To state the obvious, I have blogging block — a fairly chronic case of it. The reasons for this, and my abortive attempts to overcome it, are fascinating from one perspective; self-indulgent from another. Therein lies part of the riddle that has undone me. Suffice to say, for now, that I still believe in the […]
Author: David Jennings
Tom Phillips and A Humument: Essays, notes
A year ago, almost to the day, I got an email out of the blue from Lucy Shortis, who runs the office of my favourite artist, Tom Phillips. She said some nice things about a very old blog post of mine, and asked if I would consider writing a “short biography of Tom” for a […]
Deskilling Learning? On “strong” and “weak” agile learning
Having saddled myself with the agile learning term, one of the hazards I can’t complain about is having to explain it: What does it really mean? What’s different about it? What’s agile about it. There’s a working definition of the key elements on the agile learning wiki, which I continue to develop slowly and sporadically. […]
Notes on Emergent Learning
As part of updating the wiki on agile learning, I’ve been reading up on Emergent Learning. As long ago as 2004, Michael Feldstein was arguing that “Emergent Learning” is an oxymoron. In brief, his argument was that the term was being used very loosely to describe any circumstance where learning emerges as a by-product of […]
School it Yourself: Review of The Edupunks’ Guide and How to Set Up a Free School
We’re in one of those periods when real change in education might be possible. This doesn’t happen very often. Here’s why. Education is probably the single most powerful means by which our societies and our cultures reproduce themselves — institutions, values, character and differentials… the works. Hence the number of interest groups with a stake […]
What’s holding Open Access publishing back?
As a small business working in knowledge-intensive, research-driven areas, I’ve got first-hand experience of the frustrations caused by mainstream research publishing: you find a research paper that looks useful, but it costs $30 to read the 15 pages if you haven’t got some kind of institutional subscription. These costs keep going up, and even institutions […]
On ecosystems, Adam Curtis and positions of power
I have a chronic habit of reaching more for biological metaphors for to help describe how we inhabit a world of abundant technology and media. Two decades ago, when I was working on large IT systems in the civil service, Ian Franklin and I suggested a shift from thinking about these systems as engineering interventions […]
The Whys and Wherefores of Creativity and Sharing: Review of Making is Connecting
One of the beauties of David Gauntlett’s Making is Connecting is the way it develops a fundamentally simple idea with successive layers of richness and power. The cover captures the kernel of the book: the core thesis that making (with hands and brain, resourcefully) is connecting (in terms of relationships, meaning, learning); the context that […]
Round-up of recent writing in other places
Agile learning: How ‘making do’ can evolve into ‘making good’ is my latest attempt at developing and honing what I mean by agile learning and why it’s important. Written for the newsletter of the Association for Learning Technology, it’s aimed at the ALT constituency which is mostly people in Higher and Further Education along with […]
Purpos/ed: What’s the purpose of education
This post is my contribution to an ongoing project organised by purpos/ed, “a non-partisan, location-independent organization aiming to kickstart a debate around the question: What’s the purpose of education?” This was initiated by Doug Belshaw and Andy Stewart. When I signed up to make the 38th contribution at the fag end of an already-extended process, […]