tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23491738856517076392012-02-14T15:02:51.056-05:00A blog to support Keith Hamon's explorations of the rhizome.Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.comBlogger2921100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-73199701010083682712012-02-14T15:02:00.000-05:002012-02-14T15:02:51.062-05:00

MOOCs such as CCK12 and Change11 almost by definition involve a lot of technology, and so questioning the use of technology in teaching might seem … well, almost sacrilegious. Still, The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article recently entitled A Tech-Happy Professor Reboots After Hearing His Teaching Advice Isn't Working, which seems to suggest that Michael Wesch, the Kansas State

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com09801 Belvedere Rd, Royal Palm Beach, FL 33411, USA26.691744 -80.199634126.6899705 -80.20210159999999 26.6935175 -80.1971666tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-21213470159567416192012-02-12T16:03:00.001-05:002012-02-13T19:29:20.420-05:00

I was watching a wonderful slideshare by Jurgen Appelo called Complexity versus Lean, when I came across one of those pithy quotes that pulls ideas together for you. On  slide 74 of 92, Appelo says, "All models are wrong, some are useful." I liked the quote so much I googled it and discovered that, according to Anecdote.com, George Box, the industrial statistician, is credited with the quote ‘all

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-80494969134082833382012-02-11T09:26:00.000-05:002012-02-11T09:26:33.627-05:00

In a recent post entitled Week 3: Rhizomatic or biological neuralogical network?, my colleague in CCK12 Matt Bury writes that he's "been pondering the analogy of distributed networks of learners, i.e. Connectivism, as rhizomes" and concludes that he "wasn’t convinced by it from the start." You can read the rest of Matt's thoughtful comments on his blog, but if I understand him correctly, he

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0Wellington Green Dr, Wellington, FL 33414, USA26.6468613 -80.216493926.6397653 -80.22636440000001 26.653957300000002 -80.2066234tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-49498681515215716172012-02-09T08:01:00.001-05:002012-02-09T08:01:53.197-05:00

In a response to my previous post, fellow CCK12 MOOCer and blogger, Matt Bury, describes a number of techniques that he uses to build communities of inquiry and practice in his classrooms, and it reminds me that formal theories—if we choose to call Connectivism a formal theory—grow in very informal, rhizomatic ways, spreading like oil—or as Deleuze and Guattari say of the rhizomatic growth of

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-18326665576578456172012-02-01T16:24:00.002-05:002012-02-01T16:24:35.715-05:00

I'm finding it quite easy to frame most of what I do in my writing classes with rhizomatic/connectivist thinking. I work hard to connect students to someone other than to me. I begin class by asking my students to take out their cell phones and text someone about what they are doing at the moment: learning how to write. This is a bit theatrical as most of the students think at first that I will

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com19801 Belvedere Rd, Royal Palm Beach, FL 33411, USA26.6916462 -80.199692326.689872700000002 -80.20215979999999 26.6934197 -80.1972248tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-88154611251371810362012-01-31T16:23:00.001-05:002012-01-31T16:23:42.775-05:00

So Deleuze and Guattari say that in the rhizome all points are connected to all other points, even unlike, heterogenous points, and that these connected points are a multiplicity emerging from multiplicities. To my mind, this undermines directly the traditional, industrial approach to education which identifies each student and teacher as a discrete unit, each class and lesson as discrete units,

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com09801 Belvedere Rd, West Palm Beach, FL 33411, USA26.692710996745962 -80.1995086669921926.678525496745962 -80.21924966699218 26.706896496745962 -80.17976766699219tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-78666129910087051842012-01-30T16:39:00.002-05:002012-01-30T16:39:42.136-05:00

My new classes are changing the way I think about this blog, and perhaps the biggest change is in the frequency with which I write. I'm requiring all my Composition I and Principles of Composition students to keep a blog and to post to us four times a week. I think I should do the same, but this changes the way I write. As you will have noticed if you've followed this blog at all, I write long

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-28438353913393885632012-01-29T08:32:00.000-05:002012-01-29T08:34:10.572-05:00

Well, my musings on rhizomatic education are taking a very practical turn. I have returned to fulltime teaching at long last. My last fulltime teaching gig was at Reinhardt College in 1977. Wow. I'm also getting back to writing. Since my last post, I have retired from the State of Georgia educational system, left Albany State University (not incidentally), packed my home of 25 years and moved to

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com5Wellington, FL, USA26.6552309 -80.254251326.5984669 -80.3332153 26.7119949 -80.17528730000001tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-20190047205709853082011-11-30T10:41:00.001-05:002011-11-30T11:57:58.508-05:00

In my previous post, I asked how the principle of heterogeneity might inform the ways we organize a course of instruction, especially a college composition course such as the ones that I teach. Deleuze and Guattari quote Carlos Casteneda to suggest how one might proceed with exploration of a new conversation, or any other slice of life. In The Teachings of Don Juan, the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-61599875539343013272011-11-27T11:52:00.001-05:002011-11-30T10:40:19.987-05:00

Well, Thanksgiving here in the US has been most disruptive for me—pleasant, but disruptive. In response to a #change11 discussion about the rhizome metaphor, I had started writing about how rhizomatic learning might have very practical implications for a classroom, and I decided to explore how those implications might translate into practices in my upcoming college composition courses. I started

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-47404263870029363822011-11-15T15:12:00.001-05:002011-11-16T14:12:53.551-05:00

