8. Business Before Pleasure - Fuck capability building…lets all get pissed and feed our learners to the factory furnace
9. Convicts - We all know that with a pardon we can get to the top and mohawks are a type of Columbian bird right ?
10. Green What ? - You seriously want me to work with this haircut ?

Ah well.

Even when I grew my hair back the attitude still remained…..so I’m told. Better we get all ‘edu’ punk as long as we refrain from waving flags and chanting stupid arse slogans invented for long dead white supremist lunatics.

Oi !

Becoming A Web Daddy

[ image : stupiddata ]

Music Lessons

[ image : old computer ]

Gender Bender

The Days Of The Commodore

Funky Soundtracks

Gentle Giants

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[ image : mosieur J ]

Lucy Chili and I have again been exploring what makes and constitutes change whilst acknowledging fear, favour, patterns, binary thinking and other such debilitating conditions of humanity.

Faced with a seemingly undending array of topics to explore which underpin the anxieties of living life as e-learning educators or in Lucy’s sake not education ( although I’d argue it’s concept not a title) we’ve unearthed an interesting piece of prose via the Gmail semantics ad. campaign in the top toolbar.

On Social Practices.

Reflections On Life As Consultant

It’s been a very interesting fortnight.

At times I’ve really felt like meat in a sandwich, squashed between things threatening to be consumed. As a project consultant to a number of Australian Flexible Learning Elearning Innovations projects after this Friday and in between negotiations for a number of other private and enterprie RTO projects spread from Caringbah to Coonamble I’ve learnt that life as consultant can be both exciting and rewarding.

Travel is having it’s toll. My persistent cough is back as is my sore back from travelling in my utility for hours on end. My throat is sore from talking. ….and yet there’s a certain joy about having time with my son to play with him and watch the snow fall and still not enough time to get into the studio and create some art work.

That part is a discipline related issue and one I’m gradually getting my head around.

I’ve also learned that as a consultant you can expect;

• the unexpected
• to need a home office….it’s almost impossible to operate as an e-learning consultant without a reliable table, internet connection and some decent strong coffee
• your an outsider to insider negotiations
• not to be paid for at least two-three hours of emails per day
• the bigger the organisation the bigger the expectation to be patient especially with payments for service….it’s a short term contract….little regularity….lots of paperwork
• many phone calls or none at all dependent on who’s where and how close you are to the source of project management
• odd working hours
• constant anxiety
• strange requests from people expecting everything for nothing
• time to yourself which is generally consumed with thinking about prospects
• more time management skill development than ever before
• hefty PI and PL cover upwards of $1400 AUD per annum.
• a massive fuel bill
• increased interest from the tax office
• decreased interest from the bank

Overall it’s a very challenging time and now that I’m confident I can last out till spring I might get a chance to interview for some full-time work which I can get paid to forget the above….for a while…..till that becomes debilitating and humiliating and so on.

More meat in the sandwich me thinks. Plenty of time to reflect and create and build things which matter most.

Open wide spaces.

Ripples

It’s nice to see Bee online at it again and networking knowledge to great effect

Chinese Wisdom

Grab a fridge magnet.

Print the following and stick it under the magnet for a while. I took this one off the fridge up here in Orange and it seems to have been a guiding light for the last year or so.

1. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
2. Marry a woman / man who you love to talk to. As you get older their conversational skills will be as important as any other.
3. Dont believe all you hear; spend all you have; or sleep all you want.
4. When you say “I love you” mean it.
5. When you say ” I’m sorry” look the person in the eye.
6. Be engaged six months before you get married.
7. Believe in love at first sight.
8. Never laugh at anyone’s dreams. People who dont have dreams dont have much.
9. Love deeply and passionately.You might get hurt, but it’s the only way to live life completely.
10. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.
11. Dont judge people by their relatives.
12. Talk slowly but quickly.
13. When someone asks you a question you dont want to answer smile and ask, ” Why do you want to know ?”
14. Remember that great love and great acheivements involve great risk.
15. Say “Bless You” when you hear someone sneeze.
16. When you lose, dont lose the lesson.
17. Remember the three ‘R’s : respect for self; respect for others; Responsibility for others.
18. Dont let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
19. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
20. Spend some time alone.