Learning with the Fang

Here is a little gem of an idea that should prove useful to the next Edna proof of concept project. I want the team to explore the idea of using regular expressions instead of just ‘keywords’ as we think about ways of collecting and managing the information that the previous project brings to us.

UPDATE:

As Nick points out in the comments I should link to an explanation of  TDF.

This thought was inspired by the most recent podcast from Stephen Downes (read below for info on the random, bizzare and serendipidous connections that led to its formation).

If we peek behind the scenes of edurss or oldaily.com we will find that information is categorised around dynamic ‘regular expressions’ (or queries) rather than static keywords. This provides a really powerful way of connecting related information that can yeild really interesting sets of results that have unique and useful properties. For example, when a new ‘buzzword’ (e.g. PodCasting) arises it is possible to inject a new category that can pull together both old and new information. While this idea is not that new, when combined with the thinking around Taxonomy Directed Folksonomies (TDF) and the recent ‘myednapoc’ Proof of Concept (PoC) project I think we have the ingredients for something very profound indeed.

Stop reading now if you are frightened by messy writing about even messier thought patterns!

I offer the following half-baked, poorly written information for two reasons:

1. To encourage people like Stephen, Cam and others who routinely put recordings of rather informal discussions out there as podcasts. Two very important ideas were inspired by such bold experiments last week.

2. To try and show something of the profound experience I am having as I use my Personal Learning Environment (PLE) to swim through a seemingly random soup of new media publications. While I cannot articulate this experience very well, I feel a deep affinity with others more eloquent than I are saying about connections that form within the brain and over the internet and the expressions that can be made with new languages in which the symbols or letters are chunks of digital content (especially audio).

So, here we go… (in no particular order)

While listening to this latest podcast from Stephen Downes, a rather bizzare set of connections formed in my mind that I cannot fully articulate but guarantee have the potential to create something rather special. First you need to understand some background stuff that was swilling round my brain at the time:

My inbox contains a request to review and contribute to a ‘conference paper on TDF (Taxonomy Directed Folksonomy)’ that I really want to spend some time on but can’t because of a competing priority. That competing priority is taking most of my brainspace because of a long overseas teleconference in which I am sure all participants who used the same words were talking about different things. On top of that, I spent a very pleasant hour with the ‘myednapoc’ project team at education.au reflecting on the fascinating journey that had been and what might be possible for a soon to be launched second PoC project. So, to unwind, I went out to my shed with a view to working on a balsa-wood model airplane - armed with an iRiver full of recent audio from my network of RSS connections. As I walked out the back my son was playing guitar and my daughter singing ’stairway to heaven’ by led zeppelin.

Led Zeppeiln - ‘you know sometimes words have two meanings‘ (Stairway to Heaven).

While listening to Stephen’s lo-fi and rather chaotic audio, the phrase ‘regular expressions‘ glowed almost white-hot in my mind and this beautiful picture of a pattern emerged in which I instantly leap to a heap of conclusions about a number of things - the code behind oldaily.com (which I have never seen or thought particularly deeply about), how useful regular expressions might be for the TDF discussion paper (which I still haven’t read), and that this idea would probably make an excellent catalyst for discussion on a project I am about to start (but haven’t yet). My gut (or intuition) if you like gave me instant warm and fuzzy feelings that this was indeed a good idea, and that I should spend some time testing the validity of these conclusions that were so rapidy formed. So there you have it - a raw, unedited, un-researched view into my brain!

I drafted the first part of this post within minutes of hearing the podcast - partly because I didnt want to lose the idea for the edna project team. I would normally delete the rambly stuff (below the photograph) but I decided to leave it in this post as a record. I hope to return and comment on the progress of this idea as it is tested in my own reading and thinking, then in the furnace of conversation with the project team and anyone else who reads this.

myednapoc

Fang - Mike Seyfang

technorati tags:ple, myple, myednapoc, myedna, network, brain, connections