A Visual Tilt-a-Whirl, a Carny Ride of Systems Thinking - Ride With Me

Terry Elliot, who I first met during the 2014 Making Learning Connected MOOC, posted this "Visual Tilt-a-Whirl" statement as an introduction to a July 19th Faceblook post. He included the graphic below, and a link to his blog, where he describes the graphic.

Terry's graphic was remixed in a blog article by Kevin Kodgson, which included a series of graphics created first by one writer, then the other. Then another #CLMOOC participant, Tania Sheko, used her blog to write a review of the interactions between Kevin and Terry, and showing how these were part of a series of visualizations presented this past week as part of the systems thinking discussion hosted by the CLMOOC.

One of the graphics Kevin produced during the week focused on race and poverty. I wrote about it last Saturday.

There have been so many articles and versions of graphics that I decided to create a few slides to share some of these and to show how my own participation is intended to connect my network, and people who are working on issues of poverty, education, workforce development, inequality, etc. to the CLMOOC and similar MOOCs that I've been part of.

So here's the first slide..

And here's the second...

And a third...

And a fourth...

And a fifth...note that in this slide I point to an article by Jeffrey Keefer, which took me on a deep dive into ACTOR NETWORK THEORY

In the sixth slide I express my hope that writers like Terry, Kevin, Tania and many others who are part of the CLMOOC, along with students in their classrooms, will look at the graphics I've created, and why I've created them, and that they'll use their own creativity to give new meaning, or attract new viewers, to these articles.

In a seventh slide I show that interns have been doing this type of work for the past 10 years.

I put these images on my Ning.com page, and added a collection of graphics from my collection, that I hope people will look at, think about, and try to re-mix in ways that the people in their own networks will look at the ideas and become personally engaged.


Find more photos like this on Tutor/Mentor Connection


I'm not as skilled a writer as many of the people I meet in these MOOCS, or who I point to in this list of blogs in the Tutor/Mentor Connection web library. I'm not a graphic artists, or a technology expert. Thus, the articles I've posted here and in other spaces since the early 2000s are like pebbles in the pond, intending to create ripples that attract others who will cast their own, heavier pebbles, into the same pond.

The graphic below was created more than a decade ago by someone I met in an on-line community, well before Facebook came into being. I'm still using it, in presentations like this, to illustrate how our collective efforts can cause greater ripples, and waves or response, than anything we can do on our own.

In the second slide above I point to this CLMOOC map. If you zoom into any of the major US cities, like Chicago where I'm from, you'll only see a few others on the map. This does not mean that people from these cities are not following or participating, but it does indicate that there are far more people who could be connecting and learning from each other than are now participating.

The MOOCs that I've been part of for the past three years focus on learning, looking for ways to more effectively engage k-12 learners. I focus on adult-learning, looking for ways to more effectively engage adults who don't live in poverty and who do live in poverty in deeper learning, reflection, and innovation, that creates and sustains strategies that reach youth in all high poverty neighborhoods with long-term programs that help more reach adult-hood safely, and with the skills, habits and networks that enable them to live their adult lives beyond the grasps of deep poverty.

These MOOCs are a model for such connectivity, and people like Terry, Kevin and many others who are spending time creating stories and visualizations, are examples of what others could also be doing.