TELWill

I found this article a fascinating read, in part because the questions it addresses are ones which have been key within my work life, and that I have pondered myself. In an age where knowledge is increasing at such a massive rate, and it is accessible so easily and efficiently - does the very way we 'acquire', 'learn' and 'use' knowledge need to change? The key message (for me) is nicely summed up in the conclusion 'Our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today'. A really key new concept for me was the idea of the 'knowledge half life', the concept that as new knowledge is acquired, old knowledge may become out of date or obsolete. The idea that knowledge is growing so quickly now is truly fascinating, and the rate at which we are expanding our knowledge is truly astounding:  'Half of what is known today was not known 10 years ago. The amount of knowledge in the world has doubled in the past 10 ye...

I have found with any learning activity, I am more drawn in to it and more likely to follow it through, if it holds an interest for me...so when reading through (the very well written) 'Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0' by John Seely Brown and Richard P. Adler, whilst wondering which innovation to pursue, I saw 'Project bugscope'. As a child and to a certain extent now, insects and animals in general have held a fascination for me, so this project instantly caught my eye. From the age of nine to when I was eighteen I lived in Brunei, and spent many many hours with my brother off in the jungle finding insects and animals. I remember my parents buying me a small microscope, and spending hours collecting 'samples' to look at. So the idea of the bugscope project is one I can see that I would have loved as a child. Project bugscope began in 1999 and allowed KS12 students to send small creatures to the University of Illinois, and then...

Twitter is an amazing educational tool, that has a lot of really great information, knowledge, and networking potential to it.  Granted.  BUT, I really have reservations about using it as a learning tool, and encouraging others to use it as a learning tool, without being really careful about how we implement this and put it out there.  One thing that really jumps out at me is the idea of 'trending' and in a similar way to news items one doesn't look to the Sun for serious news, is Twitter the right place for serious discussion or examination for serious 'stuff'.  The current Trend list highlights this point perfectly, celebrity culture and television happenings seems the bread and butter of Twitter- is it really therefore a serious place for discussion?!  Now all news sites focus on the 'cool' and 'sexy' topics to get readers in, but most at least have a little bit of proper news in amongst it. Twitter doesn't even try- or rathe...

Carrying on my blogging quest to become a better and more consistent blogger (as quests go granted not a crusade), I am going to spend this post looking at the first question taken from Kerawalla's 2009 paper on blogging, which I am using to help understand/work out blogging and how it fits or might fit with me. The question is: a) Negotiating the public-private nature of blogs: do you write your blog mainly for yourself or for others to read? How do you feel about making your thoughts and life events publicly available to [whomever]? For me this question has two parts, one, who is the blog for, two, how does this audience affect the way you write/feel about sharing these writings? So who do I write for? In the case of this blog, its inception was due to H800 requirements, the audience would therefore mainly be fellow students on this course. But am I writing for my own benefit to get thoughts out of my head and down on paper as a cathartic/thinking activit...

If you haven’t blogged yet, it’s not too late... As the third activity of Week 16 states it's not too late to start, but for those of us who did start, and then promptly stopped, perhaps the challenge of this activity is different.  Part of the activity asks us to look at what we want to get out of a blog - which oddly enough was part of my TMA submission for what I would change in an activity- I discussed more of a focus on what we wanted to get out of blogging/what type of blog, rather than worrying about what to write, which is what I initially did...and as there was no theme, promptly ran out of things to write once I had written it (Maybe I should have read ahead in week 16 before writing that bit).  So getting back on the horse, seems to be the analogy for this activity, and sometimes getting back on the horse is harder than getting on it for the first time (I write this as someone with little experience of riding horses). For myself I let the reigns slip as I was ...

So my initial feelings about blogging were mainly based around "what do I have to add" and "what do I have to say". Sarah helpfully suggested; " Why don't you write a post about the feeling of "loosing the conversation", or "running late" in the tutor group forum? You mentioned in an earlier post, that this happened to you last week. I'd be interested how you experienced this."   So I have taken her advice/suggestion, and while this course doesn't really have room for another poet, I thought I would respond to her in her preferred medium. Forgive me my poetic sins. Last week I had a holiday, To Wales I did go. I took my IPad with me, They have Wi-Fi there you know. Some reading I had planned to do, Catching up on Seely-Brown. Or boffing up on Anna Sfard, While watching the sun go down. Now Cymru is a lovely place, The hills are green and lush. The speed of life is slower, There is no need...

I am always amazed when reading blog's, to think how an individual can have so much to say, so many interesting observations to make, and so much time to spend doing it. I also wonder who reads all of the millions of blogs that are available.  I then think about myself, how little I have to say (that would interest others), and how little time I have to spend writing insightful and interesting posts to share with the internet and those who wonder within it.  And then H800 came along and forced me to start writing and engaging with the blogging process.  Let the experiment commence, let my head be filled with blog-worthy insights, fascinating ideas, and revolutionary words... When any of the aforementioned happen I will be sure to post it here...