Georgina has things worth reading on double looped learning. Kimberly notes that model II involves innovation, model I doesn’t (correct). Anna sees that the idea of double loop learning might help her to notice and then wonder about her own assumptions. Kate applies single and double loop to the Zombie apocalypse (I suppose someone had to), the double loop would not only be how you’d really react, it would be to rethink the original assumptions, which is sort of what lots of films in this genre do when the nerdy person speculates out loud “I wonder if” and comes up with a out of left field way to solve the impending disaster – by questioning and reframing the guiding assumptions. Tony writes about governing variables, the thing here is that they are governing, and so what needs to be noticed is that because they govern they decide everything else. And because they govern, we accept their governance, Argyris is asking, why?
Blogging, Blah
Louisa recognises that blogging might matter outside the ivory tower. It does (blogging is now a mass media, more people read blogs regularly than newspapers), but it isn’t blogging so much as the ‘styles’ of doing that blogging requires that really matters. Different tones of voice, regular writing and doing, observing, thinking out loud, small pieces that exist by themselves but also in relation to other parts (for example this post now has a relation to Louisa’s). Isabella is all adventuring trepidation, one foot in the water, the other firmly not.
Rebecca, in a post with a very declarative title, worries about the mess of opinion out there in blogs and the narcissism of it all. Yep, but as with most things this subject wants to address the skill is know how, not know what. So a good blog, well, if it is about what you know about then you ‘get’ that it is good writing. That it is well informed. The difference is that you get the good with the bad, and that now good people have access to sharing. For example, in the ‘old’ model ‘experts’ had authority because of their job. The job is first and the authority follows from that. (Think teacher, principal, policeman, lecturer, spokesperson, journalist, and so on.) So I might be the tech support person for a camera company. I am an ‘expert’. Except over there on that web site there is a whole group of people contributing what they know, as users, and it turns out they know more than me. Particularly about fixing up those little buggy things that, well, I just tell you to reinstall software (which is the sledge hammer way of saying I don’t know.)
We all know experts, about something, who aren’t employed in that area. Now they can share and show that expertise. On any and every topic you can imagine (knitting, Peugeot restoration – with a link to a forum dedicated to one model of Peugeot, restoring retro bikes, the mid century architecture of Banyule or even a site that collects international birdwatching blogs). Yes, there is rubbish, but there is an enormous amount of stunning material, on the things you know about.
Which is what Chantelle shows when she blogs her favourite blog. I can’t comment on the content, but it is a meritocracy, it is regarded as good because, well, it is good because Chantelle knows about this stuff. And these, people, these scary out there experts, are very, very expert in ways that people in paid positions cannot be. Why not? Because these people need to be generalists. Bloggers, they’re nerdy specialists.
Speculating
Louisa found the idea of ‘speculating‘ to resonate. First response, dumbfoundedness. Then use yoga as an example in terms of how it started and then speculating about its changes, and by implication future changes.
William uses my speculative writing, and thinks:
Though really we could be moving in any direction; forward, preferably, but also backward, sidewards, or if we have a really bad semester, down. But we’re always moving, and that’s what counts
Works for me. Movement, flow. The internet is an enormous system that is
- not still
- about the movement of (information, knowledge, data, media)
- it is the movement and exchange of this that creates the web
- and its ‘maps’
Imagine a cinema. It is still and things come to it. Imagine your blog. Where is it? And when I view it, it (literally), comes to me.
On the other hand he suggests this could describe any subject. Maybe, though control systems in engineering? No. Control systems require closed feedback loops, the internet, in that language, has some feedback loops, but this isn’t fundamental, and it is open, not closed.
Chantelle expects things to be blown around a bit, and yes, I think the way to think about this is that we are the boat, or on the boat. It is a boat awash, surrounded, bobbing there. But as William notes, over there is as good as over here. So direction becomes, well, interesting.
I like Arthur’s observation that some will want to float about, others row furiously (my question though is where to?), but generally we are to, well, learn what it is to be in this flow, on this swell of ocean, as it is. Without insisting it be other. As Edward observes “we just have to adapt to the current and go where we want to”, to which I’d add, and to go where it also takes us.
Victoria, pessimistically, finds the boat metaphor unhelpful. Perhaps don’t treat it as a metaphor, instead it is the subject. So, if your boat sinks, what do you need to know to not drown? That is one of the things that this subject and the others in the digital stream are about. Again, not specific content (I can tell you that you need to swim but that is learning how to swim is it?)
Catch Up
Been a busy week for me, blink there now 250 blog posts to have a look at. Rolls up sleeves. Settles glasses on bridge of nose. Sips coffee.
