paragogy-blog

[paragogy-blog]

going?

If I get the research formulation "right" (or even "good enough"), it ought to lead to some kind of cool/useful hand-off, i.e. to the system design for the next phase. I guess the whole point is whether the work is actually going anywhere. So, if and when I feel more "dismal", that seems to be exactly when I don't see things going anywhere, or at least not on the timeline/dimensions that I feel matter to me.

[paragogy-blog]

Primer

The theory of paragogy was developed in the context of two online courses that we ran at Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) in Autumn of 2010. One of the courses was called "DIY Math", and it was "designed to build independent study and peer-support skills for mathematics learners at all levels." The other course was called "Collaborative Lesson Planning", and it was built around the question "Can publishing and collaboratively building lesson plans online make them better?" The first course was not such a resounding success, but we learned a lot from it anyway, especially in a rich discussion about how it could be improved that took place in the second course.

The key outcome was an outline of an analytical framework that applies to peer-to-peer or peer-based teaching-and-learning-between-equals. The post-mortem analysis of DIY Math suggested that the concept of pedagogy is not sufficient in the peer-based learning context.

"PSM V74 D269 Insufficiently protected column after a fire" [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

[paragogy-blog]

You Don't Dream Alone

We are all existing in contexts that may or may not have a whole lot to do with "us". If we learn how to moderate these contexts in a way that works for how we work, we tend to feel better and more adaptive. If we work with the right set of supports, things go better than they would otherwise. Maintaining this supportive context is an ongoing process. Once we have all of this going nicely, we've realized the dream (in this case, the "productivity" dream).

Antonio de Pereda [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

[paragogy-blog]

Bodies of Language

Some people get by fine without books, phones, or computers, but no one can do without information.

Nevertheless, linguistic information is of a particular sort. It's different from a landscape in the sense of being discrete. A fisherman might rely on linguistic information when selling his fish, but when fishing, well, it's a different story. (The Old Man and the Sea.) Yet, if we look closely, each physical body is somehow a "discrete landscape" with texture and form. Language is so many physical bodies made of sound or image.

By Raysonho@Open Grid Scheduler (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

[paragogy-blog]

Socrates by Varnales

First, with my youthful mind, and later still when it had matured, I would attempt to always find that singular position which inevitability applied to every situation. In other words, that which is everlasting and unchanging... beyond time, place and people... the Absolute.

"Time Saving Truth from Falsehood and Envy" François Lemoyne [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

[paragogy-blog]

Interaction design

Places like P2PU emphasize "participation" (which really amounts to a flow of text into and through the site). However, there are other online cultures which have less to do with this sort of system. (We can imagine a hypothetical "What's new, Pussycat?" website idea as a sort of limit point of the "economy" of text, which in some sense depersonalizes everything.)

歌川国芳作、猫のけいこ - 天保12（1841）年成立 // "Japanese traditional furry art1" from the Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

[paragogy-blog]

two quotes

Baudrillard: "The signifier becomes its own referent and the use value of the sign disappears to the benefit of its commutation and exchange value alone. The sign no longer designates anything at all."

The Dude: "She kidnapped herself, man!"

[paragogy-blog]

30 days for this

Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées // Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer; // Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées, // Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher. -- Charles Baudelaire

[paragogy-blog]

Possibilities

(1) Love; (2) listening to an inner voice that tells you NOT to do certain things; and, (3) Xanthippe.

(a) Robes, (b) bowl, (c) belt, (d) needle and thread, (e) razor, and (f) a water filter.

By http://www.mnemosyne.org/mia/showillu?id=embhab_qun6071_073 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

[paragogy-blog]

Language learning

 I feel there are 3 keys to studying verbal communication in a new language well:

1 - Move to the country that natively speaks the language you want to learn. 2 - Be very social (talk to colleagues, go out to dinner, join local clubs, etc.) and very unafraid to make mistakes and look like a fool speaking the new language. Make mistakes over and over again. 3 - Hire a tutor.

[paragogy-blog]

Text analysis

In the beginning, there was PageRank.  In further developing paragogy, we could make use of PageRank-like ideas, for example, by determining when people are writing about similar concepts in a content aggregator (like 750words.com or what have you), in order to indicate that these people are "peers". The amount of text that someone contributes that is related to a given topic would confer their "ranking" as an expert on that topic. Not everyone is an expert on everything, so varied degrees of expertise could be used to build teams (labor consumption or co-consumption bundles).

[paragogy-blog]

horizontal transfer

Nothing ever really happens "independent from the external". Among other things, Healy's "new individuality" is at odds with the "post-individual human" (cf Sherry Turkle, "Alone Together"). Nevertheless, the phenomenology of this sort of mind is in some sense the proper target of paragogy.

[paragogy-blog]

Post-masochistic Woman

Whether we call it "mind" or "virtue" or something else, there is both the question of constituting the self, and constituting the community. Foucault points out that Socrates' "care of self" will entail care for the city. We see frequently that the city (or any other corporate body) does not always care for the individual. We might consider Deleuze and Guattari's "becoming-woman" here -- or Fritz Lang's "Metropolis".

[paragogy-blog]

An outsider voice

An outsider voice is, quite often, neither accepted nor desired. We could compare the notion of a constituent moment, "defined as a historical moment when 'underauthorized' individuals seize the mantle of authority, and, by doing so, change the inherited rules of authorization and produce new conditions for political representation" [1].  (Douglass's points have to do with the virtue of equality, not just with equality itself. [2])

[1]: http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2011/1103_ows_jacobs.aspx

[2]:  "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro"

[paragogy-blog]

He trains like this

Freeing the mind from excessive ferver ... hate ... delusion ... conceit ... wrong views ... doubt ... sloth and torpor ... agitation and worry ... lack of conscience ... and shamelessness I will breathe in, etc.

[paragogy-blog]

Santa Claus for adults

"While I was working on the transmission, I noticed your brakes were gone, so I fixed those as well, that's going to be an extra $600."

"But I didn't ask you to fix the brakes."

"Well, it wasn't safe to drive on like that!"

[paragogy-blog]

Limitations

These are the sorts of things we want: the fit of the hammer handle in the hand of the master carpenter, the positive camaraderie within a group whose social ergonomics are well suited to their task, the suiting of the words to the action and the action to the words of Prince Hamlet.