Comments for Awakening the Digital Imagination S15

All of the above? It seems that we all grapple with the problem of filtering and accessing the high value, meaningful, resonant “records” as Bush would call them.

It’s hard to imagine that this could (ever be) boring! Thanks for the reminder that the real digital divide matters, as do the underlying inequities that shape that divide. I want to be an optimist on this one, and believe that working for the connected world we want and deserve is worthwhile, necessary, and not hopeless. Looking forward to reading more!

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“Professionally our methods of transmitting and reviewing the results of research are generations old and by now are totally inadequate for their purpose.” – That nugget resonates with me as well — both in terms of what Bush confronted in the late 40s and what my (computer) desktop looks like today! I feel like I’ve experienced at least two and maybe three “re-mappings” of my “associative trails” already — and the current one – which promises (threatens?) to jettison my analog scheme entirely (good bye folders – hello tags) seems especially powerful and a bit scary!

Sirius reflections indeed! what a great weaving between the ideas from the writings in the New Media Reader, especially to connect the desired web with the space/potential of comics.

I had some fun this year using the 25 year marker to reflect back and forward on this history. The best find was coming across a TV show from 1993 about the web, featuring a still enthusiastic Howard Rheingold and some interesting forecasts about what the web might become (meaningful for me as that was they year I first clicked into the web):

I went back to a reflection Berners-Lee wrote in 1998 as a “short personal history of the web” in 1998 (http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/ShortHistory.html)

“The dream behind the Web is of a common information space in which we communicate by sharing information. Its universality is essential: the fact that a hypertext link can point to anything, be it personal, local or global, be it draft or highly polished. There was a second part of the dream, too, dependent on the Web being so generally used that it became a realistic mirror (or in fact the primary embodiment) of the ways in which we work and play and socialize. That was that once the state of our interactions was on line, we could then use computers to help us analyse it, make sense of what we are doing, where we individually fit in, and how we can better work together.”

To me we’ve reached much of that second part of the dream, with some question of how realistic that mirror is; the web wanting is are we headed towards a place where computers are helping make sense of what we are doing and helping us work better together (very Englebart-ish).

siriusly yours 😉

Yes indeed: http://connectedlearning.tv/connected-learning-principles
It’s hyperlinked after that paragraph, but might not be super obvious. I was so struck by the resonances with Illich’s ideas.

Is there an Url or citation for “Principles of Connected Learning” (2014)? Am naturally curious, in general, as well, in particular, as to ” …an initial set of three educational values, three learning principles, and three design principles.””

so sorry about the wordpress problems! How come? Is it self-hosted? Why were there problems and why didn’t they get solved quickly?

Your situation sounds ideal in so many ways — good for your students, good for your research, and good for you! I’m in a field (history) where books and articles are the most valued kinds of scholarship.
My “recalibrations” this term weren’t particularly innovative — just a more mindful allocation of how I spent my time. While I still saw my courses as 24/7 engagements, I carved out some regular hours for research (not as many as I used to, but more than I’d managed in my first semesters of mostly on-line interaction). I also figured out how to work with my student editors in ways that helped us curate the content on a predictable weekly schedule, and gave me more time to read, comment and reflect on what the class was creating (because the student editors managed lots of the technical / formatting details). And honestly, I think I might have felt like everything was quite manageable if we hadn’t had so many technical glitches. Our WordPress platform was incredibly slow and unstable all semester, which just ate….into…..the….hours…..we……all….could…..have….used…..so…..much….more….effectively. It’s maddening to be at the mercy of forces you don’t control, and to see your students suffer as a result. So I’m really looking forward to the final unit of Connected Courses to get some insight on best practices for keeping my courses out of the blogtalk garage in the future!

This is a great post and I wish i had answers! Would be curious to know how you re-callibrated your time?

For me, as a non-tenure-track faculty with a full-time faculty job and adjunct teaching (funny combo, i know) – and someone who works in education/faculty development, i find synergies by doing research about my teaching and my online activities in MOOCs. I don’t *have* to teach or do research, so i have a lot of leeway in how much i do of each. But i think if i had been tenure track, i could have made it work this way too, volume of research wise.

Then again, not everyone’s tenure committee accepts scholarship of teaching and learning publications as “real research”, nor do faculty e.g. In the sciences know how educational research is done…. So….easier for some disciplines but not all?