As I mentioned in my immediately previous post, one of the big challenges to emerge in response to Dave Cormier's presentation of rhizomatic learning has been the question of utility or practicality. What does the rhizome do for us teachers and students? I have focused on the rhizome as a metaphor, thus minimizing the practical applications of this kind of thinking, but I fear that I may have

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-46279204042379639102011-11-14T11:25:00.001-05:002011-11-14T13:37:46.818-05:00

In his post Farewell to Rhizomes, Jeffrey Keefer expresses a rather common misgiving many seem to have with the concept of rhizomatic learning: interesting perhaps, but what does it do for me in the classroom? This is just the kind of question rhizomatic folk need to answer. Just before I read Keefer's post, I came across an Edutopia post by Bob Lenz called Deeper Learning Community of Practice

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-20580828094487063832011-11-13T07:48:00.001-05:002011-11-13T10:36:22.589-05:00

I woke up this Sunday morning thinking about rhizomatic knowing, but the house is full of guests and the coffee is already on, so I don't have long to write. I want to flash on something that Bon Stewart calls a helicopter view of reality and that I refer to as a God view (Deconstruction: I'm the child of a Pentecostal minister, schooled on the church pew since birth, so God is almost always

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-30540550589277385952011-11-11T11:46:00.001-05:002011-11-11T16:47:41.171-05:00

Yesterday, I started addressing a question from Sui Fai John Mak about why I would call the rhizome nothing, and I found myself wandering through the first three of the six characteristics of the rhizome that Deleuze and Guattari list in their book A Thousand Plateaus (1987): Connectivity (an obvious connection to Connectivism) Heterogeneity Multiplicity Today, I want to continue the

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-91232997735433894432011-11-10T12:00:00.001-05:002011-11-11T11:45:56.328-05:00

Change11 heated up for me this week, and I'm pleased. It was not planned, but it does have a design: a convergence of several arcs that can be traced back, if one is so inclined, for many years: The paperwork associated with my impending retirement from Albany State University is over; thus, I am not so distracted now and can attend to the MOOC. This is an arc that stretches back thirty-five

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-54289385694921309412011-11-08T12:51:00.000-05:002011-11-08T12:55:07.950-05:00

I just watched the Ed Tech Weekly interview with Dave Cormier about rhizomatic learning, and by the end of the hour, I found myself chafed by the attempt to encourage Cormier to define the concept. The interviewers Jeff Lebow and Jennifer Maddrell seem very pleasant, engaged educators who really wanted to understand Cormier's point, and I do not even slightly suspect them of badgering Cormier;

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-18247436172507677192011-10-18T12:05:00.000-04:002011-10-18T12:10:24.585-04:00

Manuel Castells' book The Rise of the Network Society continues to inform my understanding of a Connectivist rhetoric, though my reading has been incredibly slow over the past month or two. I've had way too many distractions. Anyway, Castells' discussion of the emergence of the network enterprise has clarified my understanding of the socio-linguistic ecosystem that informs writing. Castells

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0600 Radium Springs Rd, Albany, GA 31705, USA31.56815164453214 -84.1382789611816431.55462314453214 -84.15801996118164 31.58168014453214 -84.11853796118164tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-88353942211860602242011-09-14T14:47:00.000-04:002011-09-14T14:55:04.976-04:00

I'm always thinking about writing as complex, network phenomena—to the point that I can hardly think of writing any other way. It doesn't seem to matter what level or scale I use to think about writing—the neuronal through the writing process of a single person to a book to the socio-historical movement of languages and genres—it's networks all the way down and up and across. Rhizomes, really. I

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0340-384 Radium Springs Rd, Albany, GA 31705, USA31.5691754490709 -84.139137268066431.5421219490709 -84.17861926806641 31.596228949070902 -84.0996552680664tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-74374309520118919032011-08-23T18:12:00.000-04:002011-08-23T18:12:03.693-04:00

I take issue with how Castells defines knowledge in his book The Rise of the Network Society. To be fair to Castells, his book is not about epistemology, and he says up front that defining knowledge is problematic even for those who focus on the topic. Still, he gives a definition: I have no compelling reason to improve on Daniel Bell's … own definition of knowledge: "Knowledge: a set of

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-18129584219681633172011-08-15T11:07:00.006-04:002011-08-23T18:13:22.867-04:00

I'm reading a new book: Manuel Castells' The Rise of the Network Society, second edition (West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). Originally published in 1996, this book makes a strong case for the monumental shift caused by the emergence of electronic networks. Though I'm just beginning the book, clearly Castells provides exhaustive, well-researched evidence that networks have changed every

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-52001892183123424922011-07-19T11:18:00.000-04:002011-07-19T11:18:10.036-04:00

On the drive to work this morning, I was thinking about the World Cup Final and lamenting that it ended in a most unsatisfying penalty kick shootout—not unsatisfying because the US lost, though I did want them to win, but unsatisfying because the shootout seems so random, more like a coin toss than a competitive decision. And in my mind (I was driving alone), I said, "A shootout is like a toss of

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com3Albany, GA, USA31.568498631536063 -84.1393518200683331.51790213153606 -84.24663982006832 31.619095131536064 -84.03206382006833tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-33504320998574640232011-06-30T16:00:00.001-04:002011-07-27T13:25:37.754-04:00

In his 1985 essay Inventing the University, Donald Bartholomae explores the struggles of students to join a scholarly community, in large part through appropriating the language of that community. Facility with a certain language is, of course, the ticket into most social communities, not just the English Department in your local college. If you want to run with your peeps, then you'd better

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-32299294788042177572011-06-26T15:59:00.001-04:002011-06-26T16:05:08.235-04:00

