Paragogy Book

We currently seem to have 2 parts - a “theory” part (Motivating discussion, Five principles, Interviews, Theory); and a “practice” part (Practice, Case studies). The “practice” part is still philosophical and abstract, and may not yet be as practical as it should be. Both parts need revision. p. 4

Publication models

• Online publication on Mediawiki, licensed via CCZero (this wiki)
• A”living”bookpublishedviaEtherpadandopenforediting
• Ashortebookofthefirst”snapshot”(e.g.Kindleand/orPDF) o 40K, make a “1 hour read” (or two of these, one for each part) o Lulu, see for example
• Ashortpaperbook(probablyaround130to180pages) p. 5

Business models

• Create a “marketplace” (agora) along the lines described in this article on the Free Technology Academy's wiki about a “Free Software Guild”; see also Sole Proprietorship
• Buildaparagogicalhighschoolcurriculum(liketheInternationalBaccalaureate programme) and start an online and/or charter school that pilots this curriculum
• Createapluginthatworkswithe.g.Amazonbutthatcrowdsourcesmorecriticalreviews about products - contributors gain referral bonuses and paragogy.net takes 5%. (Researching products could be part of the paragogical curriculum.) p. 5

• Lisewski,B.,andP.Joyce,ExaminingtheFiveStagee-ModeratingModel:Designedand Emergent Practice in the Learning Technology Profession, Association for Learning Technology Journal, 11 (2003), 55-66. p. 5

This month o' paragogy is akin to a vision quest. p. 6

What I am trying to say is that I have wanted to do a vision quest type experience for lots of my life and always imagined it as something epic like going off into the forest naked, alone and surviving. Instead its sitting in front of the computer at my parent's house typing about education. Dreams and reality, eh? p. 6

But, this is probably better. The vision quest would be sweet for myself, but this is an investment in humanity. I mean we're trying to uncover the basic mechanics of the most traditional form of learning we have done: paragogy, or from our peers. p. 7

Motivating Discussion (Why?) p. 7

Analytics are one example of a “technology of the self” [Foucault]. Like all technologies, they come from and feed into a social context. Unlike other media (books, libraries, television, transportation systems), “analytics” provide a synchronous feedback mechanism. Interactive systems in general come with analytic features built in. p. 7

Educational systems tend to give feedback asynchronously (grades on each paper or at the end of each semester), wherein students are informed of the worthiness of their effort (A, B, C, D, F or other forms of stratification and measurement). Whether this is intended or not, schools play the role of county fair judge, stratifying students into “best”, “worst”, and “mediocre”. The feedback that is given by schools has an effect not just on the learning process, but also on future career options. Schools both produce and measure “desirability” of students in the further education and job market. p. 7

If this causes anxiety among students (or for the reader), this may be part of the intended purpose. Formal learning isn't a matter of fun and games: it deals with “failure”, “ability” and other high-intensity concerns of judgement. Informal learning may sidestep some of the judgement, but it cannot get away from the social pressures that are expressed through institutional learning (the requirement to become employable, and to become adapted to other social norms). To summarize, learning is an adaptive process, typically featuring the learner as subject (adapting to the environment), but often undeniably positioning the learner as object (someone to be acted upon, changed, improved [Foucault]). p. 7

Of course, it is nice to have a good transcript or diploma and to be recognized as employable (a sort of “secondary quality” that is abstracted from raw qualities) if indeed that comes to pass, but at least in some cases there may be other ways to go about the process of personal empowerment that work better (for the individual) than those catered for via “the system”. p. 7

These might include: (1) information or knowledge transfer that takes place outside of scope, under the “radar”, and beyond the analysis of formal educational institutions: here for example we consider the services provided by libraries and bookstores, where readers connect with writers without an evaluative intermediary. p. 7

This may branch out to several sub-categories: (1a) Topics that are “too new” to have been codified, for example, new technologies. (1b) Topics that are “too personal” to be interesting to many people, for example, the topics that are discussed in counseling or psychotherapy. (1c) Forbidden topics, perhaps religion or politics, depending on the context. p. 8

namely the relationship between knowledge artifacts themselves, by which I mean the arrangement of things and topics in the world. In other words, the environment that the learner as subject is moving through, adapting to, and, in some cases, co-producing (both in their own adaptative process, and “stigmergically” by leaving traces for others, and also in some cases via explicit collaboration). The relationships among and between topics and things is tremendously important for paragogy, as it is for pedagogy. But in paragogy we do not expect other people to have sorted the connections out yet. p. 8

Thus we would assert that paragogy is what typically takes place “at the frontiers of knowledge”. Certainly we may find idiosyncratic individuals working there, but when they communicate with each other, they tend to do so in a peer-like fashion. This communication is important (even in the extreme case of individuals working alone and in isolation, “communication” via texts or other artifacts passed over time is what allows us to know anything whatsoever is happening). p. 8

granularity of collaboration p. 8

What makes learning fun? p. 8

What is it about learning how to make your skateboard float in the air for a split second that will motivate a teenager to invest hours of their time studying the mechanics of the trick, not to even mention the physcial pain that comes with failure? Especially if that same student could not pay attention for more than 2 minutes at a time during Chemisty and spends less time than that trying their homework before giving-up? p. 8

