Tag Social Discourse

Biography

This is slightly related to the reflection that I talked about in Back on Track but it also comes out of thinking from my Social Computing Class. Our readings have talked about the trajectory that is reflected in systems of…

Leaving Our Universe(s)

Strauss talks about “the difficulty [for people] of standing outside their own symbolic universes, of totally transcending them.” (Strauss 1993 p. 155) I have to agree that this is a monumental task, but I wonder if it is really necessary…

Implications of an Assumption

I tried to connect a thought to an assumption and failed before, but now I have a question that arose whole considering one of Strauss’ assumptions (#15) “[A] joint action cannot be resolved into a common or same type of…

Intuition

I was having a conversation about interface design with Matt Schmidt who quoted Steve Jobs saying that if the interface is not intuitive it is not right. That took me back to my interface design class as a computer science…

Blah, Blah, Blog

I found the same problem as Randy documents in The long pause. I found that I soon lost interest in all the blogging about blogging and how lbogs were a perfect fit for improving learning. I still value blogging, but I do it for myself. I try to say the things on my blog that I want to say, not the things that will get other people blogging with me. I am ready to leave blogs and blogging as a tool that teachers may use rather than as the tool for the future of teaching. In other words – if the blog fits, use it.

META

As a longtime fan of recursion (from my computer science days) I love observing the meta-cognition that is so prevalent when studying in this field. We learn about learning, teach about teaching and think about thinking. It was fun to…

Connection

I was suffering from a deplorable lack of interest in the text until I finally connected with the author as he described himself as a “graduate student, terribly naive about most of the world and its happenings, but resonating in…

Social Computing Class

I get to take a doc seminar on Social Computing this semester to give me fodder for this blog. I am excited to share my insights on the readings and class discussions here. I hope to see a good number…

ITI Conclusion

The conference was very good from my perspective. I have requested (on my evaluation form) that they should post lecture notes or powerpoint presentations so that I could review sessions I went to or get some information on sessions I…

Thoughts Raised by Giants

I have a hard time blogging about what Brian Lamb or Stephen Downes spoke about because I’m sure that everything they talked about are available – through them – online. What I will say is that it was very enjoyable meeting them, listening to them and talking to them. I will pretend that there may be a person who actually reads my blog that does not read Brian already (or to assist my memory) and put a link to his presetation which is available on the web. He gave it from the web, but it is a wiki so it will have changed a little bit by the time anyone can visit it from here. I also want to thank Brian for posting a list of blogs by bloggers who were at this conference. I guess I do have a few ideas that I would like to post which came through the combination of the two presentations. It is a natural event to copy the workings of the previous technology (Stephen discussed this idea). Brian says “Lets move on beyond that replication.” I don’t think we should avoid that, but that we should recognize that in that stage there is more growth to come, but in replicating the previous technology we get to come to understand the new technology and the old technology and what is better about each. This is how we find the relative strengths of each technology and that is how we have a chance to place them in their proper relative balance. By “proper” I mean the balance that best meets our needs or creates the best complement between the technologies. I don’t agree with Stephen that the new technology always obliterates the old technology. New technology displaces old technology unless the new technology essentially outperforms […]