So I read Berlin's 1985 book and found the absence of any mention of the Net a glaring hole in the discussion. What if I read something current? As you might expect, I am rewarded … richly rewarded. I read the first article in the current issue (June, 2011) of College Composition and Communication, an article by Lauren Marshall Bowen entitled Resisting Age Bias in Digital Literacy Research (586-

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-51890398031289241262011-06-24T14:46:00.000-04:002011-06-24T14:46:51.739-04:00

I've finished reading James Berlin's book Rhetoric and Reality: Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1900-1985, and perhaps the thing that most impresses me about the book is how totally unaware it is of the Internet. Of course, Berlin was writing a decade before the advent of the World Wide Web, the sum total of the Internet for most people, so he could hardly have included the Internet

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-68417135726374612432011-05-27T13:06:00.000-04:002011-05-27T13:06:55.469-04:00

I suppose that I have already begun exploring the implications of Connectivism for rhetoric, so I might was well say so. I do not know if Connectivism as a learning theory can be a foundation for a rhetoric, but it certainly can inform rhetoric, so let's see how. Along the way, I should learn more about Connectivism and rhetoric. Nice. Where does a Connectivist rhetoric begin? To my mind it

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-90878694406139776782011-05-26T16:10:00.001-04:002011-05-26T16:11:15.694-04:00

So on the whole, I like what James Berlin has to say about reality, knowledge, and rhetoric in his article Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class: that "the real is located in a relationship that involves the dialectical interaction of the observer, the discourse community (social group) in which the observer is functioning, and the material conditions of existence" (488). Berlin and I are

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-86487140514736243682011-05-25T20:11:00.002-04:002011-05-25T20:16:24.622-04:00

I'm still troubled by some of the claims that James Berlin makes in Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class, but I think I prefer to start with what makes sense to me. I see that a connectivist rhetoric – and I just realized that defining such a rhetoric is probably the point of this post – belongs to the rhetorical tradition that Berlin calls social-epistemic. First, why wouldn't a

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-21797883973163168672011-05-24T17:23:00.000-04:002011-05-24T17:23:32.789-04:00

I'm reading James A. Berlin's essay Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class (College English. Vol. 50, No. 5 (Sep., 1988), pp. 477-494) in which Berlin explores the relationships between rhetoric and ideology. Berlin says that three main rhetorics are at work today: cognitive, expressionistic, and social-epistimic. He asserts that each of these rhetorics is imbricated with ideology in a

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-74920933099697471942011-05-05T12:34:00.000-04:002011-05-05T12:34:12.894-04:00

In our roles as coordinators of Albany State's writing across the curriculum program, Tom and I have been talking about adding student ePortfolios to the program. We see ePortfolios as great tools for organizing student writing in any given class, resulting in enhanced learning in that class and an enhanced presence on the Web for the student. This seems promising. Then a few weeks ago, when we

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-38451658367775995352011-04-25T17:23:00.001-04:002011-04-25T17:25:36.172-04:00

In the last chapter of his book Networks of the Brain, Olaf Sporns extends his neural processing and, thus, cognition beyond the brain and to the body and the body's environment. This is the feature of neurophysiology that finally destroys all my old ideas about cognition, thought, and knowledge, for no longer can I think of thoughts as belonging only to the brain. Thoughts and emotions – all

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-65161616376137466612011-04-22T13:24:00.001-04:002011-04-22T13:26:17.691-04:00

You might think that complex systems are complicated, but they often aren't. That may be a bit too cutesy, but it does make a nice distinction between complexity and complication in network systems. Modern jet fighter planes and computer circuit boards are complicated structures – they are composed of millions of parts arranged in intricate ways for a myriad of purposes – but they are not

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-24517499605202220442011-04-19T15:23:00.001-04:002011-04-19T15:29:57.897-04:00

Sporns says that "brain connectivity is organized on a hierarchy of scales from local circuits of neurons to modules of functional brain systems" (258). His use of the word hierarchy presents me with some problems as I have for the last few years contrasted hierarchical structures with network structures. In general, I have assumed that hierarchies were rigid, closed, traced, arboreal structures

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-67525651490998457882011-04-15T13:55:00.000-04:002011-04-15T13:55:59.556-04:00

So the brain is a dynamic system, if Sporns is correct. How does this dynamism arise? I've just reread the chapter, and I confess that I am not yet ready to talk confidently about the physiology of the brain, but I think I have gleaned enough to make some general statements that might be useful. The brain's dynamics rest on heterogenous coupling and multiscale dynamics, both of which Sporns says

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-61259860171295202022011-04-13T13:58:00.000-04:002011-04-13T13:58:37.789-04:00

In Chapters 12 and 13 of Networks of the Brain, Olaf Sporns tackles the issues of dynamics and complexity in neural networks. I have the feeling that I will be reading both chapters again to digest them, but what I understand so far is highly exciting. It's also beginning to feel somewhat natural to me. Nice that. Sporns describes a very dynamic brain structure and function, radically different

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-33180805725163262092011-03-28T17:53:00.003-04:002011-03-28T17:56:31.733-04:00

If you are like me, then you don't have too much trouble imagining cognition as a network phenomenon: all thoughts, visions, dreams, calculations are based on the spidery webs of firing neurons flashing in unique patterns like lightning through our brains. I can imagine, then, some peculiar and unique flash of lightning in my brain each time I think of, for instance, Connectivism. Each time that

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-38168818782244293222011-03-23T12:31:00.001-04:002011-03-23T12:36:43.427-04:00

