Woodgate

messy, unstructured, human thinking spaces

Do you ever find yourself feeling everything is a little too polished these days? No wonder so many of us find it hard to actually put words down – metaphorical pen to paper – to work out what we actually want to say! Right now, so much of our digital world is perfect – beautiful people presenting the most wonderfully articulated and refined prose, no umms and errs, no false starts. Beautiful, robotic words and visuals. It just feels all a bit, well, unnatural. Sure, some things do need well-considered prose to ensure meaning is properly conveyed, but when we cut out all the thinking behind the message, it often makes things feel, well, a little soulless. 

We are already seeing the fruits of striving for perfection – ai tools can generate courses in a matter of minutes, with platforms like Articulate integrating ai seamlessly to get your courses out even quicker. But do we really need more courses just saying the same thing quicker? If they are all generated from ChatGPT, isn’t it easier to just ask Mr GPT directly? Even he will get exhausted soon. We’re all exhausted! Speed is great, but only if we use our newly freed-up time to think creatively about the next wave of human progress. Novelty. Innovation. Mess!

Many academics in HEIs have lamented a lack of critical thinking in their students. Ultimately, we are all guilty of nurturing this – using ChatGPT and copilot Bing to generate content for us, then perfectly packaging it up for extra easy digestion is taking some of the fun out of messy learning, seeing connections, getting lost in interesting topics with no real purpose other than just learning and formulating opinions and new ideas. Maybe a controversial view. But it is only through messy deep dives that we experience proper, exciting learning – sift through the chaff to make sense of stuff. We shouldn’t alway just present the answer – or even give the answer at all – rather pose questions to provoke new self-generated questions, to encourage messy, individual pathways to new thought and thinking. 

Recycling knowledge and presenting it in perfect packages is fine and serves purpose in some contexts, but in parallel we need to be encouraging newness. Not just taking content as a given but really critique it, pull it apart, add our own take und so weiter. How do we do this, I hear you ask? Especially at a time where the default course structure is self-paced, independent, no-tutor, no-feedback learning experiences? Well maybe we need to dust down some olds tech and constructivist (+ connectivist) approaches. Maybe blogs need a revival?!

However, old skool approaches to blogs, like diaries. Human musings – messy webs of thinking outloud and captured sparks. Not manicured intentionally for others to read (although we all like that endorphin hit!) but more to work out what the heck this digital world is all about now and where we want it to evolve next. Just a thought.

The barrier to entry on posting these days is so high – levels of anxiety are through the roof and imposter syndrome is as common as freckles! Maybe we need to push back on perfection and start posting unglamorous, unfiltered, real person stuff. Proper reflections. Proper conversations. Not pre-generated autofill. Just thoughtful reflections and human responses. We need to rekindle a fire in the belly of elearning. We should be annoyed that it’s all looking and reading and feeling the same. We need this to really question how we want to learn for ourselves (and our learners). Maybe blogs could be our gateway. What do you think?