1.1 Self
This book is based on a doctoral study that sought to develop a method of knowledge construction that could be appropriate to embrace the complexity of the twenty-first century world. Boulton et al. (2015) argue: ‘Complexity at its essence is not a model or method or metaphor, it is a description of the way things are’ (p. 27). The perpetual technological changes of the modern era provoke even more complexity, ‘messiness, variation, diversity and fluctuation’ (p. 26). In such conditions, knowledge of the Self appears to be foundational to all other types of knowledge. People must know the Self to address the turbulent circumstances and variety of content with which today’s technology bombards our global village. Self-reflective knowledge opens one’s eyes to recognising the possibility of and constructing a path through the shifting sands of what only recently appeared to be the bedrock of life. Seeing the path, one gains confidence and resilience with which to meet the changeability of existence. What they also discover is that their pathways are threads, tightly interwoven into the fabric of their environment, circumstances and the paths of others.
It is only through taking a walk and weaving the way for each new step that people enter true communion with the physicality of their surroundings. Through experiencing and reflecting, people develop a conception of other minds and begin to act with appreciation of other travellers both near, far and unknown. The Self and Others are the dynamic forces that stitch through the fabric of reality, spin and clash in the virtual tapestry of minds, continuously forging new patterns.
After spending the last few years studying the literature concerned with new directions in education, I could not help noticing the recurring pattern of the emphasis on the term ‘self’. For example, in relation to learning and knowledge production, such terms as: ‘self-taught’ (Thomas and Seely Brown 2011); ‘self-representational’, ‘self-reflexive’, ‘self-authored’, ‘self-produced’ (Potter 2012); ‘self-creating’, ‘self-transformative’, ‘self-governing’, ‘self-autonomous’, ‘self-generative’, ‘self-motivating’, ‘self-realising’, ‘self-monitoring’, ‘self-paced’ (Kalantzis and Cope 2012; Cope and Kalantzis 2015); ‘self-regulative’, ‘self-organising’ (Boulton et al. 2015), ‘self-blending’, ‘self-directed’, ‘self-controlled’ (Bull 2017), and so on, are frequently encountered.
This orientation towards a self-prefix may suggest a scholarly consensus that in searching for the new approaches to learning, the Self requires a revised position in a number of ways. This also implies that the informal learning of everyday life has already taken care of this important aspect of Self in a going-without-saying way, while in institutionalised education, the Self keeps knocking at the door with little to show for it. Formal education still alienates the Self from learning and ‘does not fully engage the identity, interests and motivations of the learner’ (Kalantzis and Cope 2012, p. 51).
1.2 Human/Technology Enmeshment
In the last twenty years, rapid advances in technology have caused a dramatic transformation in the dynamics of experiential structures. The traditionally constructed, carefully crafted practices and social categories that survived for centuries have entered into the zone of turbulence, and the traditional meanings of many practices have been challenged. The practice of reflexive self-identity’s interpretation is one of those. It has acquired new technological tools, a modified context and an altered perspective. This situation exemplifies Marx’s premise, as interpreted by Leontiev (1978), that through contact with the tools and objects of their activities, people ‘test their resistance, act on them, acknowledging their objective properties’ and change themselves.
Today, the learner is presented with digital tools as personalised means of knowledge production in the context of everyday life learning. Like breathing warm air on a frozen window, the screens of computers and mobile devices ‘thaw’ portals and reveal a vision focused much further than the immediate surrounding. Providing people with facts, perspectives, instructions for activities, and links to the networks of their personal interests, the portals of new vision form personalised systems of consciousness that reconnect individuals with their innate virtues. Advanced opportunities excite new curiosity, foster new motivations and encourage new participation in weaving new patterns of knowledge. Within the formally organised system of education with a deliberately designed curriculum and ‘centralised and hierarchical control of educational institutions and the knowledge they distribute’ (Kalantzis and Cope 2012, p. 284), the personalised conscious portal systems are rendered irrelevant.
