Notices by Downes 🍁 (downes@mastodon.social), page 22

I think that learning is the process of adjusting our expectations to align with experience so we are not taken by surprise and thrown off balance by what comes next.

A pedagogy of harmony would involve bringing the learner into this picture, such that they understand why they experience disruption and disharmony in their lives, and how learning helps them to resolve that through predictions and actions.

@bryanalexander Yes it is. It shows that there is a limit to the triumph of partisanship over decency, a limit I thought Trump had erased entirely.

@Tdorey @katebowles @tellio @fgraver @bryanalexander @GeoffreyGevalt @ShorterPearson @dogtrax @lauraritchie Actully, for me, knowledge doesn't begin 'out there' - recall my consciousness paper - http://www.downes.ca/post/67440 - and actually its the balancing and harmony of our inner life that I think informs knowledge, learning and pedagogy.

@Tdorey @dogtrax @ShorterPearson @GeoffreyGevalt @bryanalexander @katebowles @lauraritchie @fgraver @tellio

This and the related discussion led me to think of a 'pedagogy of harmony' as my own perspective (as opposed to pedagogy of small, say, or pedagogy of slow - buy also, on reflection, as opposed to Friere's pedagogy of the oppressed (and later pedagogy of hope')).

What is a 'pedagogy of harmony'? I'm not exactly sure, but it combines a feeling of well-being and comfort and inclusion.

@lauraritchie Marking. My least favourite thing about teaching.

If you feed a rhino some graphene, it will charge much more quickly.

#smalljokes (with supporting links)

https://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/spider-spins-web-can-hold-weight-human-after-drinking-graphene

https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/29/samsung-graphene-ball-battery-fast-charging/

Sunrise over the Mediterranean in Hammamet, Tunisia

Also the front page of the presentation I'm doing here today. http://www.downes.ca/presentation/481

Ttitled: "Applications, Algorithms and Data: Open Educational Resources and the Next Generation of Virtual Learning"

Because when you see a sunrise, isn't that the firsts thing you think of? I know I do! https://mastodon.social/media/zujDyydKeEy7iqFi17Q

@lauraritchie Only at 35,000 feet. I'm here in Tunisia until the 5th, and then I will be in Berlin, then I fly home. Next European visit after that is in Bayonne, France, in January.

To the seaside at Hammamet, more precisely.
https://mastodon.social/media/f2yF-YBtK4DIIvzfdY0

Made it to Tunis :)

In the airport in Frankfurt. Spotted attractive long hair out of the corner of my eye. Took a second look. Chuckled as I realized I was looking at myself in the mirror. #smallstories

@lauraritchie I think of it as a trade-off. When hou incorporate a physical presence element into an online elarning experience you are adding a dimension of interaction but you are creating a dimension of exclusiveness.

One example of this: in 2002 I did the 'Daily' for Australia's Net*Working online conference. http://www.downes.ca/post/77 It was great. The following year they had in-person sessions and while I tried to do the same thing, it was awful. The offline *broke* the online part of it.

4/2 I don't think and have never thought that we need an offline in-person component to make this work. There is a wealth of examples showing how close and close-knit communities have developed online, including learning communities. The Yale Advantage exists only because it *was* place-based; the digital advantage is that we can render the Yale Advantage moot, creating for ourselves networks and communities as rich and supportive as those previously reserved for the connected and mobile rich.

@lauraritchie @econproph 3/2 Indeed compare the two diagrams - one of the proposal described in this paper, and the other of our MOOC from 2008, and you can see they're the same diagram, except in richness and detail. https://mastodon.social/media/LiE5kPB9WtSMq_GWcV8 https://mastodon.social/media/vfAmIfFCD6I3JMfxa5M

@econproph @lauraritchie 2/2 What I learned about this phenomenon while building MuniMall (1998-2001) to create a community for town officers and elected officials in Alberta was that you have to connect learning to existing community, not try to create community anew. And this means letting go, it means allowing communities to decide their own objectives, etc. The role for a teacher or instructor is very limited, and that (to my mind) is why they resist it. Even offline on traditional campuses.

@lauraritchie @econproph Well this is something I've been writing about and working on for two decades. Not just me, there's a whole community of us. So my first reaction is that it's great that people are talking about this but it's not new and it's not a discovery. I compiled 'Knowledge, Learning and Community back in 2001 to capture a lot of these ideas in their formative stages. http://www.downes.ca/files/books/KnowledgeLearning.pdf and (much) more recently I've taken to calling the phenomenon 'The Yale Advantage'. 1/2

@lauraritchie I think that if you have a black velvet hooded cloak you should always wear it!

@x28de Interesting diagram, and I noticed that you reordered the presentation of ideas & concepts. It all made me think I could have written a shorter article. :)