….or should that be “foto fun” or even “photo phun”? As a linguist I hate it when I see the “ph” in words changed to “f” out of laziness or ignorance. However, the creative part of me quite likes it. I also know through studying languages that the English language is the way it is today because of the influence of a whole heap of invaders, settlers, movement, experiences and evolution. It is inevitable that many of our spelling conventions will change as they already have done over the years. The French have the “Academie Francaise” to police their language, and debates over such things as the use of the accent and the invasion of English words to express modern inventions are common wherever you go in France