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More arts please

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Edited by Sonia King, Friday, 13 Nov 2020, 21:17

As the government, in their not so infinite wisdom, declared in one of the recent editions of lockdown guidance, only proper lessons should carry on, non of that music or drama malarkey. Obviously I am paraphrasing but the general gist was tuition out side school could go ahead, but only if it was a 'proper subject' and no extra curricula... then gave some example, music, drama, art. Having watched the pantomime outside no 10 today you would have though that drama was more up their list but hey ho. Thankfully someone pointed out the stupidity of this and they changed their stance.

In a previous edition of covid 19 guidance it was said that home education activities could go ahead in groups as usual as long as they were educational and not purely for social purposes. Again possibly highlighting why certain people in power are visibly lacking the skills required to get along with one another... 

While the powers that be continue to separate subjects into valid and not, while they declare that social activities are not educationally beneficial, all that's happening is education as a whole continues to rot. What is life without beautiful things, song, or dance. How have we even come to a point in life where singing and dancing is illegal rather than something to adapt so as to keep it safe in the current times?   

All subjects specific learning pre 16 should just be chucked in the sea and instead cross curricula, project based, exciting and full of the arts education should become the thing. It would make the world a much nicer place long term. Promises.  

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Pinkie pie from my little pony pulling an excited face

first thoughts on Open education as a ‘heterotopia of desire’

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Just to set the tone I am currently at insomnia62, a BYOC Lan hall gaming festival, with the big sprog. I don't know if it is the upside down sleep, the immersion in fantasy games or all the shite food we have been eating but by this point I am tripping. Everything has taken on that surreal edge that it does when you are overtired and overstimulated and I a not entirely sure how long I can stay awake... probably not the best candidate for a 24/7 gaming fest. Though they do have energy shots on sale lmao

How is this relevant I hear you cry? Well tbh I am not sure if it is but will try and tenuously loop it in. 

So I thought, seeing as I am thoroughly 'plugged in', I would catch up on some OU work. HAHAHAHAHA yeah that's going great.

I make myself focus at the screen, I have already read Dave's Blog Post 'what do you mean open?' and it piqued my interest enough that the tab is still open and I will probably follow him down his rabbit hole later on tonight...  Brill, chip chip chipping away. Then I picked Gourlay's Open education as a ‘heterotopia of desire’, the thought processes went something along the lines of 'pick another... piiick another.... (tweet tweet birdie noises) erm which to pick? Not that one it has strange words in the title, what even is a heteratopia? Why desire? Oh now I have wondered about it, I'm going to have to pick that one aren't I... sigh... okay here goes. (trepidation filled click) WTH?!!! Who swallowed the thesaurus? what were they on when they wrote this? Its like they puked a dictionary... FML'

So yeah, I didn't make it past the abstract... 

I wonder if an important element of something being 'open' should be that anyone/everyone can understand it...

I will try and decode it later. For now Assasins Creed is calling and immersion is imminent.

x

(p.s this is a pic of 1600 ish players in one room... the NEC internet capabilities must be immense)

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Pinkie pie from my little pony pulling an excited face

experience of open education

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Edited by Sonia King, Saturday, 31 Mar 2018, 15:50

I have had a few brushes with open education in the past, through doing MOOCs with my kids and for the odd bit of personal interest, though I tend to dip in and out just taking from them the bits I feel relevant or am inspired by. A couple of them were so dry we never went back...

Through my work, and observation of family life, the majority of open education actually comes from accessing things such as youtube for specific purposes, we have fixed our washing machine three times and our dryer twice by using youtube videos. My son will put youtube on one of his screens and do the task on the other in his autonomous learning/play. I have also paid for some courses, some which have never been used, others that are dipped into and like the '10 coding languages' course are in the back of my head as something to reengage with when I get chance. 

And that is where we come to the nub of the issue, as a busy adult with responsibilities and things any sort of learning is usually either because we need it now (ie fixing the washer) or something that will further our careers/that we have a deep interest in. 