In Chapter 9 of Sporns' book Networks and the Brain, I think we reach the heart of the issue for the discussion about Connectivism. In this chapter, Sporns is tackling the issue of cognition, or neural activity in all its various forms: learning, thinking, feeling, daydreaming, dreaming, etc., and he makes the bald, bold statement that "cognition is a network phenomenon" (181). This is the basis

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-89859732901511969622011-03-21T11:26:00.002-04:002011-03-21T11:41:25.475-04:00

Emergence is one of the key concepts in network theory that most attracts me to the conversation. In his article Emergent Biological Principles and the Computational Properties of the Universe, physicist Paul Davies defines emergence neatly as "the appearance of new properties that arise when a system exceeds a certain level of size or complexity, properties that are absent from the constituents

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-36975865014100470282011-03-20T11:18:00.002-04:002011-03-20T11:28:19.476-04:00

I continue to revel in Olaf Sporns' wonderful book about neural networks: Networks of the Brain. In Chapter 8: Dynamic Patterns in Spontaneous Neural Activity, Sporns examines the dominant model in brain studies that says brains are mainly structures for receiving, processing, and then responding to sensory impressions from outside the brain (eyes, ears, skin, etc.). As Sporns says, "This

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-67133380505395328672011-03-18T11:14:00.000-04:002011-03-18T11:14:19.846-04:00

In a previous post, I tried mapping my knowledge of Connectivism. I created a couple of static images that showed how I related to various other entities in the network of concepts, people, and experiences that make up my knowledge of Connectivism, but even as I posted these images, I complained that they were not quite dynamic enough. My sister, introduced me to a new mapping tool called

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-26922698193620398452011-03-05T08:51:00.000-05:002011-03-05T08:51:54.226-05:00

Last night I posted some thoughts about the network nature of knowledge. While describing how my own understanding merges with understanding at a higher level, I used the metaphor of my voice joining a choir, and I said that "as my voice moves into a choir, my own unique tone and tenor becomes blended and a different voice emerges, a group voice." Even as I wrote those words last night, I was

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-11993015841049054302011-03-04T23:31:00.000-05:002011-03-04T23:31:02.141-05:00

I think that the concepts of complex networks that I've gleaned so far from Morin and Sporns and of decalcomania that I've taken from Deleuze and Guattari lay two cornerstones for my emerging view of knowledge and learning. First, complex networks suggest that knowledge is not a single thing, or single think (sorry, I couldn't resist, and I may yet edit this awful wordplay); rather, knowledge is

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-47860674612327607812011-03-02T20:15:00.000-05:002011-03-02T20:15:50.040-05:00

I spent some of the afternoon trying to create some images that captured my sense of how knowledge and, thus, learning are complex activities. I'd like to share them, though I'm already dissatisfied with them. Still … I started trying to map my knowledge about Connectivism in Figure 1. Those of you in CCK11 will immediately recognize a heavy debt to Stephen Downes' illustration about the meaning

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-15505802186972216792011-02-27T11:30:00.001-05:002011-02-27T11:34:44.714-05:00

In my last two posts, I talked about Olaf Sporns' book Networks of the Brain, and I want to continue working with that book. I'm finding it very rich and resonant. In his Introduction (2), Sporns asks, "Why should we take advantage of modern network approaches to study the brain?" I want to ask why should we take advantage of modern network approaches to study knowledge and learning? First,

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-79527588171110681432011-02-25T10:25:00.001-05:002011-02-25T11:27:44.385-05:00

In my previous post, I walked a long way around to finally say that one of the main reasons I like Connectivism is because it seems to be a vibrant conversation within the context of a much larger conversation about complex network structures. If Morin and Sporns are correct, then science in general is moving away from the closed-system, reductionist science of the past to an open-system, complex

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-10533506757611293112011-02-24T11:54:00.002-05:002011-02-24T12:00:15.419-05:00

In one of our past Elluminate sessions in CCK11, George Siemens mentioned a book by Olaf Sporns called Networks of the Brain (2011). Something about the book piqued my interest, so I'm reading it now. The book addresses the question "What can network science tell us about the brain" (1), and I confess up front that I do not have either the scientific or mathematical backgrounds to follow all of

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-80548799559301335462011-02-09T16:22:00.000-05:002011-02-09T16:22:08.092-05:00

Our CCK11 Elluminate conversation today, 2011 Feb 09, featured guest speaker Neil Selwyn, who said several times that he thought we might lose something valuable if we indeed ever managed to rid our educational selves of formal institutions and practices. I imagine that he meant such things such as universities, school boards, curricula, programs of study, grading scales, and college deans. I

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-75269304780763871762011-02-01T11:43:00.003-05:002011-02-25T10:27:21.161-05:00

In his blog connectiv: On Connectivism and Learning, Jaap distinguishes between training and learning when we train ourselves to play a piece of music. I think he is capturing the distinction I am trying to explore between tracing and mapping, competence and performance, and working and playing. Jaap's training, then, is tracing and working toward competence, and learning is mapping and playing

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-5217862362534187352011-01-30T11:22:00.000-05:002011-01-30T11:22:49.770-05:00

Mapping and tracing are both efforts by people to orient themselves within a given structure, say a class or a conversation. Whereas tracing attempts to assign an order to the structure, mapping seeks to uncover the order in the structure. In terms of MOOC CCK11, tracing attempts to impose an order on the class (roles, meeting times, duration, interactions, etc) and on the content (beginning,

