The Technopédagogue

Occasionally I like to trawl through the stats on my blog – seeing where people come from and how they find this sight. I’m still somewhat astounded by the global audience this blog gets, so am always keen to find out how people might have arrived here. It was on one of these occasions I […]

The precious thing we do

Dying is the most precious thing that we do, the most important and generative capacity that we share, and it’s the one thing that should restrain our chasing of productivity, status and stuff. — Kate Bowles, Writing and Dying I’ve long struggled with the way Western Cultures conceptualise death. Death is something I’ve been forced […]

Technology can humanize

A great deal of energy and attention has been focused on using technology to automatically grade quizzes, to “capture” lectures, to make the most massive MOOC . . . to McDonaldize education. There is another path. Technology can humanize. It can augment, extend, and empower. There is real transformative power for students and instructors when they interact […]

Creativity is not a talent

“Creativity is not a talent. It’s a way of operating.” – John Cleese I don’t agree with much of what’s written about creativity but this is closest to how I see it.

We are on the way

We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way. The process is not yet finished, but it is actively going on. This is not the goal but it is the right road. At present, everything does not gleam and sparkle, but everything is being cleansed. — Martin Luther Thinking this […]

Designing under constraints

Design is the process of making goal-oriented choices under constraint. – David Wiley In his post David describes the challenge of designing for “open” when the (perceived) constraints of copyright loom over head. It reminded me that what shapes good design is not the goal but the set of constraints it must be done under. […]

The Disruption Machine

The idea of innovation is the idea of progress stripped of the aspirations of the Enlightenment, scrubbed clean of the horrors of the twentieth century, and relieved of its critics. Disruptive innovation goes further, holding out the hope of salvation against the very damnation it describes: disrupt, and you will be saved. Jill Lepore This […]

Online doesn’t replace offline — they are now one and the same

“This idea that we are trading the offline for the online, though it dominates how we think of the digital and the physical, is myopic. It fails to capture the plain fact that our lived reality is the result of the constant interpenetration of the online and offline.” – Nathan Jurgenson Online doesn’t replace offline […]

An escalator can never break – it can only become stairs. You would never see an “Escalator Temporarily Out Of Order” sign, just “Escalator Temporarily Stairs. Sorry for the convenience. We apologize for the fact that you can still get up there.” – Mitch Hedberg Our solutions should still work when the technology fails, they […]

Those animals whose way of life depends least on rigid instincts and most on learning are the most playful. – Peter Gray, Free to Learn