To be completely honest I probably wouldn't be completing this course if I hadn't already paid for it, despite having an interest in the subject.

learning for fun is the dip in and out variety or something we end up paying for because we really want to know about it. 

but then with ubiquitous internet availabilty (in this country at least) and smart phone technology most 'I wonder' type questions can be answered via a quick google, or using an assistant such as asking Siri. But when I really want to know something scientific or peer reviewed I find I often cant access it due to paywalls, which is frustrating at times.

For learning to be truly open then the information available needs to be too... but then who pays the professors? 

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Pinkie pie from my little pony pulling an excited face

wk 1 activity 4 bizness

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Edited by Sonia King, Saturday, 31 Mar 2018, 15:51

I am belatedly having a (fairly weak) bash at wk1 activity 4. I chose to look at the Faulkes telescope. It is still going strong and now links to stuff that wasn't as prevalent when the Brown and Adler article was written, like a google earth plug in that adds pictures you have taken with the telescope to your google sky which is quite cool.

If I am honest I have kinda skimmed this activity, I nearly didn't do it. It was only as I was writing my learning journal private blog mashup thing post, and talking about Marion's forum post about second life that I realised the irony of looking at really old sites linked from an article about how things change so fast we really just need to learn to move with the times... (at least that is what I took away from it). Which led me to coming and doing a public post, so huzzah on the journal doing its ting.

Some of the stuff they (Brown and Adler) talk about is still very relevant, if a tad further on a decade down the line. Without checking all the sites listed I don't know how many are still going (has any one done that?) though I was really surprised to see that MySpace is still a thing, I mean who knew? I thought that had died around the time I left college... 

I suppose the big question, for me at least, is how long will we be able to look at web 2.0 in a current, relevant, context? We are teetering on the edge of Artificial General intelligence. Sophia has a finger in lots of pies, and with this happening recently how long before we realise we are in one of Brooker's black mirror episodes and the web in this 2.0 form is actually as archaic as dial up...


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Pinkie pie from my little pony pulling an excited face

Hi

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Edited by Sonia King, Saturday, 31 Mar 2018, 15:54

So this is my first blog post/ learning journal amalgamation, I am writing it as my youngest shouts at me through the baby monitor because bed time is for noobs and she "doesn't like sleeping". FML seems to be a personal mantra these days. 

I am Sonia, my students describe me as completely bonkers, my psychologist would possibly extend that to batshit. It has taken me 15 minutes to write these 4 sentences, thanks to a search for purple dog, then furball and now a hot chocolate for the eldest. This is my life. 

I home ed my kids, tutor other peoples kids (and some adults) maths and science, run a house and am attempting to mangle my way through the MAODE. We are also trying to negotiate the bureaucratic nightmare of an EHCP process, which is basically a fruitless attempt at getting poorly funded local authority departments to distinguish between their arse and elbow... you seriously couldn't make up the ineptitude (though it is mostly caused by high staff turnover vs 'stretched so thin they are practically transparent' resources). This is for my eldest who is Autistic and needing a special school provision. I am also part of a few local community projects and last year ran for MP.

In my spare time big grin I play the piano, saxophone, paint portraits and just today bought a trumpet. I am also well into AI and keep trying to join organisations full of young clever go getters that don't want me. I also love watching and reading sci-fi, there are 24 usable hours in a day right?

Among other quirks I have Mears-Irlens, which is a bit like dyslexia but not quite, I have a computer that I can talk to and am pretty good at typing, but reading some of the older pdfs of articles can be quite a trial and checking my bibliography is formatted right throughout is nigh on impossible, so I always drop marks on that, but will be making a concerted effort to find a way to improve this as I really want a distinction! (if anyone has any ideas give me shout). 

I am so full of ideas, and would be in MENSA if I had remembered to pay the subscription, but my thoughts are elusive, they are bright blue butterflies that fly around my head as I clumsily fail to catch them. I do however have a super power... I totally boss at analogies. 

stock-photo-many-blue-different-butterflies-flying-163243688.jpg

 

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