There’s nothing I enjoy more than a theory that’s new to me, and here’s a fascinating one: Thing Theory, associated with a really interesting course syllabus from Michael Shanks at Stanford. (Though I’m surprised to see that it doesn’t reference Actor-Network Theory, with which it seems to have quite a bit in common.)
If one were going to teach a “Foundations of Library and Information Studies” course using this approach, what intellectual tools would one use as examples? What readings would accompany them?
I had the pleasure of presenting this morning at the “Weird but Worthy” COIL Workshop over at the very nice new library of Northeastern State University-Broken Arrow. Other speakers did a great job on the worthy stuff (wikis, blogs, podcasts, streaming media, etc. ), but I got to do the weird part of the workshop, so my topic was “Is There a Weirding Way?” Read more…
I didn’t have a name for this concept until I came across Teemu Arina’s strikingly suggestive phrase “parasitic learning,” which Arina defines as the “learner using someone as a teacher through virtual means without the knowledge or consensus of the host.”
This is the first metaphor related to learning/teaching I’ve encountered that seems to have implications significant enough to compete with Reddy’s celebrated “conduit model” of almost thirty years ago. It certainly gives a new perspective on the frontiers of distance education, hmm?