This can be described in terms of Marx’s (1844) theory of alienated labour, where he sees the product of labour being objectified—‘labour’s realisation is its objectification’ (loc. 1250). In this way, learning realisations can also be seen as their objectification. That is, the learner embodies the product of their learning into an output that is exchanged for the grades they earn by passing their standardised tests. The product of learning therefore becomes a commodity, whose production is chiefly motivated by the need to be sold for the required points that will determine the learner’s further progression. This concept can be encapsulated into the notion, ‘pass and forget’. As Kincheloe and Steinberg write (1998): ‘Once the test is over most students no longer have any use for such information and quickly forget it’ (p. 5). The product of learning will only be remembered if it has further practical application in real life. Otherwise, the realisation of learning ‘appears as loss of reality’ (Marx 1844, loc. 1250), decontextualised information that holds no significance to the learner (Kincheloe and Steinberg 1998, p. 5). Such learning, Girox (2011) asserts, ‘celebrates rote learning, memorisation, and high-stakes testing, while it produces an atmosphere of student passivity and teacher routinisation’ (p. 10). Learning loses its intrinsic value because the numerical appraisal is its ultimate aim. The learner becomes more interested in generating an impressive numerical ‘account’ rather than being the producer of personally authentic practical knowledge.
1.3 Alienated Learning
As a rule, in traditional education, the learner begins their project with sources and materials constructed not from their immediate environment, daily interactions, or interests but from someone else’s abstraction of reality. These outside notions, sets of ideas, skills and techniques reflect someone’s belief about what the learner should master in the domain of knowledge. Thus, the situation of the learner’s estrangement from their learning projects begins from being fed by someone else’s idea of what the learner should know about the world they inhabit.
Marx (1844) states: ‘The worker can create nothing without nature, without the sensuous external world. It is the material on which his labour is manifested, in which it is active, from which and by means of which it produces’ (loc. 1279). If we replace the word ‘worker’ with the word ‘learner’, we can say that mainstream formal learning occurs outside of being part of the sensuous external world. The experience of being in the world is abstracted and embodied into artificially resourced materials from which, and by means of which, the learner acquires their knowledge.
Marx argues: ‘The direct relationship of labour to its produce is the relationship of the worker to the objects of his production’ (loc. 1298). Again, it can be said that the direct relationship of learning to its product is the relationship of the learner to the objects of their learning. The learner learns in order to pass a test with the goal of exchange the product of their learning for grades. For standardised testing, the learner’s personal interests, applied effort, curiosity, risk-taking, and innovative tendencies, as well as the ability to construct their own knowledge, is not only unnecessary but counterproductive. Within the confines of the traditional curriculum and standardised testing, the relationship between the learner and their essential creative forces can be characterised as estranged.
Marx continues: ‘If then the product of labour is alienation, production itself must be active alienation, the alienation of activity, the activity of alienation’ (loc. 1312). In comparing this to formal education, it can be said that the learner is in the position of alienating their learning from their own self, similar to the worker described by Marx, who faces ‘the product of his activity as a stranger […] Its alien character emerges clearly in the fact that as soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, labour is shunned like the plague’ (loc. 1312). In contemporary education, this can be compared to school breaks and holiday homework, which is usually seen as a grievous misfortune.
1.4 Reconnected Learning
The digital revolution has brought about a change in position between power-holding institutions, teachers and individual learners alike and levelled them into the same category in terms of their possessing the means of knowledge-production. This is a historically unique circumstance that has caused a shift in the agency of knowledge-production processes, spreading it evenly between the three main actor-groups: society, teachers and learners. In this regard, the task of digital literacy, as an educational discipline, must be oriented not only towards the development of technological skills and the accumulation of a variety of attractive learning proficiencies but also to the historical-sociocultural alterations that are at work at every junction of contemporary life. This leads to challenging the deeply ingrained attitude with which people have traditionally viewed education: learning the existing symbolic systems of certain disciplines and then expressing themselves strictly within the operational modes of these systems.
This book proposes that by virtue of having the means and tools of accessing data and constructing symbols, literally ‘at hand’, the learner can now find ways of expressing him/herself in his/her own way. In doing so, the learner can invent his/her own multidisciplinary, multimodal and uniquely personal systems of knowing and sharing knowledge. This can be termed as a reconnected learning, where the learner reconnects the ways of learning with the ways of being.
