Blog 8:

Mind-mapping = digitalizing of thought = reduction of thought to a schemata, a mechanism that wants to replace a *natural hierarchy of ends* with an artificial hierarchy based on the supposed natural absence of order (via the old strategy of "divide et impera").

Mind-mapping presents itself as a strategy to free us from mental confusion, under the assumption that the confusion does not presuppose a prior, underlying order.  If it did, then it would behoove us to clarify the surface of our confused thoughts by way of discovering a *natural end* in the light of which all certain ideas (or, formulas of words) are ordered.

Now, contemporary mind-maps are a faint (and distorted) echo of an ancient kind of map, aka The Tree of Knowledge (an example from Porphyry is pasted above).  In the early-modern age we have the first popularized attempt to replace the ancient and medieval Tree of Knowledge with a "secular" tree understood as universal "system of human cognition," such as the 1751 one by D'Alembert pasted below.

      Today's "tree" is heir to early-modern schemes, although the former abandons the rigidly formulaic character of the latter, exploding it into a network of connections that wants to overtly include existence/life itself--a "web" in which we may transfer our very memory.  The contemporary system does not want to be something merely applied onto our lives from above; it wants to be one with our lives; it wants to come to life; it wants to be our lives.  Its early-modern counterpart wants the same thing, but it wants it covertly (cf. Shelley's Frankenstein).


I used two different web browsers to register onto the Compendium LD site, but in both cases the system did not allow me to sign up.  The following warning shows up on the screen:
Please type in the two words as they appear in the box below. Alternatively, please listen to the audio clip and type in the words that you hear (please enter a space between each word).
However no "two words" appear; nor am I given any audio option.


Blog Thing 8

1. What do you think of the ideas behind Compendium LD? What was your impression?  Something I had been anticipating: course-outlines reduced to computer software flow-charts.  My earlier thoughts on "trojan horses" apply.  My impression is that the charts are programmed for children with severe learning disabilities.
2. In what way do you see this being useful to you as a course organiser? If I were teaching children with severe learning disabilities (LAS, autism, etc.) it might come in handy.  Probably, many technology/computer students will find themselves at home with the charts.
3. Filling out one of your own Compendium LD course visualisations, did you find it illuminating or frustrating? Are there any ways you would change it to better reflect what you do? Frustrating to the extent that the type of courses I would ever teach are aimed at helping students escape the confines of flow-charts, questioning the belief that thought is a labyrinth.  I would change the charts by replacing them altogether with something that does not feed students a "visualization" of the course, but that encourages (poetically) students to think own way to the course objective.  The learning designs on "CompendiumLD" are plainly unpoetic.
4. How do you compare it with other visualisation tools for curriculum design (e.g. compared to others introduced in this programme such as Course Map, Phoebe ... or others that you already use yourself)? Phoebe came across as more "humane."

Blog 7: PHOEBE, or: When a goddess becomes a community tool.

Blog Thing 7

1. What do you think of the ideas behind Phoebe? What was your impression? THE IDEAS behind the radiance of Apollo/Phoebus: "this is exactly what our tool sets out to do: provide timely and informed guidance on designing learning experiences that make appropriate use of technology.
   However, we envisage Phoebe above all as a community tool, owned by individual departments and colleges who will supplement the advice and examples that we have supplied with material directly relevant to their own context" ("Phoebe" site).  
   
   
   The "idea" behind the use of the term "appropriate" appears to be <serving the interests of our departments' own context>.  But did the departments themselves ask for technology's help?  Is Phoebe's vision ("we envisage...") shared by my department?  Or is the vision in question a product to be sold to departments that otherwise would see (and indeed have) no need for it?  
   
   
   I cannot help but doubt whether a divinely neutral or pure tool descending upon departments of academic learning uncalled-for from the summit of the mount of bureaucracy might not prove, upon careful reflection, to be fundamentally unhelpful.  
   
   
   Can any universal "form" meaningfully "supplement" the particular "matter" of any field of investigation UNLESS said form is first shown to emerge out of the real needs of this or that field of investigation itself?  I see a need for our new Phoebes to show me before all else why my department would need to change the way it has been or currently is presenting course outlines.
   
2. What template(s) did you think were (most) useful? Or did you think there weren't any useful ones and would you consider creating one yourself?  The BASIC DESIGN TEMPLATE (cloned as "Template for 1066"), which came across as the simplest or most straightforward.  As the "tool" becomes complicated, it comes to distract from the educator's end--especially when the tool is constructed in vitro, instead of arising out of the field in which it is to be used.  Unless the tool is to serve as a Trojan Horse...                   
3. What are your thoughts about using this to share Cambridge (or your course) specific templates and designs; as a tool to share your learning designs? I suspect some general suggestive guidelines would suffice to support educators in preparing course outlines.  If, on the other hand, the goal is to synchronize/monitor all educators within a network of bureaucratic expectations, then I am left with asking if educators will have the choice of sticking to antiquated course outlines?  Or must these, too, be digitalized?  Finally,must it be paranoia to suspect that Phoebe's "tooling" is a covert step in the direction of online courses--the ultimate bureaucratization of education?
4. How do you compare it with learning design tools or systems you're already using; is it better or worse? In what way? Compared to others we have been presented with, this one seems to have the greatest potential for obtaining its goal.  Here, a menu of templates for course outlines is (or can be) presented for an educator to select and fill out one template, just as he would with most other online forms.