Part of it relates to motivation. Skateboarding is most likely primarly intrinsically motivated, with some extrinsic motivation coming from the respect they'd receive from peers if they mastered the trick. Chemistry would be the reverse, mostly the motivation would be extrinsic, coming from parents and society's expectations that the student do well in their studies and get into a posh college, or their future will be doom. The student very well could be intrinsically motivated to have a high report card for their own vanity, but even then, chemisty is not done for the sake of learning chemistry, but because they need that high grade as part of their overall portfolio. p. 8

Taken a different way, what is it about chemistry that's fun for those who love the science? Do they want the respect, power and prestige that comes from being the one to announce a new breakthrough? Or, is it akin to “art for art's sake” and they love doing chemistry just for the sake of doing it? Instead do they feel their work is important for the greater good, or prosperity, of humanity? That they are contributing, somehow? p. 8

Perhaps more specifically, is it the act of learning that can be in, itself fun? Or is it the rewards that come from successfully applying said knowledge being studied that is fun? How would this apply, say, in the context of learning how to be intimate with your partner? Is that fun? Tangentially, why did some of the original masters of Judo, feel it would lose something if it were to become a competetive sport with scoring, as opposed to just a Japanese martial art? Certainly learning is a highly individual endeavor and what works pour moi, may hurt you in your studies. That understood between us, I will attempt an ad hoc list of what (I think) makes learning fun for me. I welcome your ideas. p. 9

• Learningsomethingitispossibleformetounderstand.Eventhoughitwasn'tfunforme as a kid, I do now enjoy studying Japanese. p. 9

Learning is ESPECIALLY fun if I'm studying something as a way to procrastinate from another assignment that is due. I p. 9

Learningthathasvalueformeinmyimmediatereality,today,now.Learningfunnew Japanese words living in Japan was cool. p. 9

Ithelpsiflearningis“cool”i.e.gettingtipsonhowtonavigateasnowboarddownahill was more fun for me than my Dad showing me the proper way to buff the car's leather seats as a child. p. 9

There'salsothelearningthatsfun,butonlylater.Itwasnotfuninthemomentformeto sit and make a 30 page reading journal for Frankenstein, or to re-write essays four times for my high-school English teacher. Now, though writing is fun for me and learning how to write better is fun because of those experiences p. 9

How about having ideas "click", seeing new connections, having insights, getting "high" on ideas p. 9

One obvious way learning becomes boring is if you are forced to do it. Whether it be by parents or society being forced to do something, as opposed to choosing to, typically makes the individual less likely for success. p. 9

This is related to a scene at a college accounting class where the character narrating at the time hears that “in modern life there are no new worlds to discover or battles to be fought. Now it is time to account, and accounting is boring, and because of that those who can do it are heroes.” p. 10

Five Principles p. 11

Changing Context as a decentered center. p. 11

I think the key to getting this is making sense of this first paragogical principle is the decentered center part. Think of it as a surfer riding his board on a wave. The surfer and the board are peers: human may control wood, but neither works without eachother. The “deceneted center” then is the water. p. 11

The surfer may be comfortable at a certain level of h2o force “context center”, but (it isn't necessary to have tried surfing [as I have, failing badly] to get this metaphor, btw) the center is always changing, or its “decentered”. Too much and either peer can fail: surfer falling or board snapping. Too little and there won't be enough energy for the surfer to stand up. If conditions are apropos and the surfer/board combo can handle the changing context as a decentered center, i.e. the constantly shifting state of the water, surfing can be done. If more surfer/board combos, or peers, join then the possibilities for surfing or learning and a given beach increase exponentially. Consider all the art being made at Waikiki beach in Honolulu on an ideal spring morning. p. 11

Moving from metaphor to theoretical example, consider students getting together in a library to form a study group for their neuropsychology class as I did Sophomore year. We had different roles in the study group and points of leadership. A friend of mine who did well on the first test (I did not.) was more the surfer and myself the board. There was another friend/peer (surfer metaphor breaks down a little here, but roll with it) and our decentered center was the library. We had a vague idea of what we wanted to accomplish: high grades on the next morning's test, but no clear road to how to get there (this was our first time studying together). Going through our notes, flash cards, textbook and more we somehow learned together, and for the next test I received a candy reward for having the 2nd highest improvement in score from the first to second test. My peers did about as well as they did the first time round. p. 11

