Bridget McKenzie

Bridget McKenzie WQ2

Personal Information; Bridget’s About Me site

WikiQuals Aim; To write a book called The Learning Planet, supported by peers in a community of enquiry. I’m less concerned about accreditation but may find aiming for a PhD a useful motivating structure in future.

WikiQuals Activity; Researching how effective learning takes place in different kinds of communities, where there is a strong focus on context, in an ecological sense. Different kinds of communities will be compared, including intentional communities, design activist groups, artist communities, indigenous groups, schools and businesses, identifying and describing different ways in which learning takes place through a combination of paragogy, play, praxis and plurality.

WikiQuals Publications; Aim to complete book proposal by 31 January 2012 including a call for comments and discussion, to support completion of the descriptive research. Aim to complete bulk of research by 31 July 2012

Wiki Quals Support; To be determined. See call for support needed at proposal writing stage below:

I’m at the point in my writing of The Learning Planet that I need to home in on some case studies of communities or organisations that are successful learners. The three main criteria are:

• They learn fast and adapt to change in a timely way
• They learn together and co-operatively
• They learn with a turn towards ecology and sustainability

I’m interested in organisations that learn well through a good mixture of play (experiment, creativity, fun etc) and praxis (serious challenges, real experiences, thinking about context), that are open to diversity of cultures and views, and that encourage co-learning between peers. More about the learning model is here.

I am writing chapters on the following kinds of community or organisation, and would love to hear your suggestions for the best case studies for each category:

1. Indigenous communities, especially ones that draw together emerging technologies with traditional knowledge (my inclination is to focus on the Sami)
2. Intentional communities, especially ones that are restoring ecosystems and developing eco-innovations
3. Cities, for which I need an example where large-scale change is happening from the ground up or by non-Governmental agencies
4. Businesses, especially ones which are radically changing to adapt, rather than start-ups
5. Schools and colleges, especially ones that give maximum freedom to learners  (my inclination is to focus on Hellerup School in Denmark)
6. Research institutes, especially ones that have a strong emphasis on world-changing and praxis
7. Activist groups or campaigns, especially ones that have an emphasis on co-learning
8. Artist and designer communities, especially ones that are ecologically focused
9. Online communities, and I need advise on how to narrow this category down

I have a lot of ideas already but am really quite spoilt for choice. For each chapter I will refer to three or four examples and then home in on the one case study. I intend to visit each place, if not by travelling by plenty of virtual contact and interviewing key individuals, so they must be accessible to a researcher.

So, I want to know, do you have any inspiring case studies to share? What communities would you like to know more about?

Please feel free to spread this call for help widely, and contact me to discuss on bridget.mckenzie@flowassociates.com

URL for this page; bit.ly/WQ2Bridget

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