I spent part of today at my parents’ house with my daughter, their grandchild. She had an English assignment from school which involved find out about relatives who were involved in either of the World Wars.
This led to a fascinating conversation with my parents, which she recorded using an app which gave her a transcription. My parents, either because I’d never asked, or because they’d done some preparation, told her things they’d never told me.
The above is a photograph of my paternal grandparents taken in July 1948 in Blackpool. My grandfather was in the Royal Medical Corps during the Second World War but was a baker by trade. He started smoking due to the war due to the stench of dead and injured bodies. My dad also told me how he’d been strafed by a Messerschmitt despite driving a van with prominent medical ‘red cross’ markings. He only survived because he had a bit of a premonition of what was going to happen and so dived out of the van into a ditch.
My grandfather died of angina in the mid-1980s, meaning I never really knew him. My grandmother, however, lived into her nineties, dying only a few years ago. She was a very matriarchal figure.
I don’t have a photo of him, but my dad also told us about his grandfather, who fought during the Great War. He was on the big artillery guns so wasn’t near the front line, and the only injury he received was to his thumb after getting it jammed in the breech. Apparently his thumbnail grew ‘weirdly’ after that. Having only been around my son’s age when he signed up (17) he was still only in his early forties when the Second World War broke out. However, he was a miner by that point which was deemed an essential service.
My maternal grandfather is pictured above. He had some significant mental health issues after having what my mum described as a ‘difficult childhood’ and being conscripted as a firefighter during the Blitz. We don’t know a lot about him, but he died of emphysema before I was born. He was in his fifties, and my maternal grandmother was forty when they had my mum, which was extremely unusual in those days.
Although I’d always meant to do it, apparently my sister did actually talk to my paternal grandmother before she died about her family tree. I’m really glad, as although both my parents were only children, their parents and grandparents had plenty of siblings! Some emigrated to Canada, and others to New Zealand. My mother has been in touch with some over the years, but many have passed away.
I found the conversation really interesting and I’m glad my daughter had this assignment. I’m looking forward to following it up at some point in the future.
During the UCL Systems Thinking short course I did last week, I was introduced to three different systems thinking approaches. Partly because it’s the name of one of my favourite films, but partly because it notes the importance of context, I quite liked the ‘Seven Samurai’ approach.
Now, this is possibly less exciting than it sounds. It’s named as such because there are seven things beginning with the letter ‘S’. But still, it seems like a handy approach.
Given that I’ve just registered for the Open University’s MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice, I thought I’d have a go at using the Seven Samurai model. If nothing else, it will allow me to have a good laugh at myself in the months and years to come. Here goes…
Let’s begin with an image of the whole diagram in the abstract, just to get it out of the way. This, no doubt, looks extremely complicated and slightly horrific.
Let’s just break this down by going one step at a time. I may get this spectacularly wrong and, if so, I hope people reading this who know more than me can put me right.
I’m going to use as my example the Open Badges ecosystem, mainly because it’s one of the things I know most about, and it’s evolved during a time period where I’ve been paying attention to it.
The thing to keep in mind when looking at a Seven Samurai diagram is that it helps explain why the deployed system is not the same as the designed system. Also, new problems emerge when systems are deployed, and other systems are required to sustain the developed systems.
Problem 1 (P1) and Context System 1 (S1)
The original Open Badges for Lifelong Learning white paper did a good job of outlining a growing problem (P1) where learning happens everywhere, but isn’t visible:
Without a way to capture, promote and transfer all of the learning that can occur within a broader connected learning ecology, we are limiting that ecology by discouraging engaged learning, making critical skills unattractive or inaccessible, isolating or ignoring quality efforts and interactions and ultimately, holding learners back from reaching their potential.
The Context System here (S1) is all learners, of all types, everywhere on earth. The scope is huge.
Intervention System (S2) and Realization System (S3)
The whitepaper goes on to explain how the Open Badges Infrastructure (S2) can help with this problem:
Thus, badges can play a crucial role in the connected learning ecology by acting as a bridge between contexts and making these alternative learning channels, skills and types of learning more viable, portable and impactful. Badges can be awarded for a potentially limitless set of individual skills regardless of where each skill is developed, and the collection of badges can serve as a virtual resume of competencies and qualities for key stakeholders such as peers, schools or potential employers.
The Realization System (S3) around the Open Badges Infrastructure was the MacArthur Foundation’s grant funding, Mozilla’s technical expertise, and the enthusiastic international community that was growing around it.
Deployed System (S4), Collaborating System (S5), and Modified Context System (S1′)
The Open Badges Infrastructure (OBI) was never fully finished by Mozilla, partly due to funding drying up. A templated, easy-to-use badging system called ‘BadgeKit’ was shelved, and idea of federated ‘backpacks’ where individuals could move their badges around didn’t come to fruition. In other words, the Deployed System (S4) fell short of the original dream.
