Harold Jarche's recent thoughts about Mike Newman's Teaching Defiance spawned a flurry of inspirations in my mind. I shared the first glimmer of those "lightbulbs" in my Free Range Chickens post as the way chickens eat when not getting fed by farmers. My two posts this week about blogging (Beware of Blogging and Learning Review) added another piece to the picture. Karyn and Dave both addressed the need for a less exclusive definition of blogging than the one I proposed. All that brings me to this way of picturing the times for different facets of blogging.
We enjoy occaisonal teachable moments where we are open to new content. We read blog postings, follow links, view slides, listen to podcasts or delve into books that were mentioned. We engage in Rational Discourse and make use of content providers and instructional designs. Formal learning occurs successfully. We are taking from the blogosphere. If we lose our dignity during these moments, we become addicted to being told what to think. We find "thinking for ourselves" (autonomy, defiance, critical reasoning) too painful to pursue.
We follow teachable moments with unteachable moments where we are open to personal reflections. We engage in Non-Rational Discourse where the realizations that occur to us cannot be taught to us. We've gone offline from the blogosphere. Learning occurs emergently. We may be constructing models and making sense if we are reflecting on explanations, theories, diagnostic protocals, or problem solving strategies. We may be free of conceptualizing if we are mastering physical or cognitive routines. If we get stuck in this phase, we are trapped in linguistic prisons.
We follow unteachable moments with expressive moments where we are open to words to write, pictures to include and diagrams to create. We are giving to the blogosphere with posts, quotes, links, and comments. We learn by teaching and teach what we need to learn. We take action to defend a viewpoint, challenge another's assertion or extend of line of exploration. We contribute to the group mind, idea space and dialogue. If we get stuck in this phase, we express our disconnection, self indulgence and conceit. We pump out postings that appear unrelated and uninformed by the blogosphere of other blogs and bloggers.
We follow expressive moments with conversational moments where we are open to changing our minds interactively. We are giving and taking --reciprocating with the blogosphere. We are getting feedback on what we wrote and changing our questions as a result. We are experiencing the blogosphere as a vibrant community of practice, learning landscape or unconference. We are learning where our own thinking is distorted and which is the right question to be asking right now. If we get trapped in this phase, we end up feeling persecuted and depleted by too much banter.
We follow conversational moments with teachable moments where we ...
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