What makes learning work? p. 11

If learning is the desired outcome, we should ask “What makes learning work?” (Cf. What makes learning fun?). Psychologically, we experience emotional pain as a reason to stop and think (I shouldn't have done that, how stupid, what can I do differently next time, etc.). On the other hand, we experience emotional pleasure as a motivator to embrace what just happened and try it again (wow I am so in love with that person, this feels great, I'm so happy). Learning seems to weave a course between pleasure and pain, with learned patterns and techniques as the outcome. (Cf. Marvin Minsky's “The Emotion Machine” and essays for One Laptop Per Child for more discussion about pleasure and pain.) p. 11

If we want to understand what makes learning work, we should try to understand not just the desire to avoid pain and secure pleasure, but how moving between these states produces useful patterns. We can evaluate a learning context in terms of its efficacy at securing outcomes. For example, it is widely agreed that immersion is the best way to learn a language. p. 11

part of what makes learning “work” is the context and opportunity for application. At the same time, this is also what produces risks (e.g. risks of saying something embarrassing in a new language, risks of building a bridge that falls down). This suggests that people learn well when the stakes are high enough (but probably not too high: we don't ask beginning engineers to build bridges until they have mastered enough skills that we can be reasonably sure the bridge won't fall down). (Cf. Voygotsky's “Zone of Proximal Development”.) p. 12

if learning is the desired outcome – not just for the individual, but socially (e.g. learning how we're going to deal with climate change), then “learning” becomes an important economic good, almost a new “currency” for society. The typical approach is to use the market as a mechanism for learning, in other words, successful businesses make money, others fail. In this context, the “fictional” currency of money in a fairly direct sense is substituted for the “real” currency of learning and adaptation. p. 12

The market approach is one way to manage a commons, or one aspect of a commons management approach; but there are many others. Paragogy's first principle “Shared context as a decentred centre” is an invitation to look for ways to manage the learning commons/ecology/economy in ways that work well for everyone involved. p. 12

When we talk about “meta-learning” (i.e. learning about learning), we are assuming there is something there to learn, in other words, “knowledge about learning”. A reasonable question to ask is whether this is a general “body” of knowledge about learning (something we might go to school to study), or whether it is a specific sort of knowledge that can only be developed in practice (e.g. learning “how I learn best”). So far, the wording of the principle is vague, but let's say: anything that we can identify as a general body of knowledge about learning will be useful, surely (psychological theories of learning, abstract theories of learning, etc.). As for the kinds of learning that have to happen in practice, here maybe we can draw on theories of practice (I am thinking primarily of Buddhism, but marxism or gnosticism etc. also come to mind). p. 14

“talk-aloud protocol”, where someone doing a task “talks aloud” about the thought process they are going through when solving a problem. This is written about by our old paragogical pal K. Anders Ericsson. p. 15

As we've noted several times, science is already perfectly paragogical. It's absolutely true that just reading works from someone else is better understood as andragogy, but when you contribute something back to the discourse, paragogy kicks in (even over massive distances and timespans). The assumptions that the “massively distributed authorship” approach breaks are not so much our grounding assumptions about scientific discourse, as assumptions about how people get credit for their work, and about the technology they use to do the work. p. 16

So the “what if” question shifts onto technology and something more like sociology or economics. We're not submitting the paper to a sociology journal, but writing for a conference on human computer interface issues. But in either case, we should be asking, how is this really going to work? For example, is Etherpad really sufficient for real-time collaboration, or do we need something else? Is real-time collaboration “better” in any genuine respect than asynchronous means, like a wiki or version control system? If we kept coming back to reflective questions like that, the paper would be a better paper. As it was, we drifted quite frequently onto sociological questions like “how to distribute 'credit' for authoring papers like this”. First and foremost it is important to realize that there will be no credit to distribute if the paper isn't published. But the issue we took up in the paper was more like “what does it mean to be 1st author on a paper with 30 authors? or 6th author? or 27th?”. Experientially, working on the paper was something like participating in a seminar or a course – perhaps a P2PU course where instead of having a course forum, we only had an Etherpad, and instead of each person having his or her own “assignment”, we had a shared goal, putting together a paper. (Hey, our paragogy writings are kind of like that too.) p. 16

Whatever learning you are undertaking, if you do it with peers you will get critiques, and if you learn alone you will not. Continuing on with my study group example, if I had been studying alone and then read my notes that said the pleasure region of the brain's scientific nomenclature is “the fun zone”, I may have just trusted that and moved on. Even if my notes were incorrect, without a peer to provide feedback its likely I would have accepted that p. 16

as the correct nomenclature. Studying with peers I might have told one of them that area of the brain is the fun zone, and then they could've corrected my mistake. p. 17

Indeed, what I've suggested above is that working with peers is one of the best incentives for figuring out how to do one's part. Probably no one likes being needy and dependent all the time (even little kids tend to take pride in being able to help out). When there's a job to be done, social pressures against “freeloading” kick in to motivate people to do work. p. 17

The arrangements become interesting and complicated when there are multiple different tasks going on, with different social groups involved. One may have multiple competing motivators (work, family, friends, etc.), which can also become burdensome “obligations” if one isn't careful. p. 18

