Weblearning

Dialogue matters.

I talk with you, not at you!
When working with clients and their intended audiences, I take a  participatory approach and appreciate critical examination of my digital assumptions.

Everyone has the right to participate. I am always looking for opportunities for conversations. Dialogue comes first, didactic instructions last.

• Digital Footprints
  Assisting academics to improve their online presence, broaden their influence and make their research outputs more visible and available 
• Open Umbrella
  A self evaluation tool and field guide, intended to assist course developers to identify how they would like to refine and improve their hybrid or blended courses

Connect the dots.

Digital Education seems obsessed with scale, efficiency automation.  I'm aiming to offer compassion and care to those in my personal learning network.

PLN's also need forthright and honest conversations. Somebody to push-back against techno instrumentalist  or deterministic approaches to technology.

• Personal Learning Network
  Offering support, encouragement and expertise to champions of meaningful change in education settings.
• Community of Practice
  Participating with groups of like minded people who are committed to developing their competency further in a social setting
• Systems Convening
  Finding points in common across  boundaries is what I do with systems convening. Whether it be geographic, digital, cultural,  social. We explore identity and agency that emerges once you've migrated across the boundary line.

Mistakes mean I am learning 

Find ways to counter balance the solutionist and disruption rhetoric.

• My actions (and inaction) influences systems in ways that I can't see
• Be open to change but also own the unintended consequences.
• Try "YES AND" instead of "NO BECAUSE"
• Correct mistakes and minimize knock-on effects.

Stepping lightly.

Scale-able solutions create a false sense of accomplishment. Grand designs have second order effects and these often re-enforce existing asymmetries. Stepping lightly means is as important as being global in scale. I (try) to not take myself too seriously.

• Red Herrings of education
  Real educational innovation doesn't require a startup, an expensive platform, set of "best practices", digital tools or the endorsement of global brand. 
  
• Innovation Theater
  Digital "transformation" often happens on stage, the screen. Real transformation begins with people, not stages or screens.
• Visible Thinking
  When we are all allowed to make our thinking visible. When we can be true to our circumstances and honest about our selves.  Change begins when we meet people where they are at, understand where they are coming from. Not from telling them where we think they are or should be. 

The unsung hero's are at the coal face.

• 1000 X THANK-YOU to teachers
  To those people who are teaching in the classroom, marking after hours, tutoring via text messages, up late preparing for tomorrow. Thank-you

Support the commons.

I have been a member of the Association for Learning Technology (ALT), a leading professional body for Learning Technology with over 3500 members. I am also a member of the South African chapter of Creative Commons and recently was the South African representative on the Creative Commons Global Network. I am also beginning to think of myself as a Wikipedian. A volunteer who contributes to Wikipedia by editing pages and adding articles.