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connection

Who are you?

(6 min read) “Who are you?” the small child asks, looking up with curious eyes.

I am a growing fractal, a friend you haven’t met (yet), a dreamer tethered to the ground by a thin thread like a balloon and rooted like an old old tree. I am a reflective surface that smiles back at you, not blindly, but with insight. I am content and mostly I wake up eager to greet the day.

What am I is a different question. How do people perceive me? To be honest, I don’t think many people know me, despite my being quite frank and open about my personal quests, interests, struggles, and daily goings-on. I often speak of using music as a medium to communicate, as it is somewhat free from the confines of words and their societal associations, and allows me to put people into new thinking situations they might not otherwise meet (or invite meeting). I think though, that music sometimes gets in the way. My quest is not to teach music, or to be a cellist, as such.

I think; I am a communicator. That puts a finger on it. Whether with the cello, or words, or sitting and looking, or walking with someone, I associate with being a communicator; one who communicates – sending and receiving meaningful exchanges. Everything else stems from that, really. Image CC BY-NS-SA by Michael Levine-Clark

In this #el30 course Stephen has asked for an identity graph without reference to the ‘me’. Graphs are tricky for me. There are levels of connections that bend toward the ‘who’, having to do with time allocation, responsibilities, physical and mental energy directed toward something or someone, and our own understanding of our identity evolves as we do. I will make one; watch this space.Read More »Who are you?

Notes on #el30 web chat: Ben Werdmuller & Stephen Downes

This week’s hangout/web chat on the #el30 course happened to be at a time I could tune-in. It was a pleasure to listen as Stephen Downes talked with Ben Werdmuller about social networks, the concept of blockchain, information, the Indie web, websites, and entrepreneurship.

Below are the key points that jumped out for me. I wanted to find a clear way to separate their conversation from my thoughts without misattributing any of their discussion or making it look like I thought it up! So I’ve left the main text as my paraphrased notes of the conversation, and my commentary as labelled, indented in italics. I would love to hear what your takeaways were and what they made you think. And yes, I continue to mull over the idea from my earlier post for this week of the string and what we do with it. The images have been chosen to guide you through those thoughts.

The hangout: They jumped straight in.

(Stephen) I’d like to think of Blockchain as a graph.

(Ben) It’s a ‘ledger’ system. It removes the ability for the person to control what they reveal and who they reveal that to – as it is all open, so there are big privacy issues.

It’s important to understand how powerful metadata can be.

(Stephen) ‘Metadata doesn’t help me’

(my thoughts) The privacy concern isn’t how it helps you, though. It’s more about what it reveals and if you’re ok with that. See this example, presented by Bruce Schneier where one person revealed his metadata and amateurs were able to figure out nearly every aspect of his life. That’s not to say having your life be public is bad, but with each situation we need to be aware of and consider what the risks are.

Read More »Notes on #el30 web chat: Ben Werdmuller & Stephen Downes

Students, measurement, & connection: Book Club Post 4

Time for another Summer Book Club post! What? You say summer is over?? I am keen to hold on to every ray of sunshine, and as a slow reader, I’ll be posting well into November. This post covers pages 240-347 of Stephen Downes’ (free) ebook: Toward Personal Learning. I wrote about the earlier sections in these posts:

My method in writing these posts is to gather the bits that stop me in my tracks, make me think, write them down, and then connect the dots around them. Three themes emerged for me in these hundred pages: the students, the measurements that sometimes bind (as in hold fast, like hands tied) us, and connections. Let’s start with the students.Read More »Students, measurement, & connection: Book Club Post 4