Divergence and convergence

This isn't a course related posting as such but more a journal entry to help me grab some "head space". I'm like this on every course I've ever studied, I reach this stage, yet it always takes me by surprise so I'm clearly not learning through experience!

I'm at the point where I've diverged enough - I've been scurrying around collecting acorns of ideas, little germs of inspiration, great handfuls of references and quotes and as the aircraft reaches the top of the climb it has to stall and start letting gravity kick in (mixing metaphors and analogies too!). I should be shifting from collection to storage, from hunting to returning with the spoils, from divergence to convergence but I always find it the trickest thing to judge. I always want to see what is round the next corner or where the next URI leads or what the next chapter of the book tells me when I should really be starting to bring my thoughts together and start consolidating. I need to be more controlled and set myself a time at which I turn back, wherever I am, and head for home.

I also have to get a keyboard for this laptop because the number of times I miss letters or spaces because the keys are too "dead" is driving me nuts!

Learning theories

This week we're getting plugged into learning theories as discussed in the CIPD report "How do People Learn". Nice to see Kolb getting a run out again. We're also looking at Hampden-Turner's "Dilemma Theory" and Constructivism.

We're off!

H806 is open for business!

Link from Kat

I looked at this and decided to scoop it up because I'm sure to want to return to it later. It talks about some of the theory behind blogging, some publications in that area and different uses for blogs.

Digital and print media - cultural perspective

A really interesting paper looking at cultural changes brought about by print and digital media. It's well written and cites McLuhan as well as the use of pamphlets to stir up the English Civil War.

Open content for learning portal

This is from the Smart Mobs blog.

A new portal of the Development Gateway, for Open Educational Resources (OER), went online November 16, 2005 as it was announced at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia. The OER is supported by the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation as part of its open content for learning initiative.

The portal has a great deal of stuff and is split by subject area. Interesting section about Learning Objects!

Electronic writing

Interesting article about how eWriting may be changing how we write.