"Don't fish swim south for the winter?"
"No, that's birds, sir."
"Birds swim south for the winter? How do they breathe?"
Red Dwarf
In a time honoured New Year tradition I am making meaning of "the birds" I met swimming south for winter in 2005 in readiness for "the birds" I might meet in 2006.
With global surveillance technology, you would find Artichoke both outside and inside today.
Outside, I have been disposing of piles of scrap copper burnt from its insulation; corroded cans of paint stripper; old taps; seized compressors; rusted drill bits; petrified inner tubes; bench vices wrapped in greasy rags; frayed fan belts; Hino Contessa headlights; torn envelope packets of paint encrusted screws/washers; and the miscellaneous contents of cardboard boxes that have entertained rat urine, the rasping radulas’ of snails, and the offspring of generations of fornicating mice. And inside, well inside you would find me reading Umberto Eco’s Serendipities - Language and Lunacy.
What you would not see is that whilst outside and inside I have been mind sorting; classifying, deleting, and re-cataloging the past 12 months of conversation in terms of Eco’s “Force of the False”, exploring how misunderstanding, errors, ignorance, illusion, moral turpitude and flaws of character in 2005 have motivated me to new ways of knowing for 2006.
I have determined that for 2006, all birds swimming south; family, friends, and lovers will be classified according to a “certain Chinese encyclopedia” described by Argentinian writer Jorge Borges.
Divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor; (b) embalmed; (c) tame; (d) sucking pigs; (e) sirens; (f) fabulous; (g) stray dogs; (h) included in the present classification; (i) frenzied; (j) innumerable; (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush; (l) et cetera; (m) having just broken the water pitcher; and (n) that from a long way off look like flies. (Foucault, The Order of Things 1966, p. xv).
I have extended the context of the “Force of the False” to those birds swimming south posing as Digital Learning Objects – especially given the provocative insight provided me by Leigh Blackall and Graham Wegner.
What can I learn from this flawed pedagogical initiative in (e) learning? What can be redeemed?
In truth, digital learning objects, continue to sit outside all my attempts to include them in a classification for worthy (e) educational initiatives that offer something more than imitation and the imparting of skills. And after learning of the cost of the Learning Federation initiative I find it impossible, even morally objectionable to include them in my “certain Chinese encyclopedia” framework, even as "(n) that from a long way off look like flies."
If I neglect the needs of students, teachers and schools and focus quite selfishly on what I can redeem for new learning from this DLO "Force of the False" initiative - then I love the catalyst for new thinking in Leigh's DLO paradox of reusability, and I'm certain that I am going to get some cognitive friction if I unpack the the pedagogical fallacy of DLO’s through Harpaz’s Cognitive Map of Instruction.Harpaz, Y. Conflicting Logics in Education to Critical Thinking
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