In defence of the VLE

Posted on 8th February 2016 by NomadWarMachine

Moodle LogoIt’s easy to bash the VLE (Virtual Learning Environment). I’m not going to pretend that it is a universal panacea for online or blended learning, but it is not as bad as some folk make out.  I think it’s easy to forget just how difficult it can be to start out putting together online materials, and to keep up with this when it is only a small part of one’s workload (and when senior staff are oblivious to the time needed to produce good elearning materials, or to make realistic estimates of what percentage of one’s workload model it should be). So here’s a few points in defence of the VLE:

  1. It’s all in one place. Students do not have to remember multiple passwords or urls. Typically they just log in with the same username and password as they use for their uni email etc.. Staff do not need to learn how to use multiple bits of software, they only need to master the basics of one.
  2. It’s safe. Because it’s typically only open to authenticated users (i.e. staff/students in a course) there’s a low risk of trolls or vandals. This is important when trying to get students to engage in forums, for example. It’s also important that staff feel free to experiment without worrying asbout ridicule.
  3. It’s familiar. Students (tell us in surveys that they) appreciate the fact that course materials are located where they can easily find them. Staff can upload materials (relatively) quickly and easily.
  4. It’s owned by the University. Unlike third party apps, the data therefore belongs to the Uni – an important consideration when thinking about assessment. In-house ownership also means that changes to the interface need not come as a surprise (unlike Facebook, for example).
  5. It’s scaleable. For those of us who have to support large classes, this is important. Forums can be more manageable than individual emails; online submissions are more easily managed than paper ones.

So I’m not saying that this represents the best that teaching and learning can be, but I do think that we need to be realistic. By all means go beyond the VLE in your own teaching and learning, but don’t belittle those who are not as able or as confident as we are out in the wilds of the internet.

flickr photo by ShawnKimball shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

Posted in #MoocMooc, Learning, Online learning, Teaching, Technology | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Six word manifesto for learning

Posted on 7th February 2016 by NomadWarMachine

Iris with the words: rhizomatically remixing: collecting, connecting, creating, collaborating

Today Sean asked us to:

Write a six word manifesto about learning, about your learning, about learning management, about building environments for learning.  See here

Here’s mine (above). More mantra than manifesto, this is what I have become thanks to rhizo-cl-digiwrimo-moocmooc folk.

Posted in #CLMOOC, #MoocMooc, Learning, Online learning, Peer interaction, Rhizomes | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Collaborative annotating

Posted on 7th February 2016 by NomadWarMachine

Heart doodleI’m in love with Hypothes.is, a free online annotation tool which allows you to easily highlight bits of text and comment on them, and then to share those comments publicly if you wish so that others can see them and join in the conversation. To use it, either drop a link to a web page into their web page or download the Chrome extension (I prefer this).  Yesterday I annotated one of Terry’s blog posts and tweeted for others to join in, and at the moment we’re also annotating some of Simon’s including this.

It’s fun to do this, and to have an asynchronous conversation with friends, and it’s a lot more intimate than leaving a comment at the bottom of a blog post (and sometimes that is not even possible, as some folk turn the comments off). Come and join in, if you like, or tweet me a link to something you’d like to annotate. 🙂

flickr photo by findingthenow shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

Posted in #CLMOOC, Editing, Online learning, Peer interaction, Reading, Social Media, Technology | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

String pictures

Posted on 3rd February 2016 by NomadWarMachine

I don’t draw – I can doodle, but it’s nothing special. So Karen’s postcard writing challenge was – well – a challenge for me. I bought some coloured card and dithered for ages about what to do: potato prints? collage? photos? Nothing seemed right. Then I remembered an article I’d seen  before Christmas and I knew I’d found what I wanted to make. I had a lot of embroidery thread in my sewing table, so I tipped it all out and set to work.

card and protractor sewing a parabola onto a card

I began with a triangular design, got bored after 8 of those and tried some star-like shapes. Finally I tried a six pointed design, which I was really pleased with – but I had enough to send now, so packed up my tools and glued them down.

Cards with parabolas sewn on

Finally I opened the Google Sheet and addressed all of the envelopes, wrote messages and sealed them up.

envelopes

Next to remember to post them!

Posted in #CLMOOC | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The blind leading the blind

Posted on 26th January 2016 by NomadWarMachine

14441260434_f044610c7e_m“Thoughts without intuitions are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.”
Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason, B 75

 

 

Kant wrote the above in order to call for a metaphysics that is both synthetic and a priori – i.e. a metaphysics that uses both reason and experience – i.e. a metaphysics that uses intuitive concepts. It’s not important here exactly what that means, I use this to illustrate the futility and wrong-headedness of those who argue for practice without theory, or theory without practice – because

Theory without practice is empty, practice without theory is blind.

I’ve been reading a paper by D.C. Phillips today entitled The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Many Faces of Constructivism and I realise that this is actually a moral point. Phillips uses the example of Ernst von Glasersfeld, who (he says) uses a weak epistemological theory in order to argue for his particular pedagogical theory (or, quite possibly, chooses the epistemology as it allows him to articulate his beliefs about pedagogy).  That seems to be doing an injustice to his students – doesn’t it?

