torsdag den 31. januar 2013

Technology as a child of knowledge?

I can`t help thinking of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They caused the condemnation of man by biting the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. This act lifted them out of their childlike innocence and into the need of being responsible for their own lives and happiness. Being responsible means for me also to find new and improved solutions. And the technology is one of the answers to that.

Ever since the Sumerians invented writing, or rather evolved writing, or even before that, when we learned how to use the first tools of stone, bone and tree the technology has made human life easier. And on the same time, it has made us more powerful, which of course calls upon an even bigger responsibility for how we choose to use the technologies. The stone axe can be used both to kill a child and to build a shelter for a pregnant woman. The computers can be used both to control  drones killing civilians and to save lives in hospitals.

I would say the technology is evolving in the common field between needs, possibilities, resources and curiosity/ fantasy. To put the technology itself in control of this evolution is wrong.

It is of course impossible as an individual  to be in control of the evolution and use of technology. But as a global civilization we do have the control together. This is one of the reasons to improve education and democracy globally.

And I can't help smiling by the fact, that the logo of some of my favourite tech- devices is an Apple. Yes I read the book, and yes Steve Jobs said it was just a coincidence. But I still love that coincidence.
So here it is. The Apple who started our voyage towards more and more  technology :)



Picture credit: 
I made the picture in Gimp. I used Apples logo in tagxedo.com and found the snake on http://the-creativity-window.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Snake-Illustration-2013.gif


onsdag den 30. januar 2013

Week 1. Utopia, dystopia and technological determinisn

After 3 days studying movies, discussions and articles, I feel ready to share my impressions from the first week in EDC_MOOC.


The film festival.

Of the 4 videos, Beneditos Maschine III was for me the one outstanding. In addition to the thunder, the gloomy fire- or warlike background and the black silhouettes, the story was catching.

It fascinated me how the evolving machines caused more and more evilness, killed people and destroyed the buildings. And still the only solutions for the humans seemed to be newer and even more powerful technology.

Using the concepts fra Daniel Chandler I would claim the people in the Benedito act as they believe in reaching utopia though techno-evolution (regard progress as inevitable). And it becomes such horrible scenes because for us, the viewers, as it is obvious, that the technology is evil, autonomous and anthropomorphic. The autonomy even makes the technology evolve despite the people gives smaller gifts (first a beautiful music box, then a stone or a handful of dirt). In the end the humans not even climb the mountain or ask the sky for help.  Humanity seems like completely having lost control.  This is so dystopian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xiXOigfDb0U
But then in the last scene the surviving human being turns around and runs. Before the machine harms anything or anybody (except for the things it landed on) The question is why is he running away? Is he's leaving the techno-evolutionary idea? Or is he running back to the mountain to ask the sky for a new machine? I'm tempted to say this could be a droplet of voluntarism. But due to voluntarism as opposed to technological determinism the film can not claim both.

So where does Benedittos Machine leaves me? It's like the film claims, that IF we have a choice, it's only between technology or no technology.  If we choose the technology, the technology will end up controlling and harming us. New, better and less harmful technology is not an option here.


Utopian and dystopian stories about technology told in popular films

I really enjoyed that part. I contributed to the Wallwisher started by one of the my fellow students (sorry I forgot the name). It was the flipped class room unfolded for me. When I went to bed, there was about 12 notes on the wall. Next morning a lot, lot more. A fantastic feeling to work on a product with so many and for me unknown collaborators. And I certainly got many ideas to films, I would like to (re)view.





The discussions and foras

All in all I  really enjoy having the possibility to dive down in discussion threads in the EDC forum as well as Google+, Facebook and Twitter and leave a comment here and there.

This course has given me my Twitter debut and it was with a smile on my face, I posted my tweet no. 10 yesterday :D  I just have to learn the special Twitter language, so my tweets can have a little more content.

Margherita Maes tweeted a link to a picture about dystopian books. Very interesting, so I'll repost it here:


søndag den 20. januar 2013

One more week to go

Just about one more week to go before the course starts. I feel quite exited about it, and this feeling increases everytime I go into the EDC_MOOC Facebook group. The atmosphere in there makes me feel the course has already been started. My fellow students are very open minded, active and sharing. Even now a week before the beginning I´ve learned some good tips and tricks from some of them.

