Hamburger Candy

Originally uploaded by Jeffrey Keefer

A colleague bought me this adorable Hamburger Candy at a bake sale. Yumm.

The boom camera is preparing to video Turandot tonight at the Met.

One of the weekly assignments I have for the online class I am teaching, Principles and Practices of Online Course Creation and Instructional Design (#PPOCCID), is for my students to have a weekly blog post about something to do with the content of our class. I make the assignment rather broad, as I know that learning can take place at odd times and in unlikely ways, so I want my learners to feel flexibility in what they write about and explore.

With this in mind, I wanted to follow my own assignment and discuss something I found interesting in one of the readings from this past week’s class (where I ran out of time and did not discuss), Tools for Online Engagement and Communication by Richard S. Lavin, Paul A. Beaufait, and Joseph Tomei. In this chapter, the authors do an excellent overview of a number of current web-based technologies that are useful to help people  develop their online identities, communicate their stories with peers, and begin to engage in online community.

With the focus on blogs, wikis, and technologies to assist with digital storytelling, I am reminded of how I started blogging several years ago to explore my own thinking, and still use it to help me process my work, usually with the benefit of getting additional feedback that in turns helps me move my thinking forward.

With this in mind, I like how the authors of this chapter (who do one of the better introductions to blogs and wikis) begin it:

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are

few.” (Suzuki, 2006, p. 21)

In Zen Buddhism, there is a notion of beginner’s mind (shoshin in Japanese), in which a person seeking enlightenment is asked to look at things as they are, without preconceived notions. A goal of looking at things from learners’ perspectives is to see things the way new students do, and to anticipate problems and bottlenecks that they might face, a task that takes on added significance in light of the relative newness of online education. Online education acts as a universal solvent, dissolving many of the notions and axioms that we have taken for granted.

I have thought a lot about blogging, and have engaged in it for so long that my perceptions about it may be different from how those new to the concept of blogging may perceive it. I have seen learners grow in their sophistication, professionalism, academic prowess, and even reflective practice, and am so look forward to seeing how my current learners experience this.

At long last, here is my outfit for the 2009 New York City / Greenwich Village Halloween Parade.

I uploaded a bunch of pictures in a my Renaissance Merchant outfit to Flickr.

Let’s just hope for no rain!

A colleague on Twitter Tweeted about this, and I thought it was just wonderful! As I love things Medieval, I wanted to share this animated version of the Bayeux Tapestry. This is quite a clever and engaging way to show something so richly historical.

Hard to imagine how fast time flies.

I have been away for a few days due to a recurring food poisoning episode, a demanding work week, a much slower Windows Vista now with Norton 2010, and the reminder that I am teaching a new online course that begins on Tuesday. I am planning to catch up a bit with my online life today, and realize that after several days of little online work and communication, it is unworkable to address everything.

I will do what I can, and then onward and upward.

Since I need a break from all the research and work I have been doing recently, I am planning to attend and WALK in the Village Halloween Parade this year (something I have never done). I am planning to dress as a Renaissance merchant, and have ordered all the pieces (and a few more) to dress like this. Will have my own pictures closer to the date once everything arrives.

Wonder if there is a Renaissance Faire group or anybody from the Society of Creative Anachronism (SCA) (from the East Kingom or the Canton of Whyt Whey)  that is planning to walk as well?

Anybody want to join me in the parade, or at least wave at me as I walk by?

There was a wonderful article in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine, “Is Happiness Catching.”  The article was about some research Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler are doing to see if behaviors can be “contagious,” so good behaviors, and those who have them, can in turn support spreading the ”goodness.”

While the research jury is still out for how this actually works, initial research suggests there may be a connection.

I wonder how this can fit with learning? Can learning be contagious?  If we promote learning practices, can they rub off on those around us, so that we, en masse, increase learning skills and a knowledge base? With a knowledge society, let’s hope so.

Of course, the question of “whose learning” should we try to spread (think conservative vs. liberal, race, power relationships, etc.) will also have to be addressed, and once again we may be back at the beginning . . .

I watched the movie The Reader last night, and was surprisingly pleased with it. The “secret” (as if there were only one) it addresses is one that unfortunately lingers even today in many situations and experiences. Set within post-World War II Germany and the present, it was stronger and more touching than I imagined. One thing is certain, the movie is more complex than the brief description provided by Netflix; not in its online complexity, but rather with the ethical, moral, and legal issues that it raises without becoming preachy, self-righteous, or adequate in its confronting the main character’s bildungsroman.

As a viewer, I have a lingering sense that, yet again, life if more complex than we ordinarily like to compartmentalize it.