doug belshaw

intrigue with ambiguity..

different type of ambiguity

Marc Prensky coined the term “Digital Native” (Presky [sic], 2001) to describe this generation. The moniker communicates clearly that these are not subtle changes to have occurred, but instead this is a generation of students who act – and perhaps even think – differently than those that are educating them – the so-called “Digital Immigrants.” (Gaston, 2006, p.1)

We suggest that further work is required to see whether ‘digital literacy’ follows what may be described as a trajectory similar to that of ‘digital natives’. We also suggest that the model of the continuum of ambiguity may be applicable to other ambiguous terms.

Finally, we note with Empson that ambiguity is itself an ambiguous term:

“Ambiguity itself can mean an indecision as to what you mean, an intention to mean several things, a probability that one or other or both of two things has been meant [or] the fact that a statement has several meanings.” (1930, p.5-6)

Whilst we have sought to make this paper as unambiguous as possible and situate it in the Productive ambiguity part of the continuum, we do not wish to make the reductio ad absurdum claim that all terms are necessarily ambiguous. Ambiguity may surround us in everyday life but an understanding of the continuum we suggest may make the world a little more understandable.

find/follow Doug here:

mooc starting may 2 on how to teach web literacy and code

http://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2013/05/08/answering-your-questions-about-open-badges/

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a new site:

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Mozilla needs your help with a final push for the Web Literacy Standard (beta)! (dougbelshaw.com/blog)

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may 2014:

intro’d to Vinay via Doug here:

oct 2013

Vinay Gupta shares his vision of a rural future

developing countries, africa, leap frogging the track – city to get enough to move back to the country – are just staying rural..

rural life – centered around the bicycle, the solar panel – just

11 min – we took an early branch – to fossil fuel.. failed.. but the rest of the world that hasn’t industrialized.. can learn from all tech/failures.. pull what is what’s best out of culture and go straightforward.. what you’re left with is self-sufficient peasant agriculture.. without having to go to city to get rich first…

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from Doug’s words in his post:

What we can do though, I suppose, is make cities nicer places to live. Cities are actually pretty good per square mile in terms of efficiency. Making them nicer places to live, though, would mean jettisoning our rugged individualism and inherent competitiveness with peers. These are the kinds of things that lead to families buying two cars and driving everywhere instead of demanding better public transport. And, you know, if we pooled together we could all work 21 hour weeks while providing a minimum basic income for all. We could end poverty, at least in our own country.

But we don’t do any of this. Why? Because we’re trapped and immobilised by a nostalgic mythology. Instead of demanding and working towards something different and better, we’re spurred on by consumer culture that tells us we ‘deserve’ more of the same. The truth is that most of us aren’t going to attain the dream they’re peddling. All we get to do is silently, seethingly observe in the media other people doing things presented as ‘normal’. The truth for most of us is that those things are increasingly merely a distant dream.

so yes.. let’s leap frog us.. learn from mistakes.. take things that worked.. but let’s re-open (?) our minds.. to the unlikely.. the non-assumed .. the seemingly i’mpossible.

in the city.

as the day.

ness.

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july 2014 indie summit:

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sept 2014:

http://edtechdigest.wordpress.com/2014/09/08/web-literacy/

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from Doug’s yearnote 2014 (things that intrigue me most):

• Read and made notes on every post on Vinay Gupta’s blog.
• Started walking more.
• Wrote post for DMLcentral entitled A Brief History of Web Literacy and its Future Potential. This was picked up by the Washington Post.

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web literacy map:

https://webmaker.org/en-US/resources

via connected learning web session – teach the web:

http://connectedlearning.tv/introduction-teaching-web-and-web-literacy

web pathways – almost like an amazon recommendation – as you go literaci.es/weblit-learnin… @dajbelshaw #TeachTheWeb

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feb 11 2016 -2 posts – same day – pearson on open and badges on trust

calling out pearson:

http://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2016/02/11/pearson-open-badges/

The answer, of course, is to commodify it.

perhaps we subtly/kindly ‘commodify’ – simply by making sure our passion/mission doesn’t become irrelevant.. thinking our perpetuate\ing ness; sinclair perpetuation law; et al

it’s entirely pointless that the badges they issue are Open Badges as users cannot export them from the system elsewhere. Given that Open Badges are portable digital credentials this kind of misses the point.

[..]

If Pearson aren’t willing to allow their badges to be portable, then they should have the guts to stop pretending that they’re interested in the success and sustainability of Open Badges. Muddying the waters doesn’t help anyone except Pearson’s profits.

more on muddying below

open badges plus blockchain -> bit of trust:

http://dmlcentral.net/the-possibilities-of-badges-and-blockchain/

The great thing about the Open Badges Infrastructure is that it’s a distributed, evidence-based system of credentialing. There are no gatekeepers; anyone can issue, earn, and display badges. Similarly, the blockchain is a distributed, open “ledger” to which anybody can add evidence and information in the form of cryptographic hashes. Long story short, pairing blockchain technology with Open Badges allows for trusted credentialing on a level usually reserved for international banking.

[..]

