Our first paper Rhizo14: A Rhizomatic Learning cMOOC in Sunlight and in Shade from the research we conducted at Rhizo14 was published last week at Open Praxis. We would love you to read it and respond.
One of the themes that has engaged us in the research process is the delicate dance between the private and the public. Public and private can relate to strategies for engagement behaviours rather than being properties of spaces (Lievrouw 1998). We found that offering privacy in data collection was a good strategy in that we are able to reveal some things that were not apparent on the surface of Rhizo14, adding to our partial, provisional understanding.
On the other hand, we are pledged to publish only in open access journals, and shared our data collection approach with Rhizo14 participants who helped us to shape it. Dave Cormier, the convener of the MOOC kindly agreed to a private conversation reflecting on Rhizo14. We have spent a long time (a year) reading and analysing the data, reading other writers, and writing, alone or together.
We have also presented interim findings at a conference at University College London, blogged over several posts and we have blogged our ideas before, during and after Rhizo14. It was great to get feedback at the conference and on our blogs.
And now we have published an article that was private while it was being written, reviewed and edited, and we look forward to getting your feedback on what we have said. Of course this apparently fixed article is only a snapshot of ideas. Our ideas have moved on even in the relatively short period since we completed this article (November 2014), and it would be different if we wrote it today. We have, this month, submitted a second article on the rhizome as metaphor and concept, and we are currently working on an article about community formation. But the cycling between private and public – reflecting, reading, thinking, writing – that’s so important. If our paper motivates you to respond, we would be thrilled to hear your ideas. We don’t want to howl at the moon.
Lievrouw, L.A., 1998. Our Own Devices: Heterotopic Communication, Discourse and Culture in the Information Society. The Information Society, 14, pp.83–96. Available at: http://classes.design.ucla.edu/Spring06/259M/readings/OwnDevices.pdf
Jenny Mackness @jennymackness jennymackness.wordpress.com/
Frances Bell @francesbell https://francesbell.wordpress.com
Francesbell's Blog 