Funny thing technology…. recently we decided to try something a bit different within  the work being done by the current Digital Learning Design group. It wasn’t anything other than a spin on the theme of framed /assisted DL but it produced interesting discussions and a lot of learning. 

We had fun with the ideas of ‘Monday’ and ‘5pm’. This resulted in exploring how notions like these don’t have all that much currency up here on t’internet. Our ‘Monday’ ran from 06:15 Auckland time to  23:35 Dublin local time in Dublin when we decided it was  probably time to shut the shop .  The 36 hour day has arrived!

And despite the cynical nature of some of the tasks involved, levels of participation in the activities were high.  I think we all learnt a few things – about technology, the politics of place, learning design and indeed the learning process when it’s at a remove. Of course there was room also for more reflection. But it came at a price. We totally thrashed the two-hour nature of our weekly session, for instance: despite some half-hearted initial efforts aiming to keep the work within the usual time frame.  Then there were mad dashes up the M50 when offices were closed for the evening, there were teams that needed to be pep talked, cats that needed feeding, and schools systems that belong in the third world.  All stuff it’s hard to factor into the mix when you ask some simple question around how a (normal) weekly, m-level teaching and learning slot be dragged into the contemporary moment.

Perhaps the key part of the system-side learning in all of this was that time frames don’t frame – they just broadly shape. And GoogleGroups seems to have stood up reasonably well to our sea trial… However, DLD Note4 is still out there: and, I  advised, better sooner rather than later.

Memory and meaning don’t always match well when you’re on global time.