All this talk about technology, learning, spaces and group collaboration reminded me of the twin concepts of "affinity groups" (Gee, 2007) and "affinity spaces" (Gee & Hayes, 2009) - whilst a lot of this phenomena is organically and naturally conceived under informal learning situations, might it not be slightly contrived under directed learning circumstances? I can see "strong affinity groups" developing under a shared interest and passion for "Battlestar Galactica". How might a randomly selected group form over the shared responsibility of an assignment or project? Would they not develop as a "weak affinity group"? i.e. the group breaks up after the joint assignment is completed.

The most interesting part of the day was on the train journey back to Canterbury from Oxford. My boss was reading some papers as part of his masters and showed me a line that reminded me of a wonderfully quotable passage from Lawy (2006, p. 327, citing Biesta, 2004) that I used as part of my "Understanding Learning in the Online Environment" module assignment:

"Education … is a matter of risk, trust and violence that cannot be reduced to an economic transaction. Learning is a dangerous and risky enterprise that necessarily involves some challenge to existing shibboleths and ideas, and is not something that can be planned or linked with specific and intended behavioural outcomes or objectives."

At the heart of good learning, for me and my boss at least, are those four horsemen of education: risk, trust, violence and serendipity. Youenn Leborgne (2009) writes a lovely piece in his blog about making mistakes, which most of us can relate to and beautifully encapsulates these four elements.

From my own fumblings with playing with Agatha Christie's "Death on the Nile", "Lost" and Clive Barker's "Jericho" on the PC and "Fantastic Contraption", "Four Pro", "Blocked", "Asphalt 4: Elite Racing", "FSS Hockey" and "Cro-Mag Rally" on the Apple iPod Touch where I have succeeded through trial and error with the occasional flashes of pure luck and chance.

I have taken risks by having to deal with virus-infected servers - having to learn quickly once thrown in the deep end (especially as viruses were quite a new phenomena in the late 1980s / early 1990s). There have been periods of pure serendipity from chance encounters to chance readings. The violence has come from the shifting of ideas and knowledge and those once-in-a-blue-moon revelationary thoughts. Much of my real learning has been informal (i.e. self taught), situated (i.e. on the job) and experiential (i.e. hands on).

What becomes of those learners who do not take risks; who do not trust their teachers or peers; who are afraid of having world view blown apart; and who fail to see happy accidents that can occur right under their noses? What becomes of their learning and what they have learnt?

References

Gee, J.P. & Hayes, E. (2009). Public Pedagogy through Video Games. Game Based Learning. [online]. Available at: http://www.gamebasedlearning.org.uk/content/view/59/ [Accessed 7 April 2009] 

Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy (Revised and Updated Edition). New York, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lawy, R. (2006). Connective learning: young people’s identity and knowledge-making in work and non-work contexts. British Journal of Sociology in Education, 27(3), pp 325-340.

Leborgne, Y. (2009). IDGBL - Learning online. Holyrood Park blog. [online]. Available at: http://holyroodpark.net/youenn/weblog/2101.html [Accessed 7 April 2009].

It's astonishing to learn that for such a "simple" concept of "play", or at least perceived by many to be a "simple" concept, has academics from a multitude of disciplines trying to place "play" within some framework or other - indeed, I don't recall any of the theorists mentioned by Sutton-Smith taking an holistic and all-encompassing view of "play"; this is something that Sutton-Smith (1997, p. 6) sees as a weakness and Kane (2005, p. 40) also picks up on when he talks about the "third culture" or polymathism ("Homo Universalis") before the arts and sciences had a parting of the ways. I was also intrigued by Sutton-Smith's view that play "has temporal diversity as well as spatial diversity" when he talks about the likes of the World Cup and the Olympics. Sutton-Smith (1997, p. 9) offers "seven rhetorics", which Kane (2005, p.39) describes as:

"...ways of thinking and talking about play that express a certain vision of human nature and culture, and which can be deployed by everyone from teachers to generals, hackers to CEOs ... [which] imply both a very modern and a very ancient vision of humanity."

The "seven rhetorics" are:

1. The rhetoric of play as progress
2. The rhetoric of play as fate
3. The rhetoric of play as power
4. The rhetoric of play as identity
5. The rhetoric of play as the imaginary
6. The rhetoric of play as the self
7. The rhetoric of play as frivolous

Kane (2005, p. 48) makes an interesting statement whereby he says "the moment of play is identified as a generator of originality, energy and new development" that made me think of Google's European offices in Zurich and the "Homo Ludens" that occupy it.

Kane's "manifesto" is about a lifestyle, an attitude, a state of mind, a way at looking at the world and the people and artifacts in it that strips away the rigidity and drudgery that has been hampered by a mechanistic, industrial mindset of the Victorian age. Education is still built around this hidden curriculum of "preparing people for the workforce".

There's this wonderful allusion to Jean-Dominique Bauby's "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" where Kane (2005, p. 46) quotes surrealist Luis Bunuel: "Somewhere between chance and mystery lies the imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom". Bauby suffered a massive stroke that left him with a condition called locked-in syndrome (the diving bell) and would use his imagination (the butterfly) to escape his biological prison.

Both Sutton-Smith and Kane position play not as a "trivial, frivolous, silly" waste of time; but as a powerful, natural human asset for learning and discovery through highly creative and imaginative interactions with the world and the people who live in it. Whilst the games industry has shown how people can become immersed in the world of games and are developing skills through experimentation, practice and from other players, so now Education needs to look at this phenomena and translate this into practical, everyday use fit for a classroom be it real or virtual.

Update

Have just learnt that Pat Kane is one half of the late 1980s, early 1990s pop duo Hue and Cry and maintains a blog called "The Play Ethic" and is using Twitter to share his thoughts and resources around his concept of the play ethic.

References

Gee, J.P. (2007). What Video Games Have To Teach Us About Learning And Literacy (Revised and Updated Edition). New York, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kane, P. (2005). The Play Ethic: A Manifesto for a different way of living. London: Pan.

Sutton-Smith, B. (1997). The Ambiguity of Play. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.