Thing 6: Bring Your Own (Tool)

Blog Thing 6

1. What is your BYO curriculum design Thing that you choose to share with us?  White chalk on blackboard is my main teaching tool, aside from printed handouts possibly placed on cam-tools.  Exceptionally, I rely on projectors for images directly related to texts under examination.
   Describe what sort of Thing it is (tool, resource, guide, system etc), what it aims to do and how it's being used.   The white chalk is used at its best in order to illustrate thematic or conceptual relations, or more generally to create a visual "poetic" platform for students' reflection.    
2. How did you find out about this (via a colleague, through training session...)? N/A
3. Why is it particularly useful for you? What aspects are less useful (for you)? The simplicity of the tool contributes to a positive education/distraction ratio.  Keeping tools at a bare minimum has its often underestimated advantages.  Even projectors can become more distracting than illuminating, especially to the extent that the image they introduce appears ex machina, rather than being formed "live" (out of the blackboard's surface).  (N.B. Alas, many classrooms now have whiteboards that have a decisively negative effect on the mystique that drawings on blackboard are capable of possessing.)
4. In what way do you see it being useful for other course designers? My BYO tool invites close coordination of image and speech whereby the former serves as "frontispiece" for the articulation of the other.
5. Add a link / image / upload a version so it's clear what the Thing is and other participants can try it out as well. The image pasted above originally served as frontispiece to a XVIII book that students might examine for a course.  In this case a projector would be used to present the image, although an analogue (or parts thereof) could be drawn on the blackboard.

Thing 5 - Pedagogy Profile Widget

Blog Thing 5

1. What do you think of the idea of 'pedagogy profile widget'? A further attempt to digitalize learning environments.  If the tool at hand serves the interests of "authentic learning" (cloudworks), then to what extent if any does the expression in scare quotes indicate something other than "marketability" or "fitness in the ongoing stream of productivity"?
2. What do you think of dividing the rows into 'modules', 'terms' and so on; or do you think the original idea of using 'weeks' works best?  Perhaps a colored pie-shaped graph for every week could be used, instead.  Something resembling this (first sample off the internet)...

3. How does it compare with any other methods you're using to balance learning aspects across the spread of activities etc?  The tool at hand adds sophistication and complexity there where I would rather seek simplicity and flexibility.  As far as I can tell, the assigned categories for learning-aspects are strictures justified only relatively to institutional demands to set up a system of pre-emptive responses to students' doubts concerning assessment criteria.  In other words, the digitizing may serve to mask, rather than reveal, the real Art of Assessment, which, if properly exercised, remains "off the chart" insofar as it has its roots in the student's strength of mind or intellective virtue.  Thus I would find it more helpful to ask: is the student really thinking?  To the extent that he is thinking rigorously about the course subject, he will be able to give evidence of this thought to the teacher who has ears to hear; and he will be receptive to the assessment given by the teacher who knows how to speak to students who have ears to hear, as well as to students who remain rather dismissive of the art of listening.
4. Filling out your own pedagogy profile, did you find it illuminating or frustrating? Are there any ways you would change it to better reflect what you do? Simplify!  Fewer "numbers." Convert the "profile" back into prose-form.
5. In what ways do you see this being useful to you as a course designer? Alas, N/A.

If you're interested...

• Add the .jpg of your own 'Pedagogy profile' to your blog post (hint: use the 'save as .jpg' button and afterwards upload it to your blog post using the 'image' icon in your blog )

...TO BE CONTINUED

• Look up 'Pedagogy profile' on Cloudworks (here's a link) and share your response directly with the OULDI team there

Thing 4

Responding to:   Blog Thing 4

1. What do you think of the idea of Course Map?  
2. How does it compare with any other representations you have of your course?
3. Filling out your own course map, did you find it illuminating or frustrating?  Are there any ways you would change it to better reflect what you do? 
4. In what ways do you see this being useful to you as a course designer?

1 and 2. The map resemples a computer flowchart.  As such it tacitly invites students to approach their course of studies as a digitally compartimentalized entity, rather than as a place for serious, "organic" thinking.  For courses spilling out of any mechanistic network of instruction, I see no reason to abandon the prose-style of a more traditional Course Outline.
3.  "Frustrating" in the respect that genuine learning resists digitalizing/marketing devices, just as an honest course of learning discourages the habit of approaching subjects of learning piecemeal as merchandise. 
4. After considerable thought: None.

P.S. I would have pasted my personalized "Map" if only I knew how to.  Tried to save it first as a "Picture" but could not find the precise option (I am given the option of saving the powerpoint as GIF, JPEG, TIFF, etc. but none are accepted).
UPDATE: Finally managed to upload a sample Course Map (for whatever it is worth).