But (going out on a limb a little bit here), in this scenario, it may be possible to change the perspective to look at each of the different domains of life as a “peer” in some abstract sense. Each of these domains of life “gives feedback that wouldn't be there otherwise”. As the number of domains grows, things become potentially very complex, and one can get spread a very thin. The idea of working in multiple domains or within multiple spheres of life should somehow be about quality, not merely quantity. But what is quality? There's been a lot of popular writing on this topic (Pirsig). It may very much be in the eye of the beholder, but this hasn't stopped people from trying to find general patterns (Aristotle). From the point of view of work and learning, quality can as in the previous section be described in terms of outputs (products that satisfy the customer) and means (processes that satisfy the producer). p. 18

Learning as adaptation p. 20

In with all of this complexity there's one particularly difficult point: focus. Given that attention can spread all over the place and can drift easily from one thing to another, how is one supposed to stay “on task”? And what does this even mean, if we think of learning as something that happens all the time? p. 20

Again, I think we get some benefit from thinking about learning as adaptation. Without adaptive results, we can say there is no learning, or the wrong thing was learned. Imagine a coach saying “If you keep practicing like that, you'll learn it wrong. You need to practice it like this.” Some emotional or aesthetic sophistication is required to be that “coach” in your own life, as well as being the player with the willingness to give up an approach that isn't working well and try something else. For this to work it's important to be able to detect problems early on – for example, not just to detect “distractions” but to look at the conditions that make one prone to p. 20

distraction. Generally speaking, simplicity, order, and routine help manage complexity. These things aren't always immediately available, and generally have to be built (or paid for as a service). Indeed it seems reasonable to hypothesize that the more disciplined a person is in terms of work management, emotional processing, clear communication about difficulties and so forth, the more complexity and chaos they will be able to handle in their work life, and the more adaptive they can be as circumstances change. Then again, one man's “discipline” is another man's “chaos”. p. 21

We are somewhat less excited about visionary perspectives on what may happen to learning and education in the future, and are more interested in practical efforts. Partly this comes from our experiences, where brainstorming and opining reached the limit of its usefulness. We became more interested in developing systems that work. p. 24

Learning in networks p. 27

There's a whole modern theory of neural networks – maybe we can get into that a bit! – but at an abstract level, think about how a pattern is presented as a set of data, and these data are fed into a system for further processing (a new pattern). As the different neurons “speak up” and communicate a message on to other neurons, eventually some actions at the level of “phenomena” are triggered. Maybe a screen displays a certain result, or a person carries out a certain action p. 27

“Learning” at the abstract level of neural nets usually means “present a number of abstract patterns, and tune the system so that it gives the 'right' result on these; then give some other patterns and use the system as it was trained in the first phase to classify the new patterns.” These systems can be used to do things like successful recognize faces and so on. p. 27

Although it is a simple model of learning, the model in paragogy isn't necessarily much more complex. People talk to each other, certain outcomes are generated. “Learning” happens as the individuals involved master some new set of patterns. As a group, even more complicated patterns can be managed, at least in theory. Certainly in academia, the whole “standing on the shoulders of giants” phenomenon is what lets complicated ideas and approaches grow, though this may take significant real time. p. 28

Pattern recognition is mentioned in connectivism as well. p. 28

From “Introduction to Connectionist Modelling of Cognitive Processes” by Peter McLeod, Kim Plunkett, and Edmund T. Rolls, pages 11-15, “Five assumptions about computation in the brain on which connectionist models are based”. 1. Neurons integrate information 2. Neurons pass information about the level of their input 3. Brain structure is layered 4. The influence of one neuron on another depends on the strength of the connection between them 5. Learning is achieved by changing the strengths of connections between neurons Note some similarities and differences to our five principles. p. 29

Learning about collectives p. 29

Thinking about what a given person in a given situation actually needs makes things more concrete. Sometimes I need a lot of input or feedback from other people, sometimes, maybe, I'm better off on my own. The idea that there are certain forms of social support that a person needs at different points in life makes sense. The classics we're all familiar with: sometimes it's a matter of mirroring, sometimes it's a matter of encouragement, sometimes it's a matter of caution and saying “no”. p. 29

A more paragogical question to ask is “what can we build together?” The fact is that, quite often, the answer will be “nothing” – either because of “cultural barriers” (values aren't shared, language cannot bridge the gaps) or because of economic barriers (as much as two people might like to work together on something, their time may be taken up with other things). p. 29

Let's review where we've gotten to. First, whether we take a hard line on “identity” or not, we should admit that we function in various collectives, and that we are ourselves “collectivities” of a sort. Knowledge, production, and pleasure are themselves the actions or domains of collectives. Should this “fact” disempower or empower individuals? p. 30

We've already seen a limited form of power in voting with the feet, but what about a muchenhanced sort of power that comes from being able to form collectives that serve one's particular ends or ambitions? Do we know, or can we learn, how to do that? The challenge of learning about how collectives form, how they relate to individuals, and how individual satisfaction results (or doesn't) remains before us - but perhaps some of the background ideas have become more clear. p. 30