I'm a dane living in Bruxelles. Been here for 6 years now. I have to speak danish, english and french everyday. I am very aware of the lack of correctness in both my grammar and my vocabulary, so for me this course has an extra challenge. What will it be like to have to express myself in english, in deeper levels, about theories of learning etc. This is an area where I usually speak and write danish. I'll see about that. Challenge accepted :)

Today we are more than 100 who joined the facebook group and added our blogs to the adress list. In the end of February 2013 this list will for sure be turned into a list of inspiring and creative thoughts and ideas. Feel free to have a look at it here:


  1. Steve Holland - http://stephenholland.blogspot.com
  2. Pat Cushing - http://artonthewall.wordpress.com/
  3. Eric Clark - http://ericalainclark.com
  4. Analía Carrio - http://aflyintheroom.wordpress.com/
  5. Willa Ryerson - http://wryerson.wordpress.com
  6. Mick Pope - http://natural-philosopher.blogspot.com
  7. Angela Towndrow - http://angelatowndrow.blogspot.com.au/
  8. Amy Burvall - http://amysmooc.wordpress.com/
  9. Laurie Niestrath- http://about.me/laurie.niestrathhttp://lsniestrath.wordpress.com/
  10. Rozalia Zeibeki - http://rozoua.wordpress.com/
  11. Chris Swift - http://mybackyard78.blogspot.co.uk/
  12. Sally - http://elearninganddigitalcultures.blogspot.co.uk
  13. Mark Shea - http://crackerbelly.me
  14. Helen Hodson - http://helenjhodson.wordpress.com
  15. Mohammed Shehata - http://mohammedshehahat-edcmooc.blogspot.com/
  16. Madhura Pradhan - http://wordingmythoughts.wordpress.com
  17. Kelcy Allwein - http://kelcym.wordpress.com
  18. Steve Stander - http://about.me/steven.stander
  19. Eric Hartman - http://thedoctor63.blogspot.com/
  20. Desislava Pedeva-Fazlic -http://dpedeva.wordpress.com/author/dpedeva/
  21. Hayley Atkinsonhttp://confessionsofalearningtechnologist.blogspot.co.uk/
  22. https://ebooksinlearning.wordpress.com/
  23. Helen Crump http://learningcreep.wordpress.com/
  24. Kyle Bettley http://kjbedcmooc.blogspot.co.uk/
  25. Cathy (MarleyLG) http://urbanjigsaw.wordpress.com/
  26. Sulieman Alshuhri - http://aioa.blogspot.com/
  27. Britt Watwood - http://bwatwood.edublogs.org/
  28. Ary Aranguiz - http://alltheworldisamooc.blogspot.com
  29. Diana Sauerwein - http://onlearne.wordpress.com/
  30. Elizabeth Woodworth - http://edwoodworth.wordpress.com/ 
  31. Nigel Thomas - http://nigelsmooc.blogspot.co.uk/
  32. Donna Kallner -- http://donnakallner.blogspot.com/
  33. Emily Purser - http://spaceoddyssey.wordpress.com/
  34. Melinda Bey - http://stupendousjoy.blogspot.com.au/
  35. Melissa Koch- http://kochmelissa.wordpress.com/
  36. Jeanne Dorle - http://jdorle.com
  37. Ronald Voorn- http://procommotion.wordpress.com/
  38. Sarah Prentice http://tellmetellmewhatyousee.blogspot.co.uk/
  39. Dan Lemay - http://danlemay.net/wp2/
  40. Sandra Sinfield - <http://lastrefugelmu.blogspot.co.uk/
  41. Brooke Hessler - http://materialmetaphors.com/
  42. Paula Hall - http://elearningquadblog.blogspot.com
  43. Alison Christie http://mumtech2012.blogspot.co.uk
  44. Ljiljana Gacic - http://thoughtsandchoices.wordpress.com
  45. Elena Sher - http://learn-teach-learn.blogspot.ru/   
  46. Rick Bartlett -http://drrbb2nd.blogspot.com/
  47. Jeff Merrell - http://jeffdmerrell.wordpress.com/
  48. Kay Cantwell - http://linkinglearning.wordpress.com (andhttp://resourcelinkbce.wordpress.com - my work blog)
  49. Dominic Benson http://bensondominicole.wordpress.com/
  50. Cathleen Nardi http://eldcmooc.blogspot.com/
