This bibliography is a bit of a mixed bag, but as I mentioned in my end-of-term reflection, I see the readings circling around two themes: tribe-making vs. social inclusion as well as the role of arts-based learning in teaching skills required for the future of work. Now that I have a sense of what themes interest me most, I will do more concentrated reading in these areas. Continue reading
MITMassive
MIT Massive: End-of-term reflections
Being in this class was difficult and frustrating, and I am a little surprised at my choice of words because I also enjoyed it very much, so I think it’s worth reflecting on why this is, as well as how I would describe my progress over the course of the term. Continue reading
HW2.1 Updated Network Participation Rubric
Prompt: Write an updated version of your Network Participation Rubric.
Response: You can find a template for the rubric here. Below is mine — it’s changed a lot of over the past month, in part because the readings are so new to me that I want to be able to sit with them, understand the concepts I’m being introduced to, and see where exploring them takes me. Also, my original bibliography proposal is somewhat outside the scope of this half-term class; I’m hoping it will inform an independent study next term.
Four effective conference strategies from #Hive7 (that I will probably steal)
This is the first of a four-part series on my experiences at the Hive Global Leaders retreat in Boston.
I gave up my Patriot’s Day weekend to attend Hive, a programme that brings together change-makers from all over the world (a record 155 attendees from 57 countries). The conference/retreat structure was highly unusual; it challenged my assumptions and gave me ample opportunity to reflect on my approach to life and work. While it took me a while to get comfortable with the format, here some of the thought-provoking Hive strategies I liked best. Continue reading
Books on education, technology, and learning at scale
This is my running list of books mentioned in class readings and that seemed intriguing, listed here mostly as a reminder to self.
Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do — Claude M. Steele (borrowed)
The Monsters of Education Technology — Audrey Watters
(Alternatively, find and read the following articles: The history of the future of ed-tech / Un-fathomable : the hidden history of ed-tech (read for class) / Teaching machines : a brief history of “teaching at scale” / Against “innovation” / Engaging flexible learning / Robots and education labor / Moving from “open” to justice / Men explain technology to me : on gender, ed-tech, and the refusal to be silent / Ed-tech’s monsters / The future of education : programmed or programmable / Beyond the LMS / The future of ed-tech is a reclamation iproject / Beneath the cobblestones : a domain of one’s own / Convivial tools in an age of surveillance.
Teaching in a Digital Age — A. W. (Tony) Bates
Schools of Tomorrow — John and Evelyn Dewey (borrowed)
The Children’s Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer + Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas — Seymour Papert (borrowed)
Deschooling Society — I. Illich (borrowed)
The End of Average — Todd Rose
Seth Godin’s Tribes and the Connectivist MOOC
About a month ago, I read Simon Sinek’s Start With Why as part of a course I’m enrolled in, and found myself frustrated for a number of reasons. After reflecting on what I wished he had addressed, I realised that my concerns stemmed from my personal preoccupations with the politics of belonging and social inclusion. I began to wonder if other popular thought leaders addressed this politics in their texts on tribe-making, and decided that Seth Godin’s book Tribes was an appropriate starting point.
Tribes is more leadership manifesto than book, with spare prose, lightly sketched examples, and no end-notes. In a sense, it feels strange to so seriously critique a text that is meant more as a provocation than a playbook, but I decided to do it anyway.
HW1.2: Draft Participation Rubric
Prompt: Write a draft of your Network Participation Rubric.
Response: You can find a template for the rubric here. Below is mine — I struggled with it for a bit and the one below isn’t the one I originally came up with. Clearly it will continue to change over the semester. It’s a bit weird not to be told exactly what to do, and having to be introspective and honest about how I want to take charge of my learning, but I already find myself thinking about how I might use this self-assessment to shape how I teach in the future.
HW1.1: Bibliography proposal
Prompt: Write a short proposal for your annotated bibliography.
Response: My bibliography might seem to skitter laterally instead of burrowing into the fact of MOOCs themselves, but I’m interested in the genealogy of ideas, and I’m drawn to the mechanics of connectivist MOOCs and Dewey’s ideas for education that feed into them. I’d like to know more about other places where Dewey’s ideas took hold, and since my academic research looks at 20th century South Asia, and my work with Building Bridges uses the arts as a vehicle for baking social inclusion into education, I think working on this bibliography will help me articulate more clearly why my academic research and arts-based education work, while seemingly disparate, are rooted in my longstanding fascination with belonging and social inclusion. Constructive comments are welcome.