So what if you are the sort of person who does not think that theory is important – how are you going to ensure that you don’t hurt your learners with your unreflective practice? I just don’t see how anyone can really believe that, at some level, theory is not important.

In the words of the  immortal Sinatra, you can’t have one without the other.

Pieter Brueghel the Elder – The Blind Leading the Blind flickr photo by Gandalf’s Gallery shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

Posted in Learning, Online learning, Philosophy, Rhizomes | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Kangaroo

Posted on 25th January 2016 by NomadWarMachine

Last week as I walked past our university library I spotted a kangaroo lurking. This week I remembered to snap a pic. Unfortunately there has been a lot of rain and it has a big puddle of water around it. Poor roo looks as if they have been caught short 😉

Kangaroo in puddle

The kangaroo reminded me of all my Australian friends, and I wondered how the weather was over there. I arrived home to a card from Wendy:

IMG_20160125_184137920_HDR[1]

Posted in #CLMOOC, Photos | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Snow

Posted on 17th January 2016 by NomadWarMachine

Yesterday it snowed. By lunchtime the view from my bedroom window was this:

A snowy garden and houses

One thing that surprised me was how the houses, which usually look white, look such a dirty yellow at the moment. Colour’s all relative, I guess.

The birds looked hungry this morning:

Snow on bird feeders

Niall has since filled these so the wee birds that visit our garden can find a tasty feast. The blackbirds also love these berries:

Plant with red berries in the snow

It looks lovely at the moment, but it is also very cold.

All images by me shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

Posted in Garden | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Pic n Mix Philosophy

Posted on 10th January 2016 by NomadWarMachine

[IMAGE] of Woolworths Pic n Mix sweets

There’s a theory in the Philosophy of Religion called religious pluralism, which has many variations, one of which is the belief that no one religion has got it right, but that parts of different religions can be combined to find the Truth. Many years ago a friend alerted me to another term that was used for one version of this theory of religion – cafeteria pluralism. Gregory Bassham, who I believe originally coined this term, thought that he could use this to form an objection to a pluralist theory, but it’s not clear to me that it is. 1

According to Bassham, the cafeteria pluralist “eclectically picks and chooses themes and doctrines from the various religious traditions to create an idiosyncratic personal religion” –  and I like to call this a “Pick n Mix” theory of religion. Sometimes I think about who my personal god(dess) would be – a combination of the trickster Loki, the wisdom of Athena, the energy of Vishnu – you get the idea. But I digress.

So why am I writing about this? Well, because of a conversation we’ve been having on Twitter about D&G, where this happened:

Then Simon said that all reading and quoting was out of context, and I replied with “pick n mix theory of learning” and then I remembered how I’d used it before.  Now I’m going to extend it and use it for any philosophy, not just philosophy of religion.

[IM

There’s a theory of knowledge which I am drawn to which is called coherentism, which I have written about before. According to my very superficial reading, coherentism is a theory of knowledge for a rhizomatic thinker. Unlike foundationalism, which is arborescent in its belief that there is one fundamental truth or set of truths which underpin all knowledge, coherentism sees knowledge as a web of belief, where things are justified by their consistency to other beliefs in the system.  So we can have our own pick n mix version of philosophy – a bit of Hume, some Lucretius maybe and then Spinoza, Bergson and Nietzsche, for example, with a nod to Kant and a shake of the head at Hegel.2

So there we have it – a pick n mix theory of philosophy. It doesn’t matter what the original writer meant, it’s how it fits in with your theory that matters.

  1. See here and here for more about this.
  2. The first 5 of these are Deleuze’s “orphans” – the philosophers he has the most respect for). Kant he sees as a worthy adversary, Hegel he finds “despicable”. (ATP p.x)

flickr photo by Route79 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

flickr photo by SammCox  shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license

Posted in Learning, Philosophy, Rhizomes | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

All join hands

Posted on 13th December 2015 by NomadWarMachine

soundtrap

This weekend we’ve been making music again. First Kevin invited some of us to collaborate in Soundtrap over a song that he’d written with some of us and Ron jumped in and started to add sounds. On Saturday I used Audacity to record my voice singing the chorus, and also used Audacity to create a version dropped down by 4 semitones and added both of those to the track. Ron commented that we needed bells, so I found a sample in Soundtrap and dropped some in. Maha added 2 recordings of her voice today, Kevin and Ron tweeked it all and here’s what we have so far.

Want to join us? Just ask 🙂

Soundcloud image: flickr photo by flythebirdpath > > > http://flickr.com/photos/teddyllovet/4738072464 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license

Posted in #DigiWriMo, Music | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

An autumn leaf

Posted on 29th November 2015 by NomadWarMachine

This postcard arrived through my door a couple of weeks ago. I’d seen Anna making them while participating in a Google Hangout and I was thrilled to see that one had made it all the way from the states. I think what I have done with this is possibly more multi media than transmedia, though.

Posted in #DigiWriMo, Poetry | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment