Three questions about education through the lense of the rhizome

1. https://www.flickr.com/photos/lyza/245086056/
rhizomes &
open learning

5. #2015DL

6. Rhizomes are aggressive, chaotic and
resilient.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwsnortheast/5951029777/sizes/l/in/photostream

7. http://www.flickr.com/photos/98857801@N00/214523
They are
difficult to
contain.

8. They follow their own paths.
http://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/87/97/879791_d5d8e306.jpg

9. Part 1 – Why are we
schooling?
The learning objective inspector

11. STANDARD IV
Reading – A few lines of poetry or prose, at
the choice of the inspector.
Writing – A sentence slowly dictated once,
by a few words at a time, from a reading
book, such as is used in the first class of
the school.
Arithmetic – Compound rules (common
weights and measures).
Report of the Federal Security Agency: Office of Education 1876, p CLXII

12. Why were they schooling?

13. We need people to read

15. Success is finishing

16. The myth we have
Story of one Canadian teacher

17. http://www.metanoialiving.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/success-really-looks-like.png

18. http://www.metanoialiving.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/success-really-looks-like.png
How do I
plan for
this?

19. Learning Subjectives
Learning for abundance

21. We need to measure
learnin
g

22. The fact that you need it doesn’t make it possible

23. Why are we schooling?

24. Is learning even something
we should be trying to
measure?

25. Part 2 – What are we
schooling?
How much of our choice of curriculum is
controlled by the technology available?

26. Curriculum and voice technology 

27. Julius Caesar learns
to win in the senate.
62BC
http://commons.wikimedia.org/
wiki/File:Caesar.jpg

28. Rome to Rhodes

29. • Technology: Humans
• Curriculum: Mentor
• We learn: One person’s
way of things
• Dave Truss – “the
projects that are really
cool are the ones where
they are connecting with
mentors”
Mentor learning
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/04/Telemachus_and_Mentor1.JPG

30. Curriculum in a text culture

32. "Carlo Crivelli 007" by Carlo Crivelli (circa 1435–circa 1495) -
Via The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-
ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA
Publishing GmbH.. Licensed under Public domain via
Wikimedia Commons -
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carlo_Crivelli_007.jp
g#mediaviewer/File:Carlo_Crivelli_007.jpg
University of
Toulouse students
scrutinize the
bosom of nature

33. “Those who wish to scrutinize the
bosom of nature to the inmost can
hear [at the University of Toulouse]
the books of Aristotle which were
forbidden at Paris” 1229AD
University of Tolouse Flyer, 1229 (Translated by Lynn Thorndike)

34. Technology: Text
Communication: One to many
Curriculum: absent author
We learn: The thoughts one
person had once
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle#mediaviewe
r/File:Aristotle_in_Nuremberg_Chronicle.jpg
Expert Learning

35. Curriculum in a print culture

36. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Johann_Heinri
ch_Pestalozzi.jpg
Johann Heinrich
Pestalozzi teaches
Switzerland to read
1798AD

37. I believe it is not possible for common popular
instruction to advance a step, so long as formulas of
instruction are not found which make the teacher…
merely the mechanical tool of a method
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi – “How Gertrude Teaches Her Children, p. 41,
1801.
https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7244777M/How_Gertrude_teaches_her_c
hildren

38. I assert definitely, that a school-book is only good
when an uninstructed schoolmaster can use it at
need, [almost as well as an instructed and talented
one]
Ibid.

39. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sc63/5788054500/

40. http://inventwithscratch.com/maze-game/
Technology: print
Communication: Publisher to many
Curriculum:
district/publisher/teacher
We learn: A group of people’s
thoughts on what you should know
Maze Learning

41. Curriculum in a digital culture
?

42. Technology: web
Communication: many to many
Gigantic scale
Curriculum: Community
What a community knows
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rice_rhizome.JPG
Community

44. What if they learn the wrong thing?

45. Do we need to be
teaching the right
answer?

46. Part 3 – Bringing the
what and why together
Learning for uncertainty in an age of abundance

47. Rhizomes are aggressive, chaotic and
resilient.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwsnortheast/5951029777/sizes/l/in/photostream

48. http://www.flickr.com/photos/98857801@N00/214523
They are
difficult to
contain.

49. They follow their own paths.
http://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/87/97/879791_d5d8e306.jpg

50. The myth we could
build
An open system designed to help
people grow

51. Tools for rhizomatic
learning

52. The Learning Contract
Learning for uncertainty in an age of abundance

53. Learning contracts
1. Are flexible
2. Focus on responsibility
3. Are student driven

54. Learning Analytics
Learning for uncertainty in an age of abundance

55. Learning analytics
1. Macro and micro level information
2. Interventions in time
3. Affects the learning design

60. The Community
Learning for uncertainty in an age of abundance

61. Community builds
1. Diverse perspectives
2. Practical literacies
3. Real connections

62. http://youtu.be/r8avYQ5ZqM0

64. When the community is the
curriculum, the what and the why
of learning come together.

65. The curriculum is not content…
it is other people.

67. @davecormier
davecormier.com
davcormier@upei.ca
Join us for
#rhizo15

68. What literacies(skills)
are developed when
the community is the
curriculum? What do
we want school to be
FOR?