Six degrees of separation

The course has started today and in the first few posts I am reminded by the 'six degrees of separation' activity that I first did on the Foundations of Communities of Practice Workshop with Etienne Wenger. The idea is that each of us is connected to any other person on the planet through just five other people. This is quite a well known activity now - but I can remember clearly the first time I tried it on Etienne's international workshop. It was amazing how relatively easy it was to find conceptual or social connections with five other people to lead to the person with whom we had been paired up.

On this course I can already see this in action - connections with people I don't know. It's what makes online courses so interesting - the fact that we can make these connections with people we will probably never meet.

Source of image: http://dahni.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/6degrees.png?w=400&h=350

Spirituality and reflective learning

Tonight my son (33 years old) phoned me. He had decided that I needed checking up on, since my husband is away. I told him that I was quite capable of looking after myself and that I had spent the day on a wonderful  walk in the Lake District. I can't quite remember how we got on to the question of spirituality, but at one point my son told me that he didn't think I was very spiritual - at which point I felt I needed to tell him that I regard walking in the Lakes on a fine day (not to mention numerous other activities I am involved in), as an awe inspiring and spiritual experience. Having said that, I'm not sure exactly what spiritual means. And I am now thinking about how this relates to the reflective experience.

Back again

Although I only write to this blog when tutoring on this particular course, I enjoy returning to it. I like the fact that I always try to find an image to go with each post in this blog, which I don't do with my other more outward facing blog (Jenny Connected: http://jennymackness.wordpress.com/)

To find this image I simply put 'back again' into Google images and up popped this wonderful piece of art work, with this equally fascinating associated text:

Point A to point B, then back again. Collect point C and then back again. Point C is an image of the space between points A and B. On returning from point B to point A you look at point C, at exactly half way between points A and B, James Ireland

This and the image resonate strongly with some research that I am doing with an online colleague to explore how we make connections with people we don't know online. What is it that sparks off the initial connection? In our discussions we have talked a lot about what we call 'beyond verbal' communication, and since we don't see each other and in fact have never met, for us this doesn't mean gestures, facial expressions etc. that we usually associate with non-verbal for face-to-face communication. I have found the discussions we have been having to be deeply reflective and so it will be interesting to work on this course at the same time as working with my online colleague.

Source of Image: http://www.contemporaryartsociety.org.uk/media/uploads/2009/07/2345/15-jamesirelandpointatopointb-2007-jpg.jpg