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-41607016167966624622011-01-29T13:04:00.002-05:002011-01-30T11:24:36.795-05:00

I want to talk more about what I find engaging about this MOOC: CCK11, even at the risk of sounding as if I'm sucking up, but it seems to me that a number of people have recognized that learning the MOOC way is in fact the main content/task of the course. As Tracy Parrish said in one of her early posts about CCK11: "It's amazing (and slightly sneaky) that what I'm learning about is how I'm

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-18058430812271531002011-01-26T18:28:00.003-05:002011-01-26T23:01:23.858-05:00

In his 2005 essay Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age, George Siemens concludes with a bold assertion that "The pipe is more important than the content within the pipe." He goes on to clarify what he means, saying that "our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today. … As knowledge continues to grow and evolve, access to what is needed is

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-15224197196913040752011-01-25T22:13:00.001-05:002011-02-25T10:28:22.025-05:00

My current MOOC, CCK11, is reminding me again why I have been so attracted to Connectivism — not because it is a fine theory of learning and knowledge, but because it is a fine conversation. I have read some educationists who argue that Connectivism is not a new theory or not even a theory at all, and I am not informed enough about the various educational theories to weigh in on the debate, but

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-11376952128823346892011-01-23T18:40:00.001-05:002011-01-23T18:46:05.746-05:00

I read an excellent post by Lindsay Jordan related to #CCK11, the MOOC that I'm currently engaging. Following a comment by George Siemens, Lindsay makes a fine distinction between complexity and complicated: an airplane is complicated; the weather is complex. I think I would rather say, however, that an airplane is complicated and creating the airplane is complex — not because the original

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-20916557446564854732011-01-20T23:07:00.002-05:002011-01-21T09:05:21.221-05:00

You have to start somewhere — the middle seems best. Actually, it seems the only place to start with a MOOC. I am again taking a massive open online course, a MOOC, with George Siemens and Stephen Downes, and again, people are struggling to orient themselves to this kind of learning. I am becoming convinced that the best learning to emerge from these MOOCs is learning to deal with the MOOC

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-10994926257409529362011-01-19T22:22:00.000-05:002011-01-19T22:22:16.408-05:00

You have to start somewhere — the middle seems best. I do not find myself depressed about how little I know of this wonderful world. Rather, I am optimistic. Should I discover that I indeed will live forever, then I have an eternity of discovery to anticipate. If not I but my species lives forever, then we have an eternity of discovery to anticipate. If neither I nor my species is eternal, then

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-90581067805541002402011-01-17T18:20:00.000-05:002011-01-17T18:20:05.953-05:00

You have to start somewhere — the middle seems best. I suppose I could be depressed about how much I don't know. I have worked hard all my life to increase and sharpen my store of knowledge. I have cultivated an inquisitive mind. I have from time-to-time impressed my peers with my cleverness and insight, but as soon as I push just beyond my first degree of separation, the light dims dramatically

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-25391698031921806872011-01-09T08:40:00.006-05:002011-01-16T11:20:50.948-05:00

You have to start somewhere — the middle seems best. I was sitting recently in Barnes and Noble scanning some magazines, drinking coffee, but mostly thinking about how there may be only six degrees of separation between me and Angelina Jolie. Think about it: I know someone, who knows someone, who knows someone else, who knows someone else who actually knows someone else who knows — and can

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-73369798057921804012010-12-19T11:25:00.018-05:002010-12-19T12:53:00.502-05:00

I know Google takes some hits in the press from those who fear that the company is taking over the world, but for what I pay them — which so far has been zero — I think they are a wonderful company that has offered the world some extremely valuable resources, often at no cost. I'm playing now with Ngram Viewer, one of their latest freebies, and within 10 minutes, it has helped me resolve one of

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-18688771705270779392010-11-21T20:57:00.007-05:002010-11-21T22:33:04.280-05:00

In my last post — sad to say, over a month ago — I began the process of questioning whether or not my writing about complex thought was loose and vague. To my mind, it is not. However, I do believe that it is a bit too abstract, and I wish to bring it down to earth, to the specific classroom, to specific people trying to learn specific things. My colleagues and I in Albany State's QEP program

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-90396766575961053142010-10-18T16:17:00.000-04:002010-10-18T16:54:08.193-04:00

(I started this post, then published it unfinished. My apologies to any who saw that unfinished, briefly published post. I know better.) I involved myself in a wonderful conversation over at Dave Cormier's blog about #PLENK2010 and PLEs, and I want to reflect on that experience and draw some lessons for myself. Also I want to move my comments back to my blog and not clutter Dave's blog, though

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-92110510614933224682010-10-07T15:20:00.002-04:002010-10-07T15:53:01.877-04:00

In a recent post to Dave's Educational Blog, Dave Cormier made a number of comments about MOOCs (massively open online courses) in general, #PLENK2010 in particular, and personal learning networks/environments. Most of what he had to say was, as usual, quite insightful and very much in line with the way I tend to think about these issues, but he expressed a rather forceful caveat about the phrase

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-73809098870398949202010-09-28T15:27:00.001-04:002010-09-28T16:00:51.735-04:00

I have real concerns about the ability of traditional, Western critical thinking heuristics to be sufficient for negotiating the rhizome, any rhizome. My primary issue is that all of the CT heuristics that I've found in my research are limited to one mind: mine or yours, but not to both. Critical thinking seems to be a function of the solitary mind as it contemplates and analyzes the separate

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-76753606249635215292010-09-13T17:49:00.002-04:002010-09-13T17:54:40.569-04:00

