Cluetrain Book Study

5:20 PM

For those of you interested in further exploring the educational implications of “knowledge as conversation” and other aspects of Dave Weinberger’s book (with Chris Locke, Rick Levine, and Doc Searls), The Cluetrain Manifest, John Pederson is organizing a summer online book study. Here is his announcement e-mail which came across on June 11, 2005.

This quote came across my aggregator a few minutes ago.

“Knowledge is literally a matter of conversation. It’s disagreement with people who stretch you. Knowledge is the continuing conversation, not the result of it.”

David Weinberger – The Natural Shape of Knowledge (Last Night’s Keynote [6/10/2005] at the Reboot 7.0 Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark)

This gets at the core of throwing a “Cluetrain + Education” online book study. It’s about a conversation. A conversation intended to stretch our thinking about the role of this new technology in education.

A few “administrative” tidbits.

1) If you plan on ordering a copy of The Cluetrain Manifesto, I suggest you hop on it soon. $5.00 through Amazon.com. The entire text is available online as well.

2) The “study” officially starts on June 27th. Forward this message to your friends, colleagues, or complete strangers. http://pedersondesigns.com/moodle/login/index.php is where they can register.

3) I just assigned everybody with “Facilitator” access. This gives you the chance to kick the tires in Moodle a bit. This course is 1) a conversation, 2) about a book, 3) using tools. I’m not the only one to a) facilitating online conversation, b) deconstruct the contents of the book, therefore, why not give everybody access to manipulate c) the tools. :O) I setup a “Sandbox” area for people to build their castles, then destroy them. If you build a very good one, please feel free to move it out of the sandbox. If you have new ideas, share them!!! The real power of this experience will be what people add to it.

Be good.

:: John Pederson