In the context of reconnected learning, self-reflexivity gains significant educational value. The process requires Self: an agent, the specific continuity across time and space embedded in a particular complexity ‘of shifting contexts’ as described by Giddens, as well as a method of converting experience into embodied meaning. According to Maturana and Varela (1998), ‘every reflection, including one of the foundations of human knowledge, invariably takes place in language’ (p. 26). This book proposes stepping ‘outside the box’ of verbal language and exploring the reflection(s) conducted through verbal and other symbolic systems, or modes of expression. Thus, self-agency is given an autonomous mode of operation that is aligned with the agent’s individual abilities, skills and interests.
In an attempt to grasp the complexity of the lived world, incorporation of a notion of typography as a movie projector (McLuhan’s 1962) with bricolage as a research method (Lévi-Strauss 1962), gave rise to a methodology of multimodal or cinematic bricolage . It has emerged from enmeshing of collecting and interpreting data ‘by means of heterogeneous repertoire’, characterised by ‘tinkering’ with whatever resources are available with the narration by overtonal montaging (Eisenstein 1949) used in film production.
Compared to a craftsman, the bricoleur does not start his/her work by obtaining the necessary materials and an appropriate set of tools and then developing skills of the trade step by step. The bricoleur engages him/herself by deciphering messages hidden in the objects, activities or concepts, or bricoles , that are inherent in his/her present environment or situation. The process of decoding the messages leads to weaving a web of calculated communication between other assorted elements that are also within reach in the immediate surroundings. This process can present the bricoleur with moments of great surprise and excitement at recognising ‘a dialog’ being developed between previously unrelated elements, or bricoles.
For example, iPhone and iPad were used for recording ‘grasps of reality’—such as, for instance, sparks on the water and schools of tiny fish darting under them—to be incorporated later into the text. It was rather surprising to see how those seemingly discordant life-moments found their integral ‘voice’ in the ensembles of multimodal compositions. Samples from personal collections of photographs and old documents were scanned, fragments of the songs from the past were knitted together with the symbolisations of the present life events. Personal recordings from direct life-experiences were enmeshed with the elements drawn from diverse internet resources: Kindle, YouTube, social media sites, websites, blogs and so on. The data was synthesised and modelled into the cinematic texts. This is a method in which alphabetic writing was used as a ‘canvas’ into which other semiotic modes of expression—images, sounds and motion—were integrated. In the study, it was identified as cinematic writing , that is writing with images, sounds and motions. Cinematic writing is a multimodal form of expression in which informational and emotional weight is distributed between the modes of expression according to the individual intentions, tendencies, interests and skills of the producer.
Due to categories such as ‘numerical representation’, ‘automation’, ‘modularity’ and ‘variability’, as identified by Manovich (2002), digital media catalysed what Manovich (2013) termed ‘new cultural logic at work’, that is, a ‘deep remixability ’ (p. 289). As a result, this deep remixability of cinematic bricolage is conducive to endless hybridisation, reflecting the specifics of the task and disposition of the producer of the study by accommodating their ‘sociological imagination’ (Mills 1959). The sociological imagination in this book is the thread that weaves individual personalities into a fabric of broader natural, sociocultural, and technological circularities: ripplework.
The development of the Ripples model was inspired by the recognition of the present need to rethink contemporary education and a desire to join a strong current of attuned voices calling for such a revision (Buckingham 2007; Kolb 2011; Thomas and Brown 2011; Potter 2012; Martinez and Stager 2013; Jewitt et al. 2016; Livingstone and Sefton-Green 2016; Jefferson and Anderson 2017; Bull 2017; Gee 2017 and many others). These pronounced calls for change are commonly associated with the transformational potential of digital technologies that influence dramatic changes in the world around us, while schools remain largely unchanged (Jefferson and Anderson 2017). This is not to imply that technology is ignored in schools but to suggest that in its ontology, digital media cannot be perceived in linear terms, while education is still largely structured in keeping with linear thinking.
