Using writing and annotation to discuss identity is impactful. It helps ground the discussion in the writing making it more accessible to discuss difficult things.

I love thinking of the classroom as so many systems and identities interacting. And how we play a part with each other.

I think that having students write in their environment, not just the computer environment, helps bring them into the virtual room.

My son was reading my screen while I was writing a class announcement one night as we sat by the fire (he is 12). He commented, "that is rude, mum!" And so we started talking and I reread the emails. He shared that they are not going to like the bullet points. Rereading . . . so helpful. And of course, in house consultation is helpful too.

Let's add Hypothes.is to the list!

Asking this simple question, really helps ground me into the intention of my communication . . . hence what I really need to say and how.

I like to think about how we "talk" in online courses, especially asynchronous courses? Are we talking in places that we think are silent? Are we communicating in ways that do not include words? We are you talking?

I think this is important to address as “professional development” is not rewarded at most universities and not seen as essential. The narrative around research being the primary focus is still very strong in addition to “born teachers”. Both discount the need for investment in teaching and learning centers and development resulting in status quo offerings.

It is complex and difficult, but why is this a bad thing or something to avoid? What does the other "easy way" offer or change? Does it really make it easier to standardize education? To create tests that "measure" student and faculty success? I don't see this as easier or simpler. In fact, these tests have been created, LMSs created, and yet still students fail and drop out, systems remain underfunded, teachers unsupported, and on and on and on.

Why do we continue to want to control and measure education when it is not improving our students lives rather only our ability to measure them.

Teaching is complex, learning is difficult, and the push and pull of standardization is part of the process. There are parts of the LMS and ID that I love and that nurtures my idea of liberatory education and accountability to change. Sp I think it is more of BOTH AND with a side of IT DEPENDS.

This brings me back to the last piece we annotated around improvisation. When improvising together - there is inquiry . . . a note or two is played as an invitation, a beat is laid, a riff floated . . . the inquiry is answered as an invitation. There then is a wild game of experimentation, listening, feedback, flow, and error. Thus follows an emergence of something new and different.

But with an improvisation, it is having the tools and space, to do this. Playing in an orchestra - there is not much room for improvisation as your part fits together with other parts. There is amazing connection that occurs, give and take, passing on the thread, but the notes are played as written on the score. Vs. Playing in a band where the notes are not down on the page, however there is a chord structure and an expectation that you play for 8 measures - but within the 8 measures you are creating something all your own. Vs. Creating free jazz - where the canvas is almost completely empty - except for the instruments which we play.

What type of environments are we creating and music are we playing in our online learning? What does it look like to give enough structure to improvise? And to what learner outcomes, successes, or discoveries.

As we try to understand our world, we standardize, we theorize, and we codify to make sense of complex concepts, horrors, relationships, political figures and much more. And even better if we can standardize and measure it . . . then we can prove it and in our wildest dreams control it. I hear fantasies of, "If I could only diagnose and understand our current president than somehow that diagnosis would help this chaos and hate make sense".

However, this is not life. No matter how much we can standardize, diagnosis or measure, the hate still will not make sense. Life is messy and we live in the gray.

To me this is the lure of the LMS, Quality Matters, and other "standardizing" technologies. It creates order and measurement in an otherwise chaotic, dynamic, and measurable world. So with the standardizing, we may avoid pain, students searching for our content or a test for 20 minutes, someone turning in the wrong assignment in the wrong place . . . however, we also lose the joy and mystery of learning, improvising, messing up, seeing ourselves, and connecting.

How do we leave room for the human in our LMS world?

I have been wondering about this in my role as support/teacher for our online affiliate instructors. How do to create "improvisational" training, expectation, and community within the instructors teaching our courses? Co-creation, error, intense listening, intentional responding, flow, and doing it all over again.

With music there are common building blocks for improvisation - what are the building blocks that I need to scaffold into my teaching that prepares and allows for improvisation of both instructors and students.

Before I came back to school to teach, I was a family therapist working with kids, mainly teenagers, and their families. This word, relentless, was one that I relied on to maintain hope and to live. And here I find it again, just as refreshing. Exploring to that open window, even if just a crack, in a students mind or a department's culture that leads to a new or deeper understanding of what we are learning together is how I live "relentless". Having to return over and over again, exploring the old to discover the new.