This caused a problem. The international community that had grown up around the idea were keen for Open Badges to develop further. Some universities started experimenting with Open Badges as, essentially, short courses and/or marketing materials for their longer programmes. They, along with professional associations, became the Collaborating System (S5).
Open Badges was spun out of Mozilla, first finding a home at the Badge Alliance (2014) and then at IMS Global Learning Consortium (2017) — which is now known as 1EdTech. As such, the Context System (S1) was now different, becoming the Modified Context System (S1′).
Sustainment System (S6)
In this example, I think that the Sustainment System (S6) for Open Badges were particular voices within the community. Kerri Lemoie, Nate Otto, and Sheryl Grant for example. There were many others. I may have been one.
These community members performed roles such as continuing to work on successive versions of the Open Badges standard, fighting off attempts to water down the orginal vision. Others evangelised the standard and what could be done with it. Still others developed the actual systems that allowed people to issue badges.
Problem 2 (P2) and Competing System (S7)
The Deployed System (S4) being quite different to the design of the Intervention System (S2) led to some problems. (P2) The chief one was that individuals were not as in control of their badges as originally envisaged. Although it was technically possible to move your badges between systems, in practice each issuing platform became a silo.
There were other problems, as well. For example, Open Badges relied on email addresses that people no longer had access to after leaving institutions or organisations. The evidence behind them also was subject to ‘link rot’ as badges work like the web.
As a result, a Competing System emerged (S7) which reconceptualised badges as ‘microcredentials’. Although some of this uses similar infrastructure, there are different developments for example around NFT certificates, blockchain-based credentials, and LERs. These tend to foreground the organisation rather than the individual learner.
Conclusion
Well, that was fun! This was mainly for my own benefit, but maybe you learned something along the way. As I said above, if you’ve used this approach before, or have anything you’d like to point out to help my learning, please comment below.
Five years ago I was working in London a couple of days every week. As many people know, London is like a different country to the rest of the UK, so I wasn’t surprised to observe different working practices, dress codes, and advertising.
This one had me scratching my head a bit:
So I looked it up and found that it has to do with ‘sovereign individuality’ and had elements of a classic conspiracy theory. The BBC explains it in more detail here:
When your parents registered your birth on the certificate, it insists, they unknowingly gave the Crown Corporation ownership of your name. “Simply thus, all legal names are owned by the Crown, and therefore using a legal name without their written permission is fraud.”
Does this interpretation of the law have any validity? “Absolutely not. Absolutely none at all,” says barrister, law blogger and lecturer Carl Gardner. “It’s a kind of brew of pseudo-legal ideas. It’s the equivalent of thinking Harry Potter is science.”
It’s back in the news this week after a former professional footballer used the bonkers theory to try and defend himself when found in breach of COVID-19 regulations.
There’s another BBC News article about others who have tried something similar during the pandemic here:
Sinead Quinn owns a hair salon in Oakenshaw near Bradford. She attempted to open the shop during lockdown, putting a sign in the window declaring that Article 61 of Magna Carta allowed her to opt out of the law and that she “does not consent”.
She now owes nearly £20,000 in fines and costs after repeatedly trying to defy coronavirus laws.
Ms Quinn is one of a small number of business owners who have tried to use an obsolete clause in the 800-year-old charter of rights to insist on their freedom to reopen.
Such attempts are part of a larger “pseudolaw” movement – the use of non-existent or outdated legal arguments to defend a case – which goes back decades.
In addition to Article 61, this includes bizarre sounding and legally invalid concepts like “freeman on the land”, “sovereign citizens” and “legal name fraud”.
They’re all based on invalid legal arguments – and on several occasions they’ve resulted in fines and other legal trouble for the people who attempt to use them.
Some might characterise such attempts as a wilful defiance of the law. But according to Ellie Cumbo, head of public law at the Law Society, such cases often arise from ignorance of the legal system, which is then made worse by poor advice found online.
I find all of this fascinating from a digital literacies point of view. People have in their hands immensely powerful computers with fast connections to a vast trove of data. Unfortunately, not everyone has the maturity to use them appropriately. Whether through malice, ignorance, or ‘fun’ there are plenty of people who are willing to come up with, and spread theories to deceive others. The legal name fraud conspiracy theory taps into something deep-seated within some people (and I’d include myself in that group) that the state interferes too much in our lives.
However, as I’ve grown up, I’ve realised that “no man is an island” and that, like or not, we have responsibilities to others. Going to live by oneself as a hermit isn’t really a viable option. What the legal name fraud conspiracy conspiracy theorists are doing is feeding an immature understanding of the world by using pseudo-legal language. I think the teenage version of me might have been taken in, perhaps. For someone as interested in history as I am, it’s an enticing prospect to be able to find a legal loophole via a document that’s over 800 years old.
Ultimately, as ever, if something looks odd, too good to be true, or both, then it usually is. If I were back teaching History, I think I’d use this as Exhibit A as to why both historical knowledge (Article 61 was repealed a year after Magna Carta was signed) and critical thinking are so important. It would also be a good example when trying to teach people about the importance of web literacy.