I've started thinking much about critical thinking in preparation for a series of workshops that we are doing at my school, so of course, I asked myself what critical thinking has to do with life in the rhizome. As is almost always the case, I'm finding connections, but then, isn't that what the rhizome is all about? The very first characteristic of the rhizome as described by D&G is: any point

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-83827057991992766792010-08-27T14:31:00.000-04:002010-08-27T14:31:25.109-04:00

I promised to talk about how Deleuze and Guattari's rhizome and Siemens' connectivism connect (pun intentional). I'll start with a quote from Matt Ridley's TED talk that was in my last post. Near the end of his talk (14:55), he sums his argument about the central role of trade and cooperation in advancing human culture when he says: That's one of the reasons why I'm not interested in the debate

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-1069809918059574072010-07-20T22:11:00.000-04:002010-07-20T22:11:45.085-04:00

I am, of course, horrified that I've written nothing on this blog for two and a half months. This is unforgivable. I don't know what to say, but I do know what to write. So let's get to it. As often happens, I am inspired by a TED talk, this one by Matt Ridley. Let's listen first to the talk: See what I mean? Don't you see the rhizome in most everything he says? No? Hmm. Perhaps the problem

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-12908733927317207852010-04-29T14:44:00.000-04:002010-04-29T14:44:35.245-04:00

A second key trend in education can be described by the third and fourth characteristics of rhizomatic structures as discussed by Deleuze and Guattari in their book A Thousand Plateaus: multiplicity asignifying ruptures In this post I will use the single term multiplicity to speak of both characteristics, except when I want to speak of asignifying ruptures by themselves.  Multiplicity is a

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-32995025518506999452010-04-25T10:15:00.002-04:002010-04-25T10:29:02.566-04:00

I am enrolled now in an Open Course in Education Futures taught by Dave Cormier and George Siemens. I'm interested in the course for several reasons: I want the experience of taking an online, open course that connects educators from around the world. I want to learn how to systematically think about the future, especially the future of education. I want to work with Cormier and Siemens. I'm

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-26747205683611426652010-04-10T12:19:00.000-04:002010-04-10T12:19:01.731-04:00

Another step in creating a personal learning network is to connect to others. You have a starting point and an identity in the Net wilderness, you have some tools for cutting paths through the bush, so now it's time to start blazing a path to some other points of interest. Don Juan tells Carlos how to do this: Go first to your old plant and watch carefully the watercourse made by the rain. By

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-66106246659361667852010-04-08T14:09:00.002-04:002010-04-10T09:36:57.754-04:00

Don Juan counsels Carlos to "go first to your old plant and watch carefully the watercourse made by the rain. By now the rain must have carried the seeds far away." This is a subsequent step in mapping the rhizome, or building a PLN: distribute seeds, add value. Building a PLN requires that we determine our own value-add. What do we bring to the conversations we are exloring? Networks are built

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-85971490737431645782010-04-08T12:25:00.002-04:002010-04-08T12:50:48.054-04:00

In the book The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge, Don Juan tries to help Carlos get his bearings in this new, strange world of the Yaqui shaman that Carlos is exploring, having left the familiar security and terrain of the university. In some ways, then, Carlos Castaneda is like those of us who leave the familiar learning environment of the university for the unfamiliar environment

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-76527342091402629392010-04-08T10:31:00.004-04:002010-04-08T10:38:08.301-04:00

I have become quite interested in the emerging concepts of personal learning networks, personal learning environments, and social learning environments. For me, the phrases are somewhat interchangeable, but I most commonly use the phrase personal learning network, or the acronym PLN. Whichever phrase we choose, I think all of them refer to our creation and exploration of rhizomatic spaces, and

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-10239295021392257702010-03-31T17:52:00.001-04:002010-04-08T08:57:38.396-04:00

I am horrified at not having written since the end of January. Anyway, I was spurred to action when I read a marvelous post today by Dave Cormier. I left a long comment that I want to republish here, slightly edited, though my best advice is that you surf on over to Dave's original post and read it before you read my comments. You'll be glad you did. Dave's essay talks about the rhizome as a

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-54535764856439995802010-01-26T15:56:00.001-05:002010-01-26T16:02:12.013-05:00

As with the first two characteristics of the rhizome, connectivity and heterogeneity, Deleuze and Guattari group the last two together: cartography and decalcomania. I think they do this because both characteristics have to do with our attempts to create a structure for, or a network of pathways through, the rhizome. Perhaps a better way of saying this is that these two characteristics speak to

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-51280221023862401132010-01-12T11:06:00.011-05:002010-01-13T08:51:32.353-05:00

In a wonderful TED talk, Daniel Pink explains how we must rethink motivation in the 21st Century, if we are to move from motivating people to do routine, mechanical, factory-type work—or what I associate with work within hierarchical structures—to motivating people to do open-ended, creative work—work within rhizomatic structures. First the video: Pink makes a case for changing the way we

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-62519094690366884182010-01-10T12:47:00.000-05:002010-01-10T12:47:59.044-05:00

For Deleuze and Guattari, an assignifying rupture is a process by which the rhizome resists territorialization, or attempts to signify, or name it by an overcoding power. It is the process by which the rhizome breaks out of its boundaries (deterritorializes) and then reassembles or re-collects itself elsewhere and else-when (reterritorializes), often assuming a new or shifted identity. In the

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-22752007731081451902009-12-30T17:21:00.003-05:002010-04-29T09:15:37.124-04:00

