metaphor
-
Those Beaches Will Be Open For This Weekend
via GIPHY In an earlier post I played with the analogy of Jaws and the online pivot. In that I concentrated on the second act of the film, but watching the return to campuses, I think there is resonance with the first act also. In that first act, which takes place on Amity Island, the tension is between Chief Brody who wants to close the beaches on safety grounds and Mayor Vaughn who wants to keep them open for the 4th July and the local economy. It is perhaps unfair to portray principals and Vice Chancellors who want to resume campus study as the Mayor Vaughns in this situation –…
-
Jaws and the online pivot
Unless you are very new here you will know that I like a metaphor, and I also like Jaws. So, here it is, the Jaws/Covid19 online pivot analogy you didn’t ask for and don’t want. Jaws is a movie in two acts, much like our Pandemic response thus far. The first act takes place on the island of Amity, gearing up for its summer boom of the 4th July. Our central character, Chief Brody, wants to close the beaches, because people being eaten by a shark is a bad thing. The sartorially exemplary Mayor Vaughn wants to keep the beaches open because of the economy. People have been having some…
-
The Ed Tech suitcase
Some of you may remember the hoo-ha we had around Ed Tech as discipline a while ago (re-reading this, the comments are incredibly rich). The general feeling was that a discipline was ill-suited to ed tech for three reasons: a discipline ends up excluding some and prioritising other voices; ed tech is multi-disciplinary by nature; the way it operates is more networked and fluid. However, not being a discipline leaves it with some weakness, namely the kind of historical amnesia we see so often, and a vulnerability to commercial ed tech setting the narrative. So while it seemed that a a discipline wasn’t appropriate I wondered if there were better…
-
Self plagiarism and self protection
I was away last week in a cottage in West Wales, trying to get some momentum on a book I am writing. The book is something around Metaphors of Ed Tech. It will be no surprise to anyone I’m sure that it will involve working up a lot of existing blog posts. Some of my friends (looks at Jim Groom and Dave Cormier) like to rib me about rehashing blog posts to make books, but there’s a lot to be said for it. So here is my “protest too much” justification. Jesse Stommel had a good thread on “self-plagiarism”: Self-plagiarism is a misnomer. It isn’t actually plagiarism. Why wouldn’t a…
-
Ed tech metaphor generator
I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a book along the lines of “Metaphors for Ed Tech”. Readers will know I like an extended ed tech metaphor. Sometimes it’s just to be playful, but I also think it can reveal a new perspective on ed tech. As a bit of fun I thought I’d create an ed tech generator, so you can play along. It’s a bit UK and me-centric so feel free to adapt to your own context. I’m sure there is a better way to do it, but I used the Glitch site and adapted someone else’s app. You can see it here, and code here. I’m…
