Here’s what I got up to this week…

Ownpower invited me to a workshop. Nosakhere was also present. The aim of this workshop was to come up with a new paradigm of learning, or a new business model for online learning. 

We used integrative thinking and causal loops to get to the heart of the subject. We looked at two lens views, to create the business models. 

Ontology

We used the Pedagogy of the oppressed by Paulo Freire. It is a book based on the teacher student relationship. Freire, speaks of traditional education working on a linear bases he calls it the ”banking model” because it treats the student as an empty vessel to be filled with knowledge. He offers a solution, to treat the learner as a co-creator of knowledge.

This fits onto Nosakere’s dreamocrat model. The model points out for every learner/dreamer there is an equivalent educator/dreamer. At the moment traditional education is  working on a vertical axis, where the educator treats the student as an empty vessel and the student in turn accepts knowledge as a passive learner. The horizontal axis is where we witness subject, objective unity. Where Learning how to receive knowledge creates the Co-dream. It’s not about one role, it’s about making the world a better place form both sides. The ideal spot to be for all, is a balanced central position, the Dreamocrat.

Epistomology

We worked with Disclosing new worlds – By Charles Spinosa, Fernando Flores and Hubert L. Dreyfus I have not read it yet, so I will quote a section from this website. However, I’m sure there will be a future blog post on this book.

Disclosing New Worlds calls for a recovery of a way of being that has always characterized human life at its best. The book argues that human beings are at their best not when they are engaged in abstract reflection, but when they are intensely involved in changing the taken-for-granted, everyday practices in some domain of their culture—that is, when they are making history. History-making, in this account, refers not to wars and transfers of political power, but to changes in the way we understand and deal with ourselves.

Disclosing new worlds diagram

I then got taken through the ridiculously, awesome process of causal loops. A causal loop is used to understand complex systems. A causal loop is a visualisation method, where we map out all the possible variables in a system, to understand how they are interrelated.  This is the LMS causal loop.

Then, we used Integrative thinking. It is a method or discipline, in which one can solve complex problems. It was originated by Graham Douglas.

All these methodologies and techniques have been used to create business models for the LMS. Here is our first business model on formal learning.

In the end we are self-perceiving, self-creating, locked-in mirages.We are miracles of self-reference. Douglas Hofstadder  

Jason Silva speaks about the Mirroring mind in this video.

Jason Silva is one of my favourite performance philosopher, as he calls himself. He speaks about self-awareness and how we mirror our external world. He speaks about the observer, observing. 

The more self referentially aligned, the more self aware one becomes. 

These topics have all been resonating with me at the moment. If I ask myself why, it would be based on 2 separate conversations I had this week.

I was talking to Ayanda, from Ownpower about language and how we articulate ourselves.

“We don’t understand each other, language is just a false construct. We think the other person understands us, but we are infusing ourselves into the conversation and the person listening is listening by infusing themselves into the conversation. ” 

So, we are basically talking to each other, by listening to where or how we,ourselves fit into the situation. How does this affect ME. 

Suddenly, my understanding of communication broke down. I now saw communication, as being in a car driving forwards by looking backwards through a rear view mirror. 

The other conversation was, in the orientation period, when Nosakhere was chatting to us about Michael Jackson’s song –  Man in the mirror 

” I’m starting with the man in the mirror, I’m asking him to change his ways.”

By watching this video, It made me grasp what they were trying to say. 

Come on, my Reader, and let us construct a diagram to illustrate the general course of thought

Charles S. Peirce, Manuscripts on Existential Graphs. Reprinted in Peirce (1906), CP 4.530.

After the incredibly exciting orientation period, I started to re-think possibilities and practises of this project. My mind was jumping from idea to idea, in true monkey mind style. 

I have been working with Ownpower for the past two months, we were most recently working on the Skills intelligence platform.We are moving on to the learning management system tomorrow. I really think this is a system that will be a great practical component to my research, I believe that learning is something where innovation needs to help with solving some serious issues. I should focus my research on this.

I also start working at my new job next week, which will be focused on usability on e-government / e-citizen systems for the Western cape government. Since this is my main job and I will be putting a lot of my energy into this, I should focus my research on this.

I have been wanting to explore interaction design in depth, as it is what I am pursuing a career in. The idea of human and machine being able to interact, observing two polarities which are based upon one another, fascinates me. It is what I truly love and I should research what I love.

This research is also based on entrepreneurship, so I should pursue my dream startup, Diagrammatic. This is based on infographics and perception of information being easily digested. Alexander Gerner’s concept of diagrammatic thinking, was the inspiration of the startup and it was something I had been wanting to get going for a while. It resonated with me and I feel it is also something I would love to research. 

I had so many options which I feel needed to be researched. How was I going to do this ? Where do I start, what is my practise?  I started to overwhelm myself with questions and spin into an anxious heap. So, I did what everyone in an anxious heap does, I sat down at a coffee shop and had a beverage that would make me even more anxious.

Then, I noticed that this was in fact what the research was all about. It was about the practise, and how I perceive it, how I work with this, it is about the nature of being and how I understand it and how I will validate it. My research includes all of these components and how I understand it, act on it , reflect on it and practise of  all of these. This is where I attempted to wrap my head around four beautiful words; Epistemology, ontology, reflexivity and praxis.

I’m still working on it, but here’s a diagram that I created to try figure out how to try figure this all out.

We had three days of registration and orientation at the GSB, where we met everyone involved in the MPhil programme. 

We started off with an incredibly inspiring session about living your dreams with Nosakhere. We spoke about identifying one’s purpose of one’s dream, which was quite difficult. The difficult part was actually figuring out what one’s dream is, never mind the actual purpose of it. We started off with individual dreams, then we moved into a super dream, which was the groups dream – this later led to a super duper dream, which was the whole classes dream. 

I really enjoyed this, mainly because it was great to observe and participate in finding out that everyone’s dreams were very similar  and that it would be best to utilise everyones dreams to create a combined grasp on how to make those dreams possible. Nosakhere calls this the co dream. 

We also spoke about, what makes a good dissertation and it got pointed out that, the best dissertation is a finished one. I really liked hearing that “The dissertation process is your process, it’s about self transformation”. Which reminded me of the ancient alphorism “know thyself”,which has been used in many dialogues about knowledge and wisdom, yet it is so often overlooked and misunderstood. 

We talked about language being the currency that is used to understand the world. In these three days, this was definitely coming across; There was this path that needed to be walked, and while walking it there would be realisations on an experiential level, these realisations would affect one’s perception of reality. These would then need to be articulated, through language. 

This is research in practise, it’s a practical understanding of how we research and come to an outcome by taking action. The way in which we will walk on this path will be by studying different techniques and methodologies to unravel and generate knowledge for action. This allows us to develop a way to describe ourselves in everyday reality, so that we can have a deeper understanding. It is important to know oneself, so that you can recognise and relate to the human state because business is based on human activities and needs. 

These three days have really been inspiring days and I am so grateful for this opportunity.

I feel like it’s the right time to bring Morpheus in on this one.

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

Anaïs Nin 

Learning to design is learning to see…

Learning to See | Information Architects