Using the blockchain for mere digital certificates is like strapping a rocket onto a Model T Ford. It may allow you to go faster in a straight line, but doesn’t afford you any new options. It is perhaps what is usually called a “sustaining innovation.” Using Open Badges with the blockchain is a much more disruptive proposition. What if everyone had the keys to the kingdom?

whoa.

perhaps more useful keys to kingdom… an un need for solid proof of learning..

perhaps rna ness.. io dance et al – focus on interoperability rather than proof

blockchain plus badges equals rocket fuel for verified, trusted credentials. Everyone gets to point to a rock-solid “proof of learning” that they can use anywhere.

so glad ie: einstein didn’t wait for proof of learning… no?

yrs of relativity… w/o supposed proof we now have.
less about ‘verifiable sightings’ of gravitational waves… more about gut intuition to trust

did Einstein just get a badge from us…?

how silly are we

as with many developments in technology and society, some of the most interesting things happen behind the scenes.

perhaps.. even more so…behind/ beyond human proof/verification

so .. my wondering.. on same day calling out pearson for muddying waters of open.. perhaps.. muddying waters of trust w/badges..

on open… seems silly w/o interoperability
on trust.. seems silly w/need for proof

perhaps one major problem is our thinking about trust . ie: i don’t think it comes in bits… otherwise.. it’s really just degrees of judgment .. no?

to me trust is….. ie: if you’re human..  we assume good.. we assume i know you ness and every actor has a reason ness.. and we believe there is danger in single story.. and that we just need to look closer.. (or again – save a ton of energy and just trust).. because bottom line – none of this/us will work unless it’s all of us.. www – all of us

next read was this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/t-jameson-brewer/teach-for-america-lies-da_b_9195600.html

the presence of TFA allows the state to avoid systemic change ..

thinking – presence of badges allows us to avoid systemic change – we’re not being brave enough to grab your x-d glasses.. and we’re missing it –  ie: energy\ness

let’s do this first: free art-ists.

100% free…for (blank)’s sake…

a nother way  via self talk as data as the day..

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open badges evidence via Doug:

http://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2016/03/09/open-badges-evidence/

badge evidence via Alan:

http://cogdogblog.com/2016/02/badge-evidence/

perhaps our deeper issue is more in letting go
disengaging from irrelevant s (v gupta)

a call to end our love affair with evidence (rupert read & nn taleb) ..with credentialing

perhaps we simply – leave a trail – self talk as data – in whatever form we choose that day. as the day.

hosting life bits ness

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http://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2016/05/05/digital-badges-in-education-book-pt1/

[notes – mostly stuff unsettling to me – also like how he uses discours.es.. liking bitting up that chip would do from self talk]

http://discours.es/2016/the-exchange-value-of-badges-depends-on-alignment

best practices.. will be outdated…
better to not distract from abandon to curiosity… which perhaps means… no measuring/validating.. no raised eyebrow ing….

http://discours.es/2016/the-value-of-badges

12&3
oh my
esp paired w shading on chart…
1/ learners (aka:alive people).. need/beg to e liberated from incentives…if you’re alive.. you’re curious… and you can’t not learn

2/ was thinking this the only one… maybe… because thinking trail… augmented brain… et al.. but shading calls it critical for issuers..
poof and ugh

3/ validation is poison from the get go

http://discours.es/2016/badges-and-instructional-design

As instructional designers, the authors note (quite rightly) that “the pedagogy and learning theories behind the design of the badges are more important than the technology itself.

then so to… more important than people…?
because that’s where our time s going… ie:more research… so more grants… et al

rather… let’s do 7 bill researchers everyday… as the day… guided by 7 bill whimsical hearts…
leave a trail/augmented memory… but nothing for proof

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identity/home/minimalism

http://discours.es/2016/identity-the-home-and-minimalism

a space into which I can project my inner life, rather than confirming a way of being that went before. In other words, minimalism can be a conscious way of bringing in the new. It can lend some ‘breathing room’

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we are open planning:

http://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2016/05/26/weareopen-planning/

http://weareopen.coop/

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@yanisvaroufakis

6/28/16 4:44 AM

Σlavoj Žižek, a DiEM25 early signatory, casts his critical eye on the ‘disorder’ of the EU in the light of Brexit.diem25.org/disorder-under…

So what does Europe want? Basically, Europe is caught into a vicious cycle, oscillating between the Bruxelles technocracy unable to drag it out of inertia, and the popular rage against this inertia, a rage appropriated by new more radical Leftist movements but primarily by Rightist populism. The Brexit referendum moved along the lines of this new opposition, which is why there was something terribly wrong with it. To see this, one should only look at the strange bedfellows that found themselves together in the Brexit camp: right-wing “patriots,” populist nationalists fuelled by the fear of immigrants, mixed with desperate working class rage… is such a mixture of patriotic racism with the rage of “ordinary people” not the ideal ground for a new form of Fascism?

[..]

The intensity of the emotional investment into the referendum should not deceive us, the choice offered obfuscated the true questions: how to fight “agreements” like TIFF which present a real threat to popular sovereignty, how to confront ecological catastrophes and economic imbalances which breed new poverty and migrations, etc. The choice of Brexit means a serious setback for these true struggles – suffice it to bear in mind what an important argument for Brexit was the “refugee threat.” The Brexit referendum is the ultimate proof that ideology (in the good old Marxist sense of “false consciousness”) is well and alive in our societies. For example, the case of Brexit exemplifies perfectly the falsity of the calls to restore national sovereignty (the “British people themselves, not some anonymous and non-elected Brussels bureaucrats, should decide the fate of the UK” motif):

“At the heart of the Brexit is a paradox worth articulating! England wants to withdraw from the bureaucratic, administrative control of Brussels, control seen as compromising its sovereignty, in order to be better able to organize the dismantling of its sovereignty (by way of more radical submission to the logic of global capital) on its own. Does this not have the markings of the death drive? The organism wants to die in its own way, on its own terms. This is the paradox at the heart of American Republican thinking: we want to ‘take back our country’ in order to be better able to submit it and pretty much all of life to the logic of the market.”(Eric Santner, personal communication)