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H818: Activity 1.2 Open Learning is with us

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 2 May 2014, 11:24

I'll reflect on and absorb the H818 academic stuff in due course - somewhere in the reading a couple of authors were mentioned so while the pressure is low I've been reading Lawrence Lessig 'Remix' and re-reading, possibly for the third time, Martin Weller's 'The Digital Scholar'.

Open Learning is with us.

Whilst more people globally will get a slice of the tertiary education pizza, there will still be those that who are stuck on the edge with the crust while the 'privileged' few get the real substance. This applies between 'first' and 'third' worlds, but also locally in an education catchment area - when it comes to the democratization of education through e-learning some are more equal than others through having the kit, accessibility, inclination, support and opportunity.

Speaking with a school friend I'd not spoken to since we were 10 or 11 we got onto those OU broadcasts in the middle of the night, and then the BBC 'Trade Test Transmissions' - how else could we possibly know anything about how the stain glass windows were made for Liverpool Cathedral on how animals were rescued during the flooding of the Zambezi?

Repetition, rich content and a dearth of anything else to watch.

In sharp contrast 'open' today, and TV too means everything and anything. How can anything stand out?

Because the search engines offer it, because of branding and association, through word of mouth through your social and other networks i.e. as a consequence of the nature of your 'connectedness'.

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Design Museum

Why blog?

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 27 Feb 2014, 17:02

 Fig. 1. This is the cover page of Lawrence Lessig's book 'Remix: making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy' (2008)

I cannot currently show it as the HTLM functionality of this blog platform cannot be used from an iPad any more. 

'The value of blogs is not that I'm likely to find a comment that surpasses the very best of the New York Times. I'm not. But that's not the point. Blogs are valuable becuase they give millions the opportunity to express their ideas in writing. And with a practice of writing comes a certain important integrity. A culture filled with bloggers thinks differently about politics or public affairs, if only because more have been forced through the discipline of showing in writing why A leads to B'. Lawrence Lessig (2008:92-93)

There are multiple reasons to blog, and several of these don't require you to post 'to the world'. Posting for yourself as a record is good, and posting to a tight group OF YOUR OWN MAKING works too - i.e. those to whom you feel a natural affinity rather than the forced, coraled group of students in a tutor group. 

I'll revisit the mindmap on blogging that I produced a while ago and refresh it. 

I, naturally, recommend it. Though keeping your reflections in a notebook might be less distracting and less liable to cause offence of embarrassment.

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