Kangaroos On the Way to Uni
I usually ride to RMIT, it’s anything from an hour to an hour and a half (the lounger one is around about 40 kilometres) and quite a bit of it is along the river. Last week in Heidelberg there were three kangaroos, happily grazing in the paddock by the path, in the shadow of a very busy road. They would have come down the river from Templestowe, where there is a mob of 50 or 60 living around Westerfold’s Park (I often take international visitors there as I can guarantee them seeing a lot of kangaroos 30 minutes from the centre of the city, up close). To get there they’ve gone under a bridge, on a particularly narrow part of the river, or have actually crossed a very busy road. The problem is getting back again. So, you know, I was concerned for them.
This week I saw one of them again, nearly at Ivanhoe. Alone, bounding in panic along a fence line before sailing over it. Lost, alone, stressed. I don’t know if the others returned and its now alone, or if the three are still in there somewhere. There’s plenty to eat, but they’re social animals and they’re lost. I love that I see kangaroos on my daily commute. I’m surprised at how anxious I am for them.
Dreaming
Returning to some of the various things touched in the first unlecture. Speculative writing. This is the fancy term given to things like science fiction, but it includes lots of other things too. What I glossed over are the qualities about speculative writing that I think matter. This isn’t about fandom Trekkie whatever, so if you’re a Trekkie, sorry. Like design fiction, or at least some of the claims made for design fiction, what I like about speculative fiction is the way that it offers writing as a way to think with and through things.
The example I used was China Miéville’s Embassytown. The point I made (lightly) in the unlecture was that you need to move from your own position of knowing towards it for it to work. It is then an invitation, and a demand. It has an imperative. If I don’t suspend my demand (“tell me, NOW, what a voidcraft is”) then the work won’t do its job, which is to describe and propose a possible world where I need to learn its terms. Not the other way round – I am supplicant, not master. This is, I think, a useful model to think about my relationship to knowledge and learning broadly.
The second point, which I didn’t raise, was that speculative fiction is a deeply epistemological way of writing. Epistemology is the philosophy of knowledge, so it is about how we know things. In Embassytown, for example, the main location is home to a species that has a very specific and literal method of speaking. So the novel actually becomes a long meditation on semiotics and linguistics, without actually saying so. But that’s just being clever. What I really mean is that on this planet there is something called “biorigging” which means the indigenous species grows its technology. Guns are living things. As are houses. There are farms that produce them. None are described in any great detail, they don’t really need to be. Now, let me be very clear. It is not the science fiction that matters deeply. It is the speculative thought. So, in the novel, without needing to justify it, it takes the terms of technology as biological literally, and just simply thinks with it. So you get a phrase like “He fired and the gun-animal opened its throat and howled.” Or the houses grow, which means they produce an atmosphere (since living things all breathe), but also they might listen since they as living things why wouldn’t they have ears. Later, they watch, because of course if they have ears they could as easily have eyes.
This is also why design fiction is a useful methodology. It establishes terms and then thinks with them. Not about them, which would get bogged down in why (“why can a light sabre cut through anything?” “why can a jedi do mind tricks?” “why is there a force?”) but takes them as givens and then develops ideas and propositions on this basis. It is speculative, imaginative, creative, playful, and serious.
Some First Week Observations
In no particular order
- when we say these blogs are for as long as you want them, and you will use them in other subjects, what we are really saying is “you can have these blogs for as long as you want, even after you graduate, and you will use them in other subjects”, so, um, why call it something like “my networked media blog”? #justsayin
- to write a link manually (using html), for instance in a footer so you can link to the disclaimer page, you don’t just write the url, you need to write <a href=”http://www.mediafactory.org.au/disclaimer/”>disclaimer</a>, whatever appears as the URL (the web address) will be where the link goes, and the text between the > and </a> will appear as the link text – what you click on
- an about page or even in your footer if you want lets you tell people who you are, and how to get in touch. This is important since, like it or not, you’re now a publisher and as a publisher readers should be able to send you an email. To ask, question, complain, invite. And the about page shifts this three year online portfolio of your abilities from being anonymous to being about you. Put your name there, write some stuff, in about three weeks your blog should nearly have a Google page rank of 1
- when you write about something else, in a blog, or online, link to it, if to a blog then you always link to the individual post, the network is crafted by its links
02 Readings (to be Done by Class Three)
Design Fiction
Design is about changing what is, so is forward looking. What does it mean for you to think of yourselves (even now) as doing things that can effect change, as media knowledge makers, and students, rather than reporting back what you already know? Design fiction is a method used in design research and practice, it is what is influencing the idea to write ‘speculatively’ in our wiki.
Required
Bosch, Torie. “Sci-Fi Writer Bruce Sterling Explains the Intriguing New Concept of Design Fiction.” Slate. Web. 29 July 2013. (PDF)
Ward,, Matthew. “Design Fiction as Pedagogic Practice.” Medium. Web. 29 July 2013. (PDF)
Maybe One Of
Both of these are very academic, situating design fiction in the context of design research. YMMV.