What is paradata? p. 30

paradata (usage data) p. 30

In my class at Rheingold U on Mindamplifiers, we studied Infotention and tried to build our own radars. They were a collection of RSS Feeds, Twitter streams and other 21st century media designed to cull the useful info from the information overload known as the internet. If, for example, you were interested in graphic design, you should find the most efficient way to get the relevant, current info about graphic design, plus how to keep out useless stuff. A big portion of all this is reading stuff online that will help you reach your goals, vs surfing aimlessly or lurking around facebook. p. 32

Footnote: Check out the formulas on page 1 and 2 of http://kraut.hciresearch.org/sites/kraut.hciresearch.org/files/articles/Resnick10Startup-current.pdf p. 32

In other words, the question this paper takes up is: “Is paragogy practical?”. The paper will draw on Zen Buddhism, Socrates, and Baudrillard's “The Mirror of Production” to argue that the answer is “yes, and indeed, paragogy can be practiced to great personal fulfilment, but it always develops through a process of social dissonance, since it is at odds with any 'received' view.” However, far from being simply a contrarian philosophy, paragogy can be used to design functional systems to support information access and social life, as well as learning. p. 34

They refer to the literature as a “body”. So if we consider “surveying the literature”, it's similar to a body scan (from Jon Kabat-Zinn), similar to body awareness, the first step of the Anapanasati Sutta. (Cf. ) So in terms of the sutra: p. 34

M. Tennant, “Psychology and adult learning” p. 34

E. Wenger, “Toward a theory of cultural transparency: Elements of a social discourse of the visible and invisible p. 34

“We encourage the research community to test our ideas in practice of various forms. Some ideas for paragogical design include: (1) Establish a group consensus for expectations/goals/social contract of the course and how each of them should be evaluated at its conclusion. (2) Have learners designate learning goals that they then commit to stick with. (3) Formalize a process for assisting peers (e.g. responding to questions, giving feedback on publicly posted work). (4) Develop explicit pathways for learner feedback to translate into changes to the learning environment.” p. 37

“One key difference between Star/Wenger on the one hand and Engeström on the other has to do with the nature of boundaries. In the community of practice view, boundary objects exist to effect translations or initiations. In Engeström's view, attention is drawn to boundaries that remain in flux (via an ongoing process of co-configuration) or which are blurred (e.g. by a blurring of consumer and producer roles).” The various conceptions of human ecology (Star, Engeström, etc.) bring to mind McCalla, writing on “The Ecological Approach to the Design of E-Learning Environments: Purpose-based Capture and Use of Information About Learners”. McCalla's idea is in some ways reminiscent to what Slavoj Zizek calls the fantasy of total recycling: p. 40

Actually, Cheren's view is that “being self-directed” isn't an on-off switch (either you have it or you don't), but more of a continuum, so, he speaks for example of “highly self-directed learners”. He offers advice on how an educator can help a learner become more self directed, but doesn't say that they then “are” self-directed. It's a subtle distinction! p. 41

But what would it mean to be self-directed, or to be more self-directed? Considering that the mind is sensitive to its context, and is always providing feedback on things to do, problems, solutions, p. 41

joys, sorrows, etc., “self-directed” seems like a somewhat iffy predicate to bear. What about being in tune with one's surroundings? Perhaps being “more” self-directed means that one does not so much rely on other people (at least explicitly) to decipher these surroundings, and tell one what to do. In other words we would expect a “more self-directed” person to be “more in tune with their surroundings”, as well as their goals and sentiments and so forth. So a steady mind would be quite the boon here, if becoming “more self-directed” was the goal. But why would it be? Certainly, one cannot always turn to others for help – sometimes they are unavailable or inaccessible, or they have better things to do than to guide you. (Which is probably why educators typically get paid: there is an opportunity cost to their time.) So, in these moments, will you feel lost and confused, or will you feel with it, productive (if that is your ambition), collected, and reasonably happy? Developing powers of concentration and responsiveness would seem to be useful in these circumstances. Of course, these abilities can be cultivated in a social context and applied solo – and vice versa, cultivated in a solo context and applied socially. p. 42

