Author Archives: friesenn

Relational Pedagogy and Teacher Personae Online

Posted on January 28, 2013 by friesenn

Claire Major from the U. of Alabama recently requested a short description for her forthcoming book, Teaching Online: Understanding and Managing Instructional Changes when Teaching with the Internet (forthcoming from JHU Press). She asked about the connection between the notion … Continue reading →

Posted in Pädagogik, Phenomenology, Writing | Leave a comment

MOOCs, OER and PLAR: Prior Learning Assessment for Open Ed.

Posted on January 24, 2013 by friesenn

  Just got this open publication, co-authored with Christine Wihak, published in the journal Open Praxis. Here’s abstract, etc: Recent developments in OER and MOOCs (Open Educational Resources and Massive Open Online Courses) have raised questions as to how learners … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Ed, Writing | Leave a comment

CanCore Archived – & some thoughts

Posted on January 6, 2013 by friesenn

I’ve revived the site for the CanCore Learning Object Metadata Initiative –complete with all the guidelines documents and updates to 2007. I’ve received the odd, periodic request for the guidelines in the last few years. It probably is a good … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Ed, Writing | Leave a comment

Wandering Star: The Image of the Constellation in Benjamin, Giedion and McLuhan

Posted on December 31, 2012 by friesenn

Just got word that this proposal was accepted for the “14th Jerusalem Conference in Canadian Studies” at the Hebrew University. It focuses on three great writers, and three very unique texts: Walter Benjamin’s notion of the “constellation” marks a particularly … Continue reading →

Posted in Critical Theory, Media Theory | Leave a comment

Two Ed Tech/Media Traditions: Rationalist vs Romantic

Posted on December 10, 2012 by friesenn

Spoken language is the first and most basic medium, and various forms of writing come next. If this is true, then media have a long history. This is certainly the case for education & for learning speech & writing. I … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Media Theory | Leave a comment

Open Textbooks, Educational Content & Knowledge

Posted on December 1, 2012 by friesenn

[slideshare id=15443685&doc=opentextbookseducationalcontentknowledge-121201133451-phpapp02] Open textbooks are an important step toward accessible and affordable education. But there’s a gap between what’s currently happening with open textbooks and what commercial publishers have long been doing. Until this gap is closed, commercial publishers will … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Textbook | Leave a comment

Wittgenstein: Education as (Dog) Obedience Training ?!

Posted on November 23, 2012 by friesenn

I’ve been revising a paper for Phenomenology and Practice, and was disturbed to learn that Wittgenstein can be read as urging punishment and conditioning for education in ways that would have made the crudest behaviourist blush! It all goes back to the German … Continue reading →

Posted in Open Ed, Textbook | Leave a comment

Foucault on Self-Care as Self-Bildung

Posted on November 20, 2012 by friesenn

Been reading Foucault’s Hermeneutics of the Subject, Foucault’s lectures at the Collège de France from 1981-1982. In this text, Foucault articulates further his notions of “care of the self” and “pastoral power” (about which I posted this item a couple … Continue reading →

Posted in Bildung, Michel Foucault, The Self | Leave a comment

Science (Scholarship) as Open Source Process

Posted on November 16, 2012 by friesenn

This very short piece from the late F. Kittler becomes increasingly relevant.as issues of open scholarship and open education become ever more established. For example: However, it was practical when some programmers at the MIT resisted venality and when a computer … Continue reading →

Posted in Friedrich Kittler, Media Theory | Leave a comment

Foucault, Pastoral Power, Schooling and Subject Formation

Posted on October 20, 2012 by friesenn

David Hamilton, a remarkable educational theorist and historian, has concluded the following about schooling; i.e., about education as secular, public project: “It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that, on an international scale, schooling was conceived by Christianity and raised … Continue reading →

Posted in Bildung, Michel Foucault | Leave a comment