The third principle of the rhizome in Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus is multiplicity. I'm still struggling with this concept, but I am forming a clearer image of what it means for me and my classes. Each person in a class, students and teacher, is a rhizome, a multiplicity, and as such, they are not reducible to a single term such as student or teacher, though that reduction may have

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-54997642758509078802009-12-29T16:17:00.000-05:002009-12-29T16:17:22.264-05:00

I spent the morning replying to emails from a colleague. He is concerned about the direction our writing across the curriculum program is taking, and I was trying to answer his concerns. This reminded me that I really must connect all this conversation about rhizomatic structures to the classroom, especially the writing classroom. The theory is fun, but if I cannot make it relevant to an actual

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-68298130065929612532009-12-23T17:32:00.001-05:002009-12-23T17:35:14.012-05:00

Our interest in writing should be on what it does rather than what it means, the physical rather than the spiritual: "As an assemblage, a book has only itself, in connection with other assemblages and in relation to other bodies without organs. We will never ask what a book means, as signified or signifier; we will not look for anything to understand in it. We will ask what it functions with, in

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-21260659127370049112009-11-16T14:30:00.004-05:002009-11-16T16:29:00.808-05:00

Well, the very first characteristic of a rhizome stopped me, and I had to start reading again. In what sense did Deleuze and Guattari mean that "any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be" (Thousand Plateaus, 7)? I have a hint of an answer, and I'm working on some other answers, but keep in mind that I am not suggesting that what I say here is what DnG meant when they

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-2964060620925004922009-11-04T20:34:00.005-05:002009-11-04T21:11:27.173-05:00

In Internet: Towards a Holistic Ontology, Chuen-Ferng Koh says that Deleuze and Guattari identify six characteristics of rhizomes and that these six characteristics should rightly be considered simultaneously so that "they can proliferate in the reader's mind" as a whole. Clearly, one should avoid the tendency to bifurcation in making these intrinsic characteristics of the rhizome distinct from

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-27317257491319310432009-11-03T20:17:00.006-05:002009-11-04T08:54:26.487-05:00

My good friend Dan Jaeckle introduced me to the concept of the rhizome as first expressed by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari in their 1987 book A Thousand Plateaus, the second volume of their two volume work Civilization and Schizophrenia. I do not presume to be a scholar of French philosophy, nor do I presume to understand Deleuze and Guattari very well; however, the rhizome has captured my

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-39538644883862051462009-10-27T09:06:00.004-04:002009-10-27T13:03:07.793-04:00

After outlining the formal characteristics of play, Huizinga narrows his focus to what he calls "the higher forms" of play, a clarification that I take to mean the more formal play—mostly of adults—in more advanced societies. Huizinga then explores the two basic aspects under which we confront the higher forms of play:as a representation of somethingas a contest for somethingRepresentation means

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-25036016169769003572009-10-26T14:30:00.006-04:002009-10-27T13:03:34.605-04:00

It's time to start a new book: Homo Ludens: A study of the play element in culture by Johan Huizinga (New York: Harper & Row, 1970). I have a new job—I am the coordinator for the Quality Enhancement Plan at Albany State University in Albany, GA—and this new book is related to that job. My co-coordinator, Tom Clancy, and I are studying the use of play in promoting writing within a classroom. We

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-77186474693144063972009-09-27T07:41:00.003-04:002009-09-27T09:46:04.407-04:00

I thought I would write about our next essay, Matt Lynch's The Homeless Lack a Political Voice, But Not American Ideals, but I'm still annoyed with our previous essay by Joseph Perkins. If Mr. Perkins was writing in my ENGL 1101 class, I would chop up his paper, return it with no grade, and demand that he fix his preposterous claims and provide legitimate support for them. His prose is clean, but

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-82567133675383940002009-09-18T10:20:00.006-04:002009-09-18T12:32:53.901-04:00

Like drug abuse, homelessness is one of those issues that draws clear divides in America. Probably one-third of America believes that homelessness, like drug abuse, is a person's own fault and that society has no responsibility to help people who make poor choices. About an equal one-third believe that homelessness, like drug abuse, is usually the result of some kind of social injustice and that

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-31731602523823780612009-09-12T09:41:00.002-04:002009-09-12T10:38:16.197-04:00

I think that in their comments to the last blog post, Corey and Tyler brought us to the conclusion reached by Linda Kunze in the final essay we are reading about drugs. Toward the end of Drug Use: The Continuing Epidemic, Kunze talks about how the country might respond to the abuse of drugs, "Although there are no easy answers to this age-old problem, early education seems to be the only truly

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-6713905227013389842009-09-07T07:56:00.006-04:002009-09-07T10:17:37.533-04:00

Gore Vidal's essay Drugs gives us a stark contrast to Morton Kondracke's position that we should not legalize the use of street drugs. Vidal argues that legalization is the only sane choice to make and that because it's the sane approach, he wryly concludes, we aren't likely to take it.So we have two rather bright fellows arguing from opposite sides: one saying that legalizing drugs is insane and

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-51124820889563010412009-08-27T21:24:00.005-04:002009-08-27T21:59:19.638-04:00

In his essay, Don't Legalize Drugs, Morton M. Kondracke argues vigorously against legalizing drugs in the US. Who is Mr. Kondracke, and why does he care whether or not anyone smokes pot or snorts cocaine? Do you share his concern with society?Who is Mr. Kondracke's audience? Do you think he is writing to you? If not you, then who? How does your attitude about drug use affect your perception of

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-90720471123345896202009-08-19T20:57:00.005-04:002009-10-27T13:01:37.907-04:00

In his essay The Impending Demise of the University, Don Tapscott says that universities as we know them are going away. They will either change to meet the demands of a new kind of student who learns in a new kind of way, or they will simply become obsolete and die.The problem for universities and the dissatisfaction of students is perhaps best captured in this short video by Michael Wesch of

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-37600399953442191452009-04-18T13:07:00.006-04:002009-10-27T11:00:03.048-04:00

It's time for us to start summarizing what we've learned this semester from Benkler's book, The Wealth of Networks, and who better to summarize than Benkler himself. So listen to his presentation at TED, where he touches briefly, and more clearly I think, on the major themes in his book: Is that clearer for you? What did you gather from this lecture that you didn't quite understand from the book?

