Learning Design -1 Feedback 1

Stephen Downes commented on Learning Design -1 in today's OLDaily.

"Learning as the process of building an inner world which enables one to participate meaningfully in a community." I would be happier with 'growing' than 'building'. And 'environment' than 'community'. And I think 'inner world' and 'meaningful' need to be carefully specified, because they are, in my view, not rooted in language.

Stephen is a great thinker and I respect his opinion. Thank you.

Yes, I will change the definition to

Learning as the process of growing an inner world which enables one to participate meaningfully in a community.

I still keep "community" for the moment. More on that in my next Learning Design post where I will, hopefully, to make it clear why I use community (and also implies that we are members of multiple communities at the same time).

The notions of understanding, meaning and consciousness are difficult subjects which I would like to avoid for this piece. So I would like to keep "inner world" as it is and leave it as a "black box" without further explanation. Of course, if Stephen would like to be a co-author and expand on that.

"Participation" is a very general term and for the moment, I will still keep it that way. I may come back to change in a later version.

Language is an important part in this work and I will expand on this later.