Month: March 2022

What wowed me this week comes from Chapter 6 of the assigned reading, Developing Personal Learning Networks for Open and Social Learning. The author states that most educators who are members of FOSS communities are “strongly influenced” by the “dominant philosophical views” in said communities. While this does not necessarily surprise me, I chose it as my Wow for the week because the influence of these communities is really interesting and intriguing.

My weekly wonder comes from the same idea–why are FOSS communities so influential? The article implies that they are more influential than other sources of information or community that educators may use. I have to wonder why this is; is it because the views in these communities are so strong? Is it because they emphasize things that make sense, like sharing and openness? I think that these are really important things to people, but I know that there are other things that encourage and foster openness as well. Perhaps it is because FOSS communities put such a strong emphasis on these principles that they are so influential.

My wow for this week:

The statement from the Russian Embassy in Canada is rather startling. I knew that there was and has been a misinformation campaign going on, but to see such blatant lies stated was shocking to say the least.

My wonder for this week:

Mike Caulfield’s four moves article (https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves/) is the source of my wonder for the week. It is unfortunately easy to accept what we read online, especially if the source appears reputable at first glance. I know that we would all do well to remember that we need to search out a reliable source rather than accepting the first source that reaches us. We also have to consider why a certain source might be the one that reached us–this could go back to the ampliganda topic that was touched on last week. All of this has me wondering how many things I have read and taken for the truth that were, in fact, not the truth. I try not to simply believe everything I read, but I know that it happens, so I am wondering this week about the frequency. And I definitely will be even more cautious now.