“The first paragogical principle says that instead of focusing on how learners see themselves (e.g. as 'self-directed' or 'dependent' or something else), we should be asking how the learning context shapes what learners are actually able to do. Note that this includes looking at ways in which learners can contribute to reshaping the learning context.” Since we are thinking of learning as adaptation, it makes sense to focus on what adaptation is – and communicate this clearly with students or peer learners. Adaptation is what we're here to do, and maladaptive patterns and strategies only get in the way of this. That doesn't mean that maladaptivity should be paddled out of students (which would presumably only be additional maladaptivity on another level) – rather, I think the goal would be to lead (pedagogically) people to draw attention to their own sense of what is maladaptive and what is adaptive behavior – or else (paragogically) to enact “adaptation” and see if other people follow this good example! Well, that might be over simplifying things, but it does bring up this question: is there really such a thing as “paragogical teaching”? Maybe peer learners need to agree to some basic axioms in the first place (e.g. “learning is adaptation”) and then there won't be any particular need to missionize them and bring them on board. Furthermore, if we agree that this is the axiom, then it works the other way as well (“adaptation is learning”). So that even “maladaptive” patterns are learned. Accusing someone of doing something “maladaptive” really means saying that they have learned something that puts them out of tune with their environment. This doesn't mean that paragogy is aiming to homogenize people: being in tune doesn't mean everyone playing the same note or even the same style. This musical metaphor presumably only goes so far, but it does have a fairly well established history in the philosophy of state-craft. It would be nice to say more about what this means – inner conflict, p. 42

interpersonal conflict, wasted resources, versus inner peace, interpersonal harmony, good use of resources, etc. – clearly these are very qualitative and almost “aesthetic” judgements. p. 43

Key Message p. 43

we examine the view that commonsbased peer production communities are based both on learning and on assessment, in the form of peer review. If a given piece of work is accepted into a given community, it has passed a test. p. 43

But are we necessarily talking about a conflict at all? Might not the “receptive” and “evaluating” – what could be broadly termed “female” aspects of communities – be brought into some sort of harmony with the “generative”, “contributing” – correspondingly, broadly male – aspects of contributors? And what would this mean? p. 45

http://www.amwiki.de/download/attachments/589977/commons_based_peer_production_ ”Commons Based Peer Production and Virtue” by Yochai Benkler and Helen Nissenbaum p. 45

Investigations in paragogy may in some ways resemble investigations in parapsychology, but without the hokum. Instead of looking for psychic abilities, we would instead look at real, documented, communication events. It is potentially less interesting to document “spooky effects” p. 46

Where do good intentions go to? Where does actual productivity come from? It's not just a matter of pomodoro techniqueor getting things done, though these systems (designed for the standard “individual) do, no doubt, relate. The 43folders summary of Getting Things Done is: 1. identify all the stuff in your life that isn’t in the right place (close all open loops) 2. get rid of the stuff that isn’t yours or you don’t need right now 3. create a right place that you trust and that supports your working style and values 4. put your stuff in the right place, consistently 5. do your stuff in a way that honors your time, your energy, and the context of any given moment 6. iterate and refactor mercilessly p. 47

We can imagine that, worst case scenario, as a reflection on the process, paragogy itself represents an amplification and re-valorization of the distracting elements that need to be cleared away in order for “real work” to happen – a sort of “navel gazing” or an overly “processy” way of relating to one's life's work; in effect, a sort of selfdisabling through frittering away of anxious energy. To look at this more positively, a “science of procrastination” or even simply a mutual aid group, “Cunctator's Universal Network and Triage Cooperative” (name created by my friend Tim) that would look at things like chatting on Facebook while doing homework without the judgmental lens – might help people understand the currenthuman, particularly in his/her incubatory aspects. p. 47

• http://www.the-cauldron.org.uk/averyenglishwitch.htm A curious coincidence. (Studying the existence and effects of coincidences is presumably where paragogy and parapsychology have their interface.)
• http://www.intentionalhappiness.com/articles/July-2009/Incubators.pdf“Inmycoaching work I have dealt with a number of individuals who consider themselves chronic procrastinators. They often feel guilty that they take so long to engage with projects and frequently criticize their own performance. And yet, they all have in common that they are extraordinarily successful but most objective standards– doctorate degrees, high p. 47

incomes, productive at work, etc. This has led me to question whether they are really procrastinators or whether there might be a productive work style issue at hand.” p. 48

We can look for places and ways in which paragogy is not just a good idea, but a descriptive theory. The five principles are a nice way to spell something out, but what's more important is to look at what really happens when peers learn together. For example, peers might learn to take over some function that had previously been run by a centralized authority, particularly when this central authority has not been doing a particularly good job. They might learn how to present themselves honestly both in terms of what they're after, and what they have to offer, and in other respects as well. Through interactive hands-on experience, they might decide that certain tasks or responsibilities aren't enjoyable, and that others are. We could be talking about a lot or sometimes just a little experience – but whether we're talking about a lifetime of negotiations, or a day on the job, peer learning can help individuals build self-understanding, and also help them develop together ways to communicate about the potential exchanges and collaborations they can make together. p. 48

But paragogy isn't just a theory of one-to-one exchanges or transactions: it is also a theory of externalities. As people engage in exchange behavior, there are side-effects that run all over the place. The stakeholders to these “downstream effects” may well be “peers”, even if they are not party to the original conversation. (E.g. Wikipedia is “the free encyclopediathat anyone can edit.”) p. 48

