So ALT have a bit of an ed tech twitter challenge for this month with of course its own hashtag #JuneEdTechChallenge. Each day people are invited to share pictures, words anything really on a phrase, topic. For day one it its “the VLE in my life” – an endless source of discussion/debate/joy/frustration for anyone who has to use one.
It's June 1st – day one in our #JuneEdTechChallenge. Join in by tweeting to the hashtag #JuneEdTechChallenge sharing a picture, GIF or text answering 'The VLE in my life is …' #altc pic.twitter.com/Vv36dYyY1a
— ALT – alt.ac.uk (@A_L_T) June 1, 2021
I don’t have a particular VLE in my life anymore – one of the advantages of being independent. In a sense I wander around the digital landscape and work with any system that clients use. Ah, the freedom I hear you say. Well maybe not.
Today I was thinking about pyschogeography. I’ve come across this field quite late, but I am exploring it more in terms of my practice as an artist. However, as I was listening to Will Self give a short overview, I couldn’t help but think about it in terms of learning environments. One of the central notions of psychogeography is the notion of the “dérive” or the drift. The notion of one drifting around an environment, in a random, not planned way. Doing that in our physical spaces is actually quite challenging, but it’s darn near impossible to do in a digital learning environment.
Our paths and pathways are designed and structured, they impose directions, keep us enclosed, close down pathways and exit points to stop us drifting away from the platform/VLE. So whilst I may wander between different VLEs, ultimately when I am in any of them, they force me to stick to their structured paths. This reminded me of a session I was part of in OER17. I can only drift when I am in open spaces.
Probably much more thinking to do around this, but it’s all I’ve got time for today. What do you think? Do we need more drifting in our VLEs or do we need to provide as much structure as possible?