  51. Tim O'Riordan - http://www.zemedia.co.uk/the-news.html (and my work blog - http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/blog)
  52. Sara Genone http://sarasso.wordpress.com/
  53. Ergin Kesgin - http://343.posterous.com/
  54. Adrian Hodge - http://edutech.digiliterate.com/ 
  55. 55. Lucy Spalding http://cluelessveggardener.blogspot.co.uk/ 
  56. Raina Gangwal http://rainagangwal.wordpress.com
  57. Raina Gangwal - This is currently my thesis project: http://learningfromconfucius.wordpress.com
  58. Nancy Weitz (Architela) http://www.architela.com/blog
  59. Stephanie Reisner http://www.sjreisner.com
  60. Wayne Barry http://www.waynebarry.com/blog/
  61. Vaibhav Sawhney: http://www.doubleroot.in
  62. Mel Jones http://www.missmeljones.com/education/ and my long-standing blog http://melwalshjones.wordpress.com/ 
  63. Gitte Bailey Hass http://gbhcivilisations.blogspot.be/
  64. Andrew Roewe http://aroewe-portfolio.weebly.com/e-learning-and-digital-cultures-mooc-blog.html
  65. Anne Robertson http://aboxofthistles.wordpress.com/
  66. Deborah Hamilton http://debohamiltonelearning.blogspot.com/
  67. María F. Mandujano http://maferenaccion.blogspot.com/
  68. Taruna Goel http://tarunagoel.blogspot.ca
  69. Héctor Martín http://hectormartinsampedro.wordpress.com (mostly in Spanish)
  70. Zoran Kojcic http://philopractice.blogspot.com/ 
  71. Katherine Montero (spanish): http://queith.net & (english)http://queith.com
  72. Christopher Orchard http://www.corchard.com
  73. Kevin Eagan http://criticalmargins.com
  74. José Erigleidson http://erigleidson.com/blog
  75. Maria Athanasiou http://filologoupoli.blogspot.gr/
  76. Antonio José Campillo http://goo.gl/9dVIr 
  77. Serena Trowbridge http://www.cultureandanarchy.wordpress.com
  78. Bea Cuartero: http://sinprobarpipasfacundo.wordpress.com (Spanish) and http://buildingculturalnetworks.wordpress.com/ (English/Spanish)
  79. Bruna Damiana http://www.outramentos.com (portuguese)
  80. Scott R. Franklin http://blog.drscottfranklin.net
  81. Ami. Erickson http://proferickson.com/ami/feed-the-brain-blog/
  82. Paige Polcene http://figuringfifty.com/
  83. Ruth Wilson http://collegeethics.wordpress.com/
  84. Rick Prins http://prins251.blogspot.ca/
  85. Lisa Pieraccini http://frywithwater.net
  86. Kamala Robinson http://kamalasrobinson.blogspot.com/
  87. Nick Hood http://cullaloe.com
  88. Julie Shapiro  http://julieshapiro.wordpress.com/
  89. Solveig Johnsen http://elearningnovice.wordpress.com/ 
  90. Kerry Dwyer http://kerrydwyer.net/
  91. Catalin Zmole http://zmole.eu
  92. Elizabeth Lockett http://clayhorse.blogspot.com
  93. Pooya Zarei http://pooyablog.blogspot.co.uk/
  94. Colin Smith http://brentfordcol.blogspot.co.uk/
  95. Claudia Gonzalez http://wwwclaudiasenglishclub.blogspot.com/
  96. Yvette Rubio  http://whatisawonmywalk.wordpress.com/and http://doloresstory.wordpress.com/
  97. Theo Bakker http://www.higher-edge.nl (in Dutch)
  98. Karen Griffiths http://kegriffiths.blogspot.com 
  99. Jonathan Purdy http://jpedcmooc.wordpress.com
  100. Andrew Wynhoven http://edinspired.wordpress.com
  101. Kim Rounsefell http://learningculturesonline.wordpress.com
  102. Kate Freedman http://katejf.wordpress.com
  103. Ryan Tracey http://ryan2point0.wordpress.com
  104. Teresa Gibbison http://gibbisons-edcmooc.blogspot.co.nz/ (a 'sometimes' blogger!)
  105. Sunil Gunderia www.gunderia.com
  106. Jo Fothergill http://dragonsinger57.com/
  107. Jorge López Canales http://jorgeelc.wordpress.com/
  108. Miguel Villanueva Coaguila http://miguelvillanuevablog.blogspot.com/