We can look for ways to allow downstream users to communicate with each other and add additional value to the system through these communications. What we might hope to see is an p. 48

end to dogma, whether that means “the customer is always right” or “the producer is always right”, as the system becomes “marketized”, bringing in additional conversations and resources. It would be foolish to think that every object, every transaction, can be fully understood, that all externalities can be internalized. Indeed, the practice of paragogy works at least as much by putting things out there than it does by synthesizing and combining ideas! Learning to do this in a way that allows us to cultivate “That quality of wisdom that all the wise wish, and call creative qualities, and good creation of the mind” seems a reasonable way to encapsulate our hopes for paragogy. As multiple conversations and viewpoints are brought to bear, knowledge systems improve, not just at the “container” level (i.e. more knowledge), but at the level of their articulation as well. p. 49

We shouldn't just ask just conceptual questions like “Who are peers?” or “What is learning?”, but practical ones like “Who are the peers now?”, “What is adaptive for the current situation?”. Quite frequently, something is “learned” by identifying a pattern and learning how recognize other instance that fit the pattern. Once this is done, you can move beyond the (centralized) “training data” – it's literally like taking the training wheels off of a bicycle. p. 49

PlanetMath Overview p. 51

Furthermore, keywords from both problems and solutions will be automatically linked into the PlanetMath encyclopedia (which currently defines over 15000 mathematical terms). The thought here is that it is more or less impossible to solve a math problem when one does not know what the terms in the problem mean. This was my strong impression as a beginning graduate student at the University of Texas, where the preliminary exams proved to be a very interesting but fatal obstacle for me. My response at the time was to compile a large catalog of definitions of terms from all of the past exams that were on file. I learned in practice that the raw definitions are not enough: one needs to know how to think about the definitions too. Honestly, if I had seriously wanted to pass the prelims and get a Ph. D. in mathematics, I would have probably been better served by going to class regularly, doing homework to the best of my ability, asking questions to my peers and to my professors in office hours, much as I had done as an undergraduate. I was, however, taken by the idea that, even if I passed the exams, there would be more students in the future who would have to go through the same difficult process – and I wondered if there mightn't be a way to significantly streamline the learning process, not just for myself, but for generations of mathematics students to come. I thought that would be a potentially bigger contribution than pushing myself through the degree. p. 51

Might it not make sense to give students tools to address real problems, as quickly as possible? In order to do this, education shouldn't be a series of made-up tests, but a series of real, meaningful challenges. p. 52

The question I keep coming back to is “how can I detect when people are learning?” (Corneli and Ponti, submitted). If I can see from what microscopic events people learn, then I ought to be able to engineer systems so that those kinds of events come up more frequently. This is very different from engineering a large-scale test at the end of the semester that asks people to sum up what they have learned. p. 52

Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany, in the “Knowledge Adaptation and Reasoning for Content” (KWARC) research group. p. 54

light-weight text analysis (e.g. using my current favorite algorithm for this, the Concept Forest algorithm p. 56

It is also interesting to look at how cultural formations like pedagogy or andragogy may suppress paragogical sense-making behavior. For example, consider the autocratic parent who says “it is like that because I say it is like that, and that is all you need to know”. Questioning or dissent won't work as a sense-making strategy in this sort of regime, or else it has to “go underground”. This brings to mind another type of questioning, aimed at discerning “paragogy” as an “exceptional” way of thinking and criticizing the regimes in power – something like the cloud of electrons around the nucleus of an atom. How do people form a sense-making network that opposes or goes beyond the “official” word; for example, consider how people might use Sina Weibo to generate new cultural formations despite censorship and blacklisting; or the historical example of Samizdat literature in the USSR. p. 57

Officiating Ice Hockey p. 58

1 Changing context as a decentered center. Save the Pedagogical seminar, the learning context is always changing for officials. Maybe it happens before or after the game in the referee room, maybe during the game when your partner tells you “You made the right call, but don't look the player in the eyes when you assess the penalty. Its too confrontational and can lead to more trouble.” Whenever it is if you want to learn your craft as an official part of it is knowing how to make learning spaces whenever you need one. Within that too, how you establish your learning context will be a big part of how effectively parties learn from one another. In the same situation mentioned earlier if the official had said “Right call, but you assessed the penalty like an idiot amateur.” Its likely the listener would not take the advice to heart, instead maybe get angry at the speaker and disregard the correct (albeit delivered poorly) point. Later in the game the criticized official may not tell his partner when he sees them doing something wrong, so the partner will have missed out on a learning opportunity. On the other hand if criticism can be delivered constructively by both parties learning can flow like water. p. 59

2 Meta-learning as a font of knowledge. Part of this comes from listening to more experienced officials. When you hear they keep a copy of the rules book by the commode and take notes every time they are in “the office”, you might laugh. Instead you should take the advice to heart. If that idea grosses you out, try reading it every day on your train ride to work. Point isn't to get you to read in an odd place, its that if you want to be a good official you gotta know the rule book inside and out. Furthermore you need to learn how to learn by watching. When your partner makes a call, pay attention. Whether they do it correctly or not, you can learn how to better do it yourself, or what to avoid when you are in the same situation. p. 59