Building on a vision of dynamic ripplework, the learning model presented in this text encompasses such operational dimensions as critical self-reflection, multimodal communication, collaboration, distributed agency and DIY creativity. The Ripples approach to learning adopts the assumption of systemic-constructivist theory, which holds that ‘there is little sense in thinking in a linear-casual way because everything is circularly connected; whatever happens manifests itself in utterly entangled chains of effect’ (Poerksen 2004, loc. 2753). Framing digital technologies within the dominant linearity of traditional education therefore creates a misalignment that becomes profoundly evident in the light of ‘cybernetics and other systems sciences’ that transform ‘our understanding of living systems […] and we begin to pay attention to feedback effects and processes of self-organisation’ (Stierlin 2004, loc. 2763).
Cinematic bricolage is framed within the process of digital representation considered through the lens of feedback loops and effects of self-organisation. Through their study of the phenomenon of self-organisation, Maturana and Varela (1998) categorised living beings within their environment as autonomous autopoietic unities. ‘A system is autonomous if it can specify its own laws, what is proper to it’ (p. 48). The mechanism that makes living beings autonomous is autopoiesis (p. 48). Autopoiesis, according to Maturana and Varela, is the recursive self-reproduction of a living system through its own elements according to its interaction with a larger circuitous system.
The mechanism of autopoiesis is examined in correlation with Piaget’s (1950) concept of cognitive adaptation . Autopoietic unity resulting from structural coupling , that is, recurrent interactions between a system and its environment, is considered as corresponding with Piaget’s notion of an individual achieving equilibrium with the given circumstances by changing their actions, that is, by learning.
This text presents the Ripples model as a multimodal learning methodology. Multimodality in the context of cinematic bricolage is a deep remixability system. If Manovich defines deep remixability as remix of the elements from heterogeneous categories and domains associated with digital productions, a deep remixability system of cinematic bricolage expands further. Its remixability embraces actions, experiences, observations, conceptions, techniques, materials, tools, expressions and representations derived from the surrounding physical world and intertwined with the same categories of simulated digital virtuality. Thereby, the agency of a producer—that is, the producer’s ability to act towards the purpose of an intended knowledge production—is cultivated through an appreciation of the holistic conception of reality. In this regard, I suggest that the Ripples model is a rigorous practice that can provoke ‘epistemological curiosity’ by engaging the agent’s personal associations with such factors as their family’s heritage, cultural traditions, closest relationships, immediate natural environment, individual interests and so on.
The Ripples learning is rooted in the idea that the learning process is not confined to schooling but is an inseparable part of existence. ‘Knowing’ belongs to life and this book is an attempt to reconnect it with the idea of being. The methods of knowledge production—exploring, recording, representing, making meaning of and sharing human experiences—have been fundamentally transformed through the infusion of digital technologies into all aspects of human activity.
For the processes of knowledge making, the privatisation of digital tools as the means of production alters the perception of a knower’s agency, giving them the opportunity to be at the centre of their learning activities. This book both theorises and exemplifies cinematic bricolage in its layout and forms of expression. It shows how cinematic bricolage reconnects, empowering the individual with a sense of personal identity and responsibility and helping shape more aware social citizens.
The Ripples model is seen as an approach to learning that catalyses a move away from fragmentality and uniformity towards the individual customisation and privatisation of knowledge. By being endowed with the opportunity to customise for oneself, the acts of representing and creating have been expressed in a do-it-yourself (DIY) culture.
Similarly, as in other areas of modern life, digital technology has also remodelled and redirected the DIY movement. DIY is no longer a transparent home-improvement practice to save money but is a culture of an individual presence and personal power where one’s voice can be heard globally and in an instant. DIY is a new counterculture that can be seen as stating: ‘I am same like others but also different from the rest’. The contemporary DIY ethic seeks to inaugurate autonomy for individuals who personally elaborate their knowledge based on a personal ‘clear-cut’. Individuals organise themselves into networks not in accordance with their geographic locations but globally in conformity with their idiosyncrasies.
