This slide presentation was a keynote at the June 2007 EDEN Conference (Naples - European Distance and E-Learning Confernce) .  Unfortunately, as with all slide presentations, they are very pale imitations of the experience of being there... without the words slide presentations tend to be almost hopelessly useless, but still  there are several of the slides in this set that strongly resonate with my growing thoughts about social network and the implications of them that go beyond simple chat or 'keeping in touch". 

They seem especially relevant to me in conjunction with this particlular Tangle on Tangler.... 

Link us up? Or paste some in??

Don't leave us hanging... 

"Ok... having trouble doing the embed thing again....

while I struggle here's the link to my blog...Third Places of Learning

I hope to have the individual pages of interest here soon... page 8 is a good one to have a look at  

see slides 8, 10, 12, 16, 25, 27, 28, 30, 38,   some pretty heavy duty thought invoking concepts.

Interesting Bric....

I've come across the 'tech as extension of bodies' concept before, in another context. It's hard to tell from a slide show, but I think the presenter made a bit too much of the mind-body duality.

And finally, I thought it was a tad bit too idealistic. The more 'global' is pushed, the more ppl break up into niches. Frankly I doubt the whole 'tap into the global knowledge' thingy.

Like everything the concept of "globalism" can be a two edge sword, and even if one looks past the strangle hold  that 'economics and trade' has on the use and 'meaning of the word one must look somewhat askance at the potential loss of unique cultures and community (languages, customs, stories, dance, music, etc. )

On the other hand it is quite evident that we need to to be thinking of the global ramifications of many our practices... and local thinking alone will not give us anywhere near global optimums in many of the problems we face (The "Think Globally, Act Locally" mantra is not too far off in this sense).

I don't think that one has to debate, much less solve, the philosophical challenge of  mind-body duality to recognize that technology can have a tremendous effect on the course and nature of society by changing the way we think and deal with retained knowledge.  One only has to look at the dramatic differences in societies that 'invented' hard language (writting) from those who stuck to soft language (spoken only) to see the impact of external memory.  Myself, I hope that you're wrong about "the whole tap into the global knowledge thingy" 

I have books from at least 1/2 dozen countries in my personal library (that is I bought them in different countries from local publishers) that all have distinct perspectives..... and the 'foreign' ones are among my prized treasures when ever I go to look something up for precisely this reason -- the perspective is usually quite different  from ones I have published either here in Canada or the United States. 

One chap that I have tremendous respect for in the field of software development, Alan Kay, once said:

                                                                  perspective is worth 50 points of IQ

 and I think he could be far too conservative.... I think that in the right hands its worth even more!  I'm hoping that we can use the technologies we have at hand to change conversations and knowledge management to get the wealth of perspectives that others can bring to the table without losing the differences through just throwing everything together in one big melting pot (ie I love Niches.... I just want them to be communicative, not isolationist in nature)... 

I think it can be done..... I fervently hope so!

An Interesting definition of Knowledge Management:

"People communicating with each other about what they do so they can do it better" 

(taken from here )

Third Places of Learning as presented!

 

I've tracked down the slide show c/w sound !

 

This is Teemu Arina's own description of what he covers in his keynote address:

"In my presentation I’m defining three of my concepts until now unknown to the field of distance education: seredipic learning, homo contextus and parasitic learning. I call for third places of learning running outside of the reach of formal structures. These spaces are run by self-directed connective learners (homo contextus) utilizing abilities in distributed cognition, prosthesis of thinking and parasitic approach to informal learning. Serendipity defines the accidental encounters of individuals in such third places linking the skills and wills of people through social technologies. The social noosphere (mindsphere) extends into a planetary thinking network, effectively decentralizing learning through technological extensions of mind and body. In the shadow of Marshall McLuhan, hard questions are left for reflection regarding New Learning 2.0:"

• what does it extend?
• What does it make obsolete?
• What is retrieved?
• What does it reverse into, if over-extended?

He also got Robin Good from Masternewmedia.org and Adrian Guzman a student from the McLuhan Program to explore the ideas of Marshall McLuhan in respect to these questions  after the presentation in Rome. These are available in the screencast on the same link (same as above). 

That's great!

I will listen to it in a while

A few slides from the show (not all from my list above infact mostly different  as I caught new connections to my own thoughts as I listened to Teemu's words)...