Your past is plastic

The following quotes remind me that your past (in the blogging sense) is not only what you remember, but what you choose to write... and subsequently edit. A history which relies on memory and subjectivity will be defined by the mood of the writer at time of writing, and limited by your vocabulary (you can't say what you don't have the words to say it with).

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
Winston Churchill

The past is malleable and flexible, changing as our recollection interprets and re-explains what has happened.
Peter Berger

God cannot alter the past, though historians can.
Samuel Butler

People have always re-written their personal histories. Examples are creative writing of CVs and lonely hearts ads, and the creation of an entirely new history when you move country... you can become a new person.

[tag: identity]

Learning style/approach

A learning approach must not be confused with the context-independent learning style.

[tag: learning]

Writing: what and who?

[see: Feenberg 1989]

Recent years have seen the proliferation of remedial writing courses in colleges, and the gradual decline of the childhood pastime of reading for pleasure. Feenberg states: in this context CMC seems to promise that writing will once again become a universal form of expression. Who will be writing though? And what type of writing will they be doing? Will the formal writing be done by an ever-decreasing few, or will there greater adoption of informal writing, in informal contexts?

I wonder though, given the rendered-down vocabulary of texting, the informal writing style of email, and the conversational writing style of weblogs that there will indeed be a shift towards more writing... but a less formal writing in which the message is more important than any other factor?

[tag: writing]

When collaboration works

[see: Guzdial 2002]

Courses where collaboration work place a large emphasis on discussion. Might it be sensible then to introduce online collaboration *after* students have become comfortable with using a discussion board. This might be the first step in promoting collaboration (being used to communicating online with your peers) and then move on to a collaborative exercise.

The Guzdial paper mentions Cohen's literature review on collaborative learning: open-ended, ill-structured problems tend to encourage productive collaborative learning. Furthermore when there is more than one answer to a question it is easier to collaborate.

[tag: community]