In promoting DIY learning, the Ripples model cultivates a sense of personal agency. ‘When the student is given agency over the task, they can decide for themselves if something is a mistake, a detour, or maybe a new path’ (Martinez and Stager 2013). Understanding your own mistakes and finding a detour or a new path assists students’ ability to make, evaluate and act on their decisions. In other words, it provides them with possibilities to exercise their agency, which allows them to learn to be responsible individuals, ‘able to join with others on an equal basis in the production and reproduction of social relations’ (Giddens 1991, p. 58). A competent agent trusts in him/herself and feels in control of unpredictable circumstances of the social ‘context that has moved beyond the certainties of normality’ (Jefferson and Anderson 2017, p. 9).
The growth of agency through involvement with cinematic bricolage and its DIY approach reveals another value considered within the intertwined structures of the natural, social and digital dimensions. From this perspective, the bricoleur positions him/herself at the intersection of the three dimensions, and in the flow of learning experience, he/she does not exclude or give dominance to any of these dimensions. According to my personal observations, this aspect gains urgency in the sense that in collecting data for their learning projects or representations, students progressively resort to comprehensive and easily accessible Internet data rather than drawing on their own physical or social experiences as primary resources. This growing dependence on an artificially constructed world of compiled facts and memories and, as a result, the increasing disregard for the immediacy and richness of physical and social surroundings appears to represent an evident threat to human agency. The advancement of agency, that is, the capacity for active participation in knowledge construction, drawing on personal, physical and social spaces and experiences, with the incorporation of digital technology as a means of production, represents not only the technicality of the methodology but also the ethical stance undertaken by the cinematic bricolage approach.
In the Ripples model, digital media is a set of production tools, some of which have become mobile and always ‘at hand’. They travel through physical spaces together with the knowledge producer and are present at various social events and situations. They can be defined ‘by [their] potential use […] because the elements [that] are collected [with them] or retained [are retained] on the principle that they may always come in handy’ (Lévi-Strauss 1962, p. 18). To have a set of production tools at hand, that is, available and affordable, is a historically novel opportunity that allows learners to participate in knowledge production processes in a unique way. They are able to reconnect with the Self and develop personal agency that makes an individual move away from a standardised, single perspective to ‘celebrate the local and heterogeneous, the plurality of voices and meanings, the patchwork, pick and mix, and the pastiche’ (Altglas 2014, p. 4).
The doctoral thesis from which this book is developed was ‘a pastiche’ or, to put it more precisely, cinematic bricolage compiled in EPUB format consisting of dynamic interactions between multimodal components such as text(s), animations, interactive/audio and video elements. This book, however, due to the technical limitations of publishing, is set in a format that reduces the multimodal text to only two modes of expression: writing and a limited number of static images.
As mentioned, the process of knowledge production in cinematic bricolage is achieved by means of recursive loops. Cinematic bricolage adopts the methodology developed by Berry (2004). A bricoleur , according to Berry, ‘threads’ through the relevant areas to the issue under investigation in feedback loops with increasing amplitude. This results in the growing complexity of the initial concept (p. 111). The thesis that I put forward in this book is that the Ripples model is a knowledge-production methodology that aligns with the aspirations of twenty-first century self-reconnected and self-inventive learning. To defend this argument, I move through recursive and gradually expanding feedback loops, exploring, discussing, spinning, teasing out and rearranging threads from the relevant fields of knowledge to weave a new pattern.
1.5 Chapter Overview
This chapter examines aspects of contemporary reality such as the dynamic interconnectedness between the self and others and the enmeshment of human and technology logic. Throughout the following chapters, these two conceptual couplings are developed into undulating circularities that pulse through and activate all other circularities of the proposed pedagogical model. Current education methods are considered as alienating the learner from their own psychological predispositions and immediate natural/sociocultural environments. The proposed pedagogical model suggests creating learning conditions in which the learner can reconnect with him/herself by discovering, extending and strengthening their natural abilities through a kindled reconnection with others, remixed with technological tools of knowledge-production and entanglement with their lived experiences.
