MU Talk

Molly Ross 22:20 on 06/12/2013 Permalink Reply
Tags: MOOC ( 21 ), PBR ( 8 )   

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  Vanessa 14:56 on 07/12/2013 Permalink | Reply

  What a wonderful idea Molly! It would be interesting to try to literally do it in Twitter – though I think that might be pretty hard, not sure.

  But I wonder if a space like .Re/act which sort of encourages 1 or 2 paragraph interactions, would work? (for any tech dweebs, .Re/act is the “Houston” child theme of the WordPress “P2” theme)

  Or maybe do it in 4:53 videos? Or 4:33? (haha, Leslie went 20 seconds long!) Or embrace mobile? Video apps like the 15 seconds of Tout, the 30 seconds of Viddy or the 36 seconds of Keek…

  Leslie’s video:
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  Vanessa 09:19 on 08/12/2013 Permalink | Reply

  kk, let’s try a couple more… (adapting from Kevin Kelly)

  Creativity is a tendency, not an entity; a process, not an artifact.

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  Michael Masucci 01:38 on 09/12/2013 Permalink | Reply

  Molly,

  I’m still adopting to the ‘less is more’ style of communicating using as you put it Twitterfication.

  My resistance is that is results is going straight to the conclusion, with little room for analysis. This has been problematic throughout history. Think of the U.S.’s 2nd Amendment. It means two entirely different things to different people, Example: for the NRA-types, it says absolutely no regulation of guns. I read the exact same words and get an opposite impression ( the word ‘regulated’ is actually in it). To me it says we can have a National Guard. Very different conclusions. With a shortened approach, it seems there is much more chance of misunderstanding, not a good thing for scholarship.

  But it is more efficient, to be certain. But I’m not sure that’s what scholars should care about. But their may be no other viable choice with a MOOC.

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    Vanessa 08:39 on 09/12/2013 Permalink | Reply

    Hey Michael, I wonder if you’re comparing “one long monologue” (an academic paper) to a Single Tweet. The thing that I think critiques of Twitter sometimes don’t think too much about is that it can be a dialog between 2 or more participants. It doesn’t have to be one vague paragraph, it can have lots of detail and specificity, but instead of being in the form of a monologue or tablets coming down from the mountain, it’s in interactive dialog form. It’s a tapestry being woven live, and each participant part of the Global Loom has an impact on the evolving tapestry. You might choose a particular color or material of fiber to contribute, but you can’t know what the tapestry will be without the actual process experience of the collaborative weaving.

    I really like the form of interactive dialog in that they’re a key aspect of the realness I feel on The Net or in Virtual Worlds. With a monologue it’s kind of me dumping content on whatever journal or audience that’s willing to take it. Although I may not have read the journal yet, what I will eventually read there is already fixed. My reading it doesn’t really impact it. But in an online dialog, in a vaguely Heisenbergish way I suppose, my reading it becomes part of the dialog and the resulting trajectory couldn’t be obtained without the set of participants that chose to engage in it. The Net is alive.

    Maybe this is why I go on such tirades when peeps post PDFs. PDFs are dead. I like content on the open, interactive web.

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    Molly Ross 18:25 on 09/12/2013 Permalink | Reply

    Great points! And I am by no means advocating any major shifts just opening up the conversation for myself and asking how can publication communicate effectively the experience of Practice Based Research in digital realms (like our PBR mooc)? Is there a way the short form essay can be a “portal” to deeper analysis of a topic? What webs can be explored (tangents-my favorite concept this week) and how is the possible for the reader? I’m also questioning as you are “what scholar’s should care about?”

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      Michael Masucci 19:54 on 09/12/2013 Permalink | Reply

      Yes, Molly & Vanessa, interactive dialogue is of course useful, perhaps even vital. But there are areas of investigations that are complex, and easy to mis-interpret without exhaustive verbiage, often coming from one voice.

      I suspect that we all three like both approaches, and see value, in differing contexts for both.

      Think of how some of the critics of Obamacare used the number of pages of the law ( over 1,000) as a criticism of it. When its length really showed a realistic approach, it showed that the multiple authors had operationally defined and then stipulated every possible contingency they could imagine ( and even so left out a few variants). The critics complained that they actually had to do some work, and read the entire thing (actually, usually its their assistants that end up reading it). But isn’t that their jobs? I think the same for scholars, not just ‘opinionators’ (who of course have their significant place and value).

      I don’t argue that short-form is one form of communication, but I just hope that the option of deep, structured analysis, does not become rare. Not a down ‘from the mountain” approach as you mentioned Van ( in fact those tablets constituted short-form edicts) but a full explanation of ideas or opinions, with the space to make the case in specific, detailed ways.

      But I’m taking too long to make my point, so should stop 😉