Grand, Simon, and Martin Wiedmer. “Design Fiction: A Method Toolbox for Design Research in a Complex World.” Proceedings of the Design Research Society Conference. 2010. (PDF)
This is a difficult read. Part 2 you can skip unless you’re into the history and philosophy of science, or might be. Part 3 has abstract discussion about what the ‘toolbox’ needs to have, which is useful, if you can follow the abstractions (or ask about them).
KNUTZ, EVA, THOMAS MARKUSSEN, and POUL RIND CHRISTENSEN. “The Role of Fiction in Experiments Within Design, Art & Architecture.” n. pag. Print. (PDF)
01 unlecture
A weekend and now there is quite a busy flow coming out of the media factory!
Arthur slides from liking the opportunity to experiment to a political slogan. I’m not sure what the connection is, but yes, we support valid experimentation. Chantelle’s take away idea revolves around the difference between knowing what and know how, or in her case know what and ‘being’. Being is a very big word in philosophy, and some of that resonance matters here. Know what is now solved by our digital tools, know how isn’t. And being is a question of, let’s call it cool. There’s no manual there, you know that to be ‘cool’ in whatever you do outside of uni (footy, your band, ballet, poetry, getting in to clubs) is not about ticking clear explicit boxes. It’s trickier than that, isn’t it? Lina also picked up on the distinction between know what versus know how. Glad to see that this has started plant some brain worms out there.
Alexandra comments on self directed learning, and the proliferation of new technologies. Let’s be clear. There have always been new technologies, and always been moral panics about new media, the rub for us right now is that the new technologies are fundamentally changing the DNA of what the media is. Well, they’ve already changed it, its just that some institutions are very wealthy and so, like large dinosaurs, get to hold out for longer than others.
Denham’s takeaways? T shaped people (here’s an explanation from a business management perspective, and a local ad specifically asking for T shaped people).
Finally, Jake, unknowingly, launches into Mode II learning by acknowledging not so much failure but not quite success, and then thinking through why he wants to be at university. Questions about why usually are much more apparent to those who were told ‘no’ first.
Argyris and Double Loops
Edward has a go at trying to read the web page I set about Chris Argyris. It’s directed at organisational learning which is itself about knowledge management (how do you know what the people in a company or institution know, how do they know what others might know? and in the context of Argyis’s work, in a knowledge economy, how can an institution learn since in a knowledge economy making more knowledge = growth). Yes, make mistakes. Notice them. The double loop bit is the thing that matters though. Single loop – you make a mistake you try a different way of doing it. Double loop, you go back and look at the reason why you’re doing what you’re doing and question that. Double loop means you pay attention to the framing assumptions you have, which includes your habits and the real way you usually go about doing things.
James‘ has this, where the double loop is explicitly thought about. I’d push it a bit further so that it might not be more budget but how you could make/do things differently with the same budget (rarely do you have the opportunity as a solution of throwing more money at something). While James’ finds it broad (it sort of is, sort of isn’t I reckon), the heart of it is to realise that we all think we question (our assumptions, values, how we approach problems, and assume we are really creative), but the reality is that we actually use a small set of very regular behaviours and assumptions when we actually do stuff – particularly when we’re not sure of ourselves. Double loop learning begins from learning what our own specific habits are, so that we can become aware of them. The hard bit (and it is incredibly hard) is recognising them, as habits, by definition, aren’t things we notice in ourselves.
In James’ case, for instance, I think the easiest solution is to imagine more money, but that isn’t double loop learning since none of our habits are visible, they’re left unchallenged – can’t film what I want?, get more money so I can film what I want. It’s princess logic. That’s the habit to notice, and shift.
Finally, since it’s Sunday night and I think I’ve time to catch up on Monday, Alexandra recognises that model I matters because of anxieties about failure and not really wanting to admit not knowing. Of course we feel like this. We’re in an education system, and most have recently gone through an assessment regime, that is premised on explicit demonstrations of excellence and so we have a sad habit of hiding our mistakes. Or at least deciding since they’re mistakes they are not things we share. Only the excellent bits get shown around. Because, you know, all of us really only ever make perfect things all the time. I have never written a perfect essay. I think I have nearly 30 published. The last two subjects I’ve taught have been terrible (that’s not a good sign, is it?), and my last three or four conference presentations seriously misunderstood. I aspire to excellence, and also know you don’t see or get it without a lot of mistakes, errors, and not very good things as part of that.
That’s why we blog. It is open, communicative, informal, participative, collaborative, not assessed. It is thinking in words and things about stuff. It has to be articulate enough for others to follow along and not just notes that I decipher, by myself, some other day. Blogs can, sometimes, be engines of double looped learning. Youse can make misteaks here and, well at least a bit, get away with it, along the way to something better.