Exploring rhizomatic learning – activity 20 of the OU Open Education MOOC
Dave Cromier considers the nature of joined up learning networks.
I used to live next door to a reclusive old lady whose neglected back garden was like a jungle. Once a year she would come out armed with a range of electric tools to blitz everything in sight but obviously it all just grew back again.
Leggy raspberry plants were the most pervasive and these would spread over into my garden. These had long passed the time when they bore fruit so they were just an eyesore with prickly stems.
This all goes to prove that everything in a garden isn’t always lovely and that even the most perfect seeming eco-system sometimes needs a helping hand.
This came to mind after watching Dave Cormier’s video, Embracing Uncertainty – Rhizomatic Learning in Formal Education (2012).
The American Heritage Dictionary define a rhizome – pronounced ‘rise-ohm’ – as “a horizontal, usually underground stem that often sends out roots and shoots from its nodes”.
Cormier likes the idea of things growing out of plain view which have no real start and no real end. His organic metaphor contrasts with the conventional idea of educational networks as something more clinical and organized with lots of clean lines, neatly connected. Continue reading