Chapter 2 discusses the supremacy of common puzzle-solving systems established by a particular set of scientific and moral principles that are characteristic of a certain historical period. Strict adherence to a specific set of paradigmatic
assumptions and puzzle-solving methods converges with modern education to form a centralised system of benchmarked evaluations of student performance, manifesting in the glaring neglect of their individual psychological dispositions and needs. The new emphasis on STEM
(science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education reinforces this imbalance and pushes humanities subjects further away from the curriculum. The chapter discusses some of the reasons for, and effects of, such a synthetic disturbance in the balance between the
algorithmic
(puzzle-solving
) and androrithmic (human essence) parts of student’s
development and argues for the reassessment and reconsideration of this biased view. To this end, the Ripples model suggests considering two operational learning circularities: divergence
convergence
and conventional wisdom
individual curiosity
.
Chapter 3 introduces the concept of mind-cinema, suggesting viewing its embodiment in the pages of a digital document through the application of the genre of cinematic writing: writing with images, sounds and movements. Taking advantage of the affordances of digital media, the knower constructs their knowledge by recording the world around them and placing the bricoles—material elements of the digital data—on software’s representational layers. In this, we can observe a feedback looping circularity of stimulus
response. The bricoles should be viewed as stimuli, the elements of a database, while the responses are the implicit reactions of the narrative dimension. The database bricoles are juxtaposed on the production layers by a composite organisation of the narrative steps, establishing the narrative
database circularity. Therefore, the application of the narrative
database looping generates the representing
meaning-making circularity.
Chapter 4 elaborates on the overtonal montage discussed in the previous chapter. It is the congruence of the dynamism of a given context with the key element in the presentation. The key element is interpreted in the context of the ‘collateral vibration’ by which it is represented, and the two are therefore inseparable. Leaning on alphabetic text as a methodology of the mind’s articulation that has been in use for millennia, cinematic writing suggests considering it as the key element in multimodal representations. Multimodal components are integrated into the alphabetic text not as additional embellishments but as an integral conglomerate in representing
meaning-making. The gestalt—an interplay of all modes—is the compositional unity in which every different modal element plays its own role in signifying meaning. Given that every individual has a unique perception of the world, students are encouraged express themselves using the semiotic resources most congruent with the articulations of their mind-cinemas.
Chapter 5 articulates the participatory character of digitised society facilitated by the ubiquity of postproduction tools. The liberalisation of the acquisition of cultural resources engenders the pervasive expansion of the universal phenomenon of the remix. In a digitised society, the remix spawns rapidly into a multi-hybridised category. It manifests itself through mashups, collages, montages, memes and vidding and becomes the prevalent medium of message transmission. Its hybridisation is actualised not only within related modes of expression but also within modes that were considered incompatible before. Therefore, it is recognised as a form of deep remixability and is associated with the practices of do-it-yourself (DIY). Thus, people with even minimal knowledge in a given topic and having basic skills sufficient for their participation can engage in the social exchange of their opinions, representations and knowledge construction. Following this trait, cinematic writing is merged with a DIY knowledge-production methodology based on a deep remixability that is termed cinematic bricolage.
Chapter 6 frames cinematic bricolage into a systemic view of the world. According to natural science, the living organism is viewed within a systemic structure and in continuous interaction with its environment. By means of feedback loops, it continuously undergoes self-organisation congruent to the medium of its existence. This chapter develops a contextual infrastructure for a learning model that is based on a view of a dynamic ripplework and frames cinematic bricolage within its configuration. The teaching and learning approach underpinned by the ripplework infrastructure becomes known as the Ripples pedagogy or the Ripples model. The heartbeat of the
Ripples pedagogy
is charged by the regular feedback loops taking place within self-reflective
collaborative circularities. The core focus of the
Ripples pedagogy
is to create learning conditions in which the learner assimilates new knowledge and by self-designing, equilibrates him/herself with the environment through capitalising on individual psychological needs and abilities and in collaboration with others.
Chapter 7 delineates the layers of the Ripples pedagogy
. It establishes the Ripples model as a learner-centred, life-reconnected and inquiry-based approach to learning. The model is underpinned by the integrated system of five operational modes:
self-reflection
,
collaboration
,
multimodal communication
,
distributed agency
and
DIY creativity
. Students organise their learning tasks around their individual interests and abilities. Thus, they establish their reconnection with natural sociocultural environments by discovering and nurturing their own innate inclinations and talents and through the application of multimodal communication methods that best suit their personal predispositions. The progress of the learning task is activated by the feedback loops mobilised by self-reflective
collaborative circularity. Through utilising this mode of operation, the students exercise their own agency and learn to recognise and reconnect their own assertiveness with the agentic values of others, as well as the agentic power of the environments and the tools of production.
