francesbell | Frances Bell

Knowledge Transfer: old wine in new bottles or how many contentious statements can I make in one blog post?

Punning Wine By Mike Knell (includes edited content from a comment I made to Stephen Downes blog post) I have been watching a ‘debate’ unfold over the weekend with increasing mystification. I even posted a couple of comments but I didn’t really feel that there was much idea exchange taking place. If you want to…

Looking backwards, looking forwards

I am on a bit of a “Back to the future” theme at the moment and so when I volunteered to interview for the current purposed campaign, I decide to do a bit looking back as well as forward. The instructions were: For our next campaign we want to you to spread the Purpos/ed message…

The Paradox of Openness: The High Costs of Giving Online

The following abstract is for a Symposium that will be presented at ALT-C 2011 by Frances Bell, Cristina da Costa, Josie Fraser, Richard Hall and Helen Keegan It is considered, eclectic and interesting and we hope it will attract rich discussion before during and after ALT-C 2011. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it,…

The purpose of education

Education, 1890, by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Tiffany Studios What is the purpose of education? Well, of course that raises more questions: What is education? I refer you to the stained glass window above see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_%28Chittenden_Memorial_Window or my interpretation that it is an activity involving serious angels and though which light can shine. Whose purpose…

International Women’s Day 2011 – make a small difference

International Women’s Day is on 8 March 2011. Although this day has been celebrated since 1910, there is always a danger that it provides a ‘warm glow’ moment and does not make any difference to what we do or think. Not aspiring to revolution #egypt style, and partially prompted (but not managed!) by Fred Garnett,…