Microcontent Office

Observer, 12/2/2007: Microcontent Office

The signs of the paradigm shift are everywhere. Here's an intriguing
one. If you're a Google Mail user and someone sends you a message with
a Microsoft Word document attached, Gmail will offer you two options:
do you want to download the attachment to your hard drive (from where
you can open it in Microsoft Word)? Or do you want to open it as a
'Google document'?

If you choose the latter, the document appears
looking exactly as it does in Microsoft Word, with a toolbar offering
many of the same formatting options. You can insert comments. But there
are also some other buttons available. One is marked 'Collaborate': it
allows you to invite other people to collaborate on editing the
document. Another option is 'Publish': it publishes the document on the
web with a unique URL so that you can direct readers to it. Similar
options are available for Excel spreadsheets. And it's only a matter of
time before PowerPoint files receive the same treatment.

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Stephen Downes on Learning/Knowledge

# (Log in as Guest) Where connectivism differs from those theories, I would argue, is that
connectivism denies that knowledge is propositional. That is to say,
these other theories are 'cognitivist', in the sense that they depict
knowledge and learning as being grounded in language and logic.



Connectivism is, by contrast, 'connectionist'. Knowledge is, on this theory, literally
the set of connections formed by actions and experience. It may consist
in part of linguistic structures, but it is not essentially based in
linguistic structures, and the properties and constraints of linguistic
structures are not the properties and constraints of connectivism.



In
connectivism, a phrase like 'constructing meaning' makes no sense.
Connections form naturally, through a process of association, and are
not 'constructed' through some sort of intentional action. And
'meaning' is a property of language and logic, connoting referential
and representational properties of physical symbol systems. Such
systems are epiphenomena of (some) networks, and not descriptive of or
essential to these networks.



Hence, in connectivism, there is no
real concept of transferring knowledge, making knowledge, or building
knowledge. Rather, the activities we undertake when we conduct
practices in order to learn are more like growing or developing
ourselves and our society in certain (connected) ways.



This
implies a pedagogy that (a) seeks to describe 'successful' networks (as
identified by their properties, which I have characterized as
diversity, autonomy, openness, and connectivity) and (b) seeks to
describe the practices that lead to such networks, both in the
individual and in society (which I have characterized as modeling and
demonstration (on the part of a teacher) and practice and reflection
(on the part of a learner)).

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learning environment (read the full post)

IN Savage Minds: I eventually came to the conclusion that “teaching” is a hindrance to
learning. The word, “teacher” in itself suggests that learning requires
teaching. In fact, the best learning almost always occurs in the
absence of a teacher.

[The teacher's role is being a - very - important part in the ecology.]

Before I go much further in my
description of “anti-teaching” I might say that I do not recommend it
for everybody, nor do I think anti-teaching is necessarily superior to
teaching. Both must co-exist, for together they are greater than the
sum of their parts. If you are a “teacher” please do not take offense
to my anti-teaching philosophy. All I am attempting to provide is a
necessary companion to traditional teaching.

The only answer to the best questions is another good question. And so
the best questions send students on rich and meaningful lifelong
quests, question after question after question. [because what you learn is structures, frames, a "language"] ... Frustrated with this question (“What do we need to know for this test?”), and hoping to get my students to ask
better questions, I decided to get to work creating a learning
environment more conducive to producing the types of questions that
create lifelong learners rather than savvy test-takers.

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blogger site feeds for labels (tags)

If a blog you read is using labels and also has site feeds enabled, then you can pick and choose which topics you want to subscribe to. The format for label feeds is this:

http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/labelname

Be sure to substitute in the correct blog address for blogname and the label you're interested in for labelname. Also, don't miss the hyphen ("-") in the URL. That's not a typo!

abfall 070206_3

1616 keine Urteile zur aktuellen Arbeit, klar das wirkt immer so furchtbar zuletzt bei Rühmkorf bei Krausser weil ich eben dies und das dachte, zum Stück JA UND! get on with it halts Maul! ist ja gut, ist ja gut bremsenlos fahren und trotzdem irgendwie steuern kontrolliert, klar (schon beim zweiten Mal ist es ein MANIERISMUS: Problem der Form - lächerlich) PRAXIS

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abfall 070206_2

VORSICHT Literatur alles aussteigen bitte geil auch: neulich mit Theo die Debatte über Tagebücher, Krausser, wer war da noch?, ach ja: der Andreas Bernard Ar-tikel in der SZ: ob er den gelesen hat, der war toll - nee, hat er nur angefangen, war ihm dann zu langweilig - zu LANGWEI-LIG?! - ... Tageücher also: kann er nicht, mag er nicht, langweilt ihn; darf dann im Grunde natürlich auch sonst niemand ma-chen (kleine Übertreibung); ob ich denn Tagebuch schreiben würde - Nö. Wie das schon klingt: 'Tagebuch schrei-ben' - Blödsinn - Meine Minutendinger durfte ich dann trotzdem vielleicht weiter machen - wenn ich ihn richtig verstanden habe - Theodors Negationsmaschine: absoluter Irrsinn Wobei der Abend neulich in Wirklichkeit ja seit langem wieder speziell nett war - hatte ja eben noch in Hamburg Benedikt gegenüber nur vom Streß-Theo geredet - so richtig fies und böse - aber er hat uns alle eben bißchen ZU lange ge-quält, gernervt, terrorisiert - und jetzt erst, mit Verspätung, kriegt er dafür zurück ist das fies? ist das normal? 1718 time time time - time marches on -

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abfall 070206

dann heute Nacht

Brief

kaputte Szene

dann heute mittag soll der und der vorkommen?

Verrat?

WIE vor allem

das meiste muß schweigen, sonst gehen riesige Lügen los, Spastereien, im Grunde Literatur

und das wollen wir ja gerade VERMEIDEN hier

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manovich media history

What had also come by 1995 was Internet—the most material and visible sign of globalization. And, by the end of the decade, it has also become clear that the gradual computerization of culture will eventually transform all of it. So, to invoke the old Marxist model of base and superstructure, if the economic base of modern society from the 1950s onward started to shift toward a service and information economy, becoming by the 1970s a so-called “post-industrial society” (Daniel Bell), and then later a “network society” (Manual Castells), by the 1990s the superstructure started to feel the full impact of this change.

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starting mcontainer

this is planned to be a container for all sorts of microcontent i create and want to process in the microcontent foodchain:

performancing > container-blog

> rss-feeds for tags > suprglu pages / protopage
> somehow formatting it for mobile > mobile blog
> with TiddlySnip to TiddlyWiki

...