3. Peers provide feedback that wouldn’t be there otherwise. One way this fits into officiating is seen in principle 1, another is that sometimes officials get lucky and get “officially” evaluated or mentored for a game. If they're evaluated, someone sits in the stands with a checklist of things to watch for. They take notes, then after the game come into the ref locker room and tell you what they saw: good points and points to improve. p. 59

Mentoring is for new officials, who are typically only allowed to do games for the younger ages. The two new officials do the game and another, higher level, official skates on the ice with them. The mentor is not supposed to actually make any calls, just be there on the ice and answer questions or give tips when necessary. p. 60

4. Learning is distributed and nonlinear. This is very true in reffing. I've been doing it for over 6 seasons and I learn something new every time I go on the ice. For example, even though I have been taught how to call icing every year at the seminar and then tested on it with the open book, only this year did I “hear” when they told me I should yell “Ice!” or “No Ice!” before I make/don't make the call. This seems superfulous, but its important to let everyone in the rink know what's happening and can avoid dangerous situations for players. I'm sure I was taught that every year, but only now am I implementing. I learned lots of more complex rule interpretations or ideas along the way, like the best way to communicate with an over excited coach (calmly) but missed this step, so my learning wasn't linear. p. 60

5. Realize the dream if you can, then wake up! The goal with reffing is to keep the game safe and fair. Officials first need to realize that is the goal, not being a tough guy with a whistle, and then do everything they can to achieve that difficult task: i.e. when a player tells you you're stupid and you give him a penalty for unsportsmanlike, don't watch him especially hard afterwards looking to make another call. That's not fair to him nor his team. Let go of your emotion and try to have a clear mind watching the subsequent events unfold. If you are able to have a fair and safe game, give yourself a high-5 and then wake up. Its time to start focusing on your next game and giving the same, if not a better performance. p. 60

“Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts” by Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, 1979), the reviewers are something like “alpha testers” or a focus group whose role is to see if the product is really fit for market. p. 60

Quick note on that last point: reading something written by someone else is actually probably not an example of Paragogoy, that's more andragogical. If you read it and then contact the author and then start learning from one another that'd be Paragogical, and/or if you discuss said work about teaching with peers that'd be Paragogical. Reading alone as I did wasn't Paragogical, but it was an important foundation of what I think about language teaching and how I talked about it with peers. p. 61

1. Changing context as a decentered center. I believe teaching English can be built from a logical and pedagogically sound base, which would most likely come from taking getting a Master's in the subject. I did not have that base, I started teaching with very little training and basically zero personal study of my own. That may sound reckless and irresponsible, but I was hired for the job and most of my fellow new teachers were in the same situation. Given that, there was no option, but to co-create a learning context with my peers. With my fellow foreign teachers it was established when we'd get together socially, and inevitably stories/concerns from the classroom would arise. We'd talk these out and learn from one another. With the local Japanese teachers of English (JTEs) we learned together (with them leading) in the irregular meetings we'd have preparing for our classes and in the classroom itself. p. 62

2. Meta-learning as a font of knowledge. The way I learned how to teach was trial by fire. I regularly took notes while teaching in Japan, but it wasn't till the next year in China that I made a post-class ritual of answering 3 questions: What did I do well? What could I have done better? and What did I learn? That method was lifted from a article my father found about “Trading Journals” suggesting financial traders should keep a daily journal including those questions above. And that if they didn't have time to review that journal at the end of the week, they didn't have time to be a good trader (need to find the source for this). Incorporating this into my teacher-research made me a far better teacher quicker. I still made mistakes all the time, but I feel I repeated them less than I do, say, in other areas of my life where I don't review as thoroughly. As weeks went by I was left with this long list of notes I would review before making that week's lesson plans and starting classes. Continuing that to a peer context I regularly discussed with my colleagues about my classroom. I got incredible feedback from them on handling uninterested students, useful classroom materials and more. One thing I also learned was sometimes with peers its important what you _don't_ get feedback on. There are instances where even though you may be confused about something, bringing it up and talking it over with colleagues who aren't quite aware of the context 'cause you're not really explaining it perfectly, and because they may offer advice just to be nice even if its not something they've tried in their own classrooms … at those times keeping your own counsel is likely best. So, part of learning how to learn is who you can learn with and how you can learn with them and when its best not to include them. p. 62

Gamelayers's Nethernet (Nnet) p. 66

University of Michigan's OER Bit (OERB) p. 66

The overarching framework would be Nnet, a firefox plug-in that is not on all the time, but which users can flip on when they want to “learn”. It keeps track of a user's progress around the internet, and allows them to create missions or other web activities for peers to complete. Thus, Nnet would track all their users time and history as they browse the web, allowing them to tack notes for themselves or others on a give web page. p. 66

Mary-Jane Eisen: Peer-Based Learning: A New-Old Alternative to Professional Development. Adult Learning, 12(1) pp. 9–10 (2001). p. 99