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-60422048966196959512009-04-16T21:45:00.004-04:002009-10-27T11:38:48.179-04:00

One of the things that has bothered me most about Benkler's book is its focus on digital information so that networking is viewed almost strictly as an on-line activity. This is unfortunate for most of our lives are still conducted off-line, in the real world; however, networking works in the real-world as well as the virtual world.Transportation is one of the huge network systems that we have

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-48374251759765275482009-04-10T20:55:00.003-04:002009-10-27T11:39:19.410-04:00

Many of you have expressed concerns that technology is making us less human. Obviously, I don't share that concern, but it is a serious concern, as this short, funny video by Renny Gleeson demonstrates: Yeah, I understand Gleeson's call for us to invent technology that makes us more human, not less, but I'm having trouble figuring out what technology he is talking about, or what human. Any hints?

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-78111197405358276382009-04-08T20:55:00.004-04:002009-10-27T11:39:59.083-04:00

Well, yesterday's post was quite disruptive, as new technology often is, and you've waded in with lots of comments both for and against what you saw.Jessica Friday asked some rather specific questions, so I'll try to answer them. She asked:Doesn't this mean that people without the proper technical training coast along and possibly even advance with the aid of this new technology? And doesn't that

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-7372931560431686732009-04-07T11:45:00.004-04:002009-10-27T11:41:02.159-04:00

First, let me point out that I am now over 200 blog posts—202 to be exact. I had no idea I'd take this blog thing this far, but here it is.Anyway, I've a new video for you. It is considerably shorter and probably more entertaining than the last one I presented, so give it a watch. You'll be glad you did, for you will learn something about how we will all soon be accessing all that data that is

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-69577310880377060402009-04-06T09:29:00.006-04:002009-10-27T11:42:19.861-04:00

Another fellow that I like to follow is Mark Pesce. He does not post often to his blog hyperpeople, but when he does, he is well worth reading. You should add his blog to Reader.In a recent post called Share This Lecture!, Pesce posts a video of a lecture he gave recently at the University of Sidney (Australia), in which he talks about hypersharing. As did Michael Wesch in his essay From

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-41791177830354822912009-04-02T20:20:00.008-04:002009-10-27T11:45:59.684-04:00

I always seem to be enlightened by most anything I watch or read by Michael Wesch, the professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University. You scholars saw Wesch's work in two videos we used in this blog at the beginning of this Spring, 2009, semester: Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us and A Vision of Students Today. I've just read an essay Wesch posted January 7, 2009, to Academic

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-33442968087674015012009-03-29T09:06:00.006-04:002009-10-27T11:29:41.365-04:00

In a recent comment to this blog, Candra Clason wrote, "If the net is about intrinsic rewards, how does one make a living off of the net?" Good question, and I like this question most because it pushes me out of my comfort zone beyond my area of expertise. I can talk about communicating over the Net, but making money? I don't know much about that, having never made that much myself.So here's a

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-37924401036368394902009-03-28T10:18:00.007-04:002009-10-27T11:46:25.125-04:00

This morning I have a couple of issues on my mind: slackers on the Net and making money on the Net. If this network way of doing things is to succeed, then it must find ways to deal with people who contribute little value and to reward those who contribute some or great value, and people have to feel that the reward is somehow commensurate with the effort. As several of you have already expressed

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-40544862830333022442009-03-25T21:57:00.006-04:002009-10-27T11:33:21.648-04:00

Take a look at the following video:What do you think? You can grab a cam, 10 friends, make your own video, and post it to the Web. Guess what? You are making culture rather than waiting for Pixar, Disney, MGM, or Columbia Records to do it for you. And guess what again? You can post your vid to YouTube on Tuesday, Mar 24, and by 8:18 a.m. on Thu, Mar 26, you could have 42,292 hits. Twenty years

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-77673542938465032662009-03-14T08:47:00.005-04:002009-10-27T13:07:30.498-04:00

I am pleased that several of you are beginning to challenge some of the things Benkler and I have been saying—he in his book and I in class and on this blog. If I read the dissenters correctly, then one of the big issues for some of you is authority, which might be reduced to the challenge: Well, if we're all equal, then who will tell us what to do?In a recent blog comment, Emily (Brown, I think)

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349173885651707639.post-56520401992121465742009-03-07T10:35:00.007-05:002009-10-27T11:36:06.779-04:00

Autonomy is one of the core tenets of Benkler's argument about the new networked information economy. Autonomy is the legal and practical benefit that leads to all the other benefits of Web 2.0. As Benkler says in Ch. 1: "Enhanced autonomy is at the core of all the other improvements I describe" (8). If you leave this class without understanding how Web 2.0 expands your legal and practical

Keith Hamonhttps://profiles.google.com/104859443445357943633noreply@blogger.com15