Author Archives: NomadWarMachine

Duck-rabbit

Posted on 26th October 2013 by NomadWarMachine

I have a very talented friend called Katy, who studied Philosophy at Crichton campus and heard about Wittgenstein’s duck-rabbit.  Here is it from the original  Philosophical Investigations II, XI (p194).  Wittgenstein is talking about the difference between “seeing”and “seeing as”, (or … Continue reading →

Posted in Philosophy, Wittgenstein | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Dichotomies

Posted on 26th October 2013 by NomadWarMachine

I like making lists, and I also like making tables.  I know that the world’s not really black and white, but I taking an idea and looking at it in two ways – I like dichotomies.  I’ve been playing around … Continue reading →

Posted in Learning, MOOC, Philosophy, Rhizomes, Writing | Leave a comment

Rules for writing well

Posted on 19th October 2013 by NomadWarMachine

I’ve just finished Michael Billig’s book Learn to Write Badly: How to Succeed in the Social Sciences and enjoyed it very much. The overall message of the book is that writers (he says social scientists, but I think this applies more widely … Continue reading →

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Book Lists

Posted on 16th October 2013 by NomadWarMachine

I’m an inveterate list maker, oft in my head, sometimes on paper, and I have a new project. A friend posted a couple of pictures to my Facebook feed, one of a book bath, one of a library, and they’ve … Continue reading →

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Materiality

Posted on 12th October 2013 by NomadWarMachine

I’ve been reading Michael Billig’s book Learn to Write Badly:How to Succeed in the Social Sciences and very much enjoying his discussion of nominalisation, and why it can be such a bad thing in the Social Sciences (because it leads to ambiguity … Continue reading →

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Rhizomatic MOOCS?

Posted on 10th October 2013 by NomadWarMachine

Anyone who knows me (probably) knows that I’m very taken with Deleuze and Guattari’s idea that knowledge is rhizomatic, not arborescent (think strawberry, not tree).  I’ve been thinking a lot about MOOCs over the last few weeks, and writing some … Continue reading →

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eAssessment Scotland Conference 2013

Posted on 24th August 2013 by NomadWarMachine

I spent yesterday at the 5th annual eAssessment Scotland conference at Dundee University.  This is the third year I’ve attended, and it was odd not to be presenting for once (2 years ago Kenji asked me and Steve Draper to … Continue reading →

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Facebook, subjective well-being, and use

Posted on 19th August 2013 by NomadWarMachine

There’s been a lot of hype in the media recently about a report that apparently show that using Facebook makes you miserable.  It’s making for sensational headlines, so the appeal to journalists is obvious, but what should we think about it … Continue reading →

Posted in Conferences, Facebook, Social Media | 1 Comment

International Conference on Enhancement and Innovation in Higher Education

Posted on 12th August 2013 by NomadWarMachine

I was due to attend this conference back in June, but due to being suddenly signed off sick I was unable to attend.  However, my co-presenters Niall Barr, Lorna Love and Shazia Ahmed did present papers at the conference which … Continue reading →

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On Procrastination

Posted on 2nd August 2013 by NomadWarMachine

I was in my garden yesterday planting flowers and generally avoiding doing any research on the grounds that the plants couldn’t wait (not true – they’d have been fine till the weekend).  I began to think about the ways in … Continue reading →

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