My last post was a recap of the “At the Scale of Care” presentation Lauren Heywood and I gave at the mighty OER20. A few days ago Lauren posted her own take on the presentation, and I really appreciated how her take dug in much more than mine on the limits and possibilities of the house metaphor to explain and explore Domain of One’s Own. Here is a small piece form Lauren’s insightful and nuanced take on the metaphor:
My understanding of what is known as the house metaphor is a house as a tool to understand how web addresses, websites and web hosting relate to one another. This metaphor can then be extrapolated further to explain that an individual needs to have some initial understanding of the “web-based plumbing, electric, interior design, etc.” if they are to make spaces on the Web and to make them “liveable”.
Once an individual has built understanding of how the Web works and how they can start building their own spaces, including making them “liveable”, it is at this point that the individual can build confidence and agency to realise the potential of Domains initiatives as relates to Virgina Woolf’s arguments in ‘A Room of One’s Own’ (1929).
For me that’s where the metaphor ends.
I really love the way Lauren understands the broader vision of Domains as always already a project in providing possibility to students and instructors alike to build the web. It’s a mission, not a metaphor. So, I asked Lauren if she would be interested in having a follow-up discussion about the house metaphor for Domains on the mighty #ds106radio (always be branding, people!).
Prepare yourselves #ds106radio https://t.co/G99wyM7IWb
— Lauren (@LaurenHeywood) April 8, 2020
She agreed, and two days ago we had an hour long discussion that was pretty awesome. I know the great David Kernohan was tuned in…
@BryanAlexander – "he kind of looks like Rasputin", "I like him, I like his style", "unapologetically goth" – NOBODY gives compliments like @jimgroom on #ds106radio
— @dkernohan@bluesky.social (@dkernohan) April 8, 2020
And it was awesome to see my old, dear friend Shannon Hauser who is now an instructional technologist running Domains at UMW was tuned in. My worlds combined in some beautiful ways at that moment, and the radio was good!
@jimgroom @LaurenHeywood Thanks for the great conversation! Would love to hear from you all again. Lauren, you definitely have a voice for radio. Jim, you have the face for radio 😉 #ds106radio
— Shannon (@shauser) April 8, 2020
So, in the interest of trying to both preserve and share some of the radio magic that’s been happening for me these last days, weeks, and soon months, here is a recording of that discussion.
I hope it encourages folks like Lauren Heywood, Alex Masters, and Shannon Hauser (a sampling of the next generation of edtech) to get on the radio, whether ds106radio or their own international broadcasting network. And we need to do the same at Reclaim Hosting with our ridiculously talented group inclusing Lauren Brumfield, Meredith Fierro, Chris Blankenship, Gordon Hawley, and Katie Harcraft. This is not a time for the established edtech thought leaders (and I have to incriminate myself here) to suck up oxygen, but to lift up the folks who will have to make sense of this field when the dust settles and the work on the ground still needs to be done. I hope we can build more inclusive, diverse networks that strive for that rather than self-serving platforms for the next Gates Foundation funding opportunity.
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