Chapter 8 suggests examining creativity as an underlying mechanism in the production of knowledge. Setting themselves up for the quest to formulate new, surprising, coherent, valuable and elegant concepts or products, students benefit from ‘making do’ with what they are interested in and desire to engage with. Being intrinsically motivated, students put themselves under the pressure of circumstances through which they must find a solution to the set question of what if …? The DIY culture of creative approach is considered an essential mode of operation. Students construct new knowledge not through the quality of final representations but through the development of the ability to use information and objects as psychological tools for finding a solution. This chapter discusses and proposes some creative strategies and techniques that can scaffold the dynamics of Ripples learning.
Chapter 9 discusses the implementation of mobile and stationary digital tools and resources for knowledge production that are ubiquitously available to the modern learner. This chapter is an expedition into the ‘engine room’ of creative software. It delves into the specifics of the operational modes of digital object construction. These modes are categorised as:
numerical representation
,
automation
,
modularity
,
variability
and
transcoding
. The chapter examines each of these categories in relation to how deep remixability can be realised and the role it plays in the representational
meaning-making circularity within the context of the Ripples model. This chapter also examines reciprocity between the parallel structure of the mind’s perception and the instrumentality of the production layers of creative software. The link is examined from the perspective of unified sensory experiences and unified projection of the production layers, thus indicating a more precise representation of mental grasp and deeper awareness of sensory data in making meaning of the experiences.
Chapter 10 links the development of the Ripples model of knowing with the two probes implemented in my doctoral study for the trial of cinematic writing as a multimodal approach of representing
meaning-making, as well as cinematic bricolage as a methodology of gathering, recording, reorganising and analysing data. It starts with a discussion of a substantial problem often faced by the user of cinematic writing as a meaning-making approach. This is the assessment of a learning task by word count. Under contemporary learning conditions, the word count assessment is designed in such a way that the importance of the number of linguistic symbols in articulating meaning draws to itself the entirety of time and effort allocated to the task. The Ripples pedagogy
proposes the method of the feedback loops, analysed and represented with self-reflective cinematic writing to be employed as an assessment methodology. This chapter also argues for considering the process of knowing as a social practice that can cultivate free minds equipped to live in a democratic society.
Chapter 11 analyses the probes. It discusses the application of a multimodal metaphoric methodology to embody the mind-cinema within the context of the two examined probes. This investigation leads to the realisation that visual, audio or kinaesthetic symbols, often playing inconspicuously in our mind-cinema, can be infused with rich emotional value linked to certain events or situations or an accumulated body of knowledge. If given the role of valued interlocutors and treated as coded messages from the unconscious, these symbols uncover things we previously ignored. The metaphoric logic of understanding one thing in terms of another, which in cinematic writing is amplified by the unification of a variety of representational modes, advances our self-awareness. Mapping links between our self-discoveries and other people’s representational expressions reveals sociocultural connections and psychological coherence in the human perception of reality. This promotes the sense of self-agency–the ability not only to think critically but to act upon this criticality in accordance with individual strengths and in collaboration with others.
The concluding chapter draws together the ripples discussed throughout the book and provides a consolidated overview of the proposed Ripples pedagogy. Following the instrumentality of the Ripples model, this chapter oscillates back to the outset of the argument as a reminder of why pedagogical innovations are urgently necessary and why current educational trends may prove themselves invalid in our ever-changing world. The Ripples model suggests a system of knowledge construction based on the discovery and development of an individual’s intrinsic potential, and acting upon personal agency, reconnecting this potential with the learner’s natural and sociocultural environments. Learning through the equilibration of the internal milieu within the medium of existence is proposed as a life-savvy development, more essential in the rapidly changing world than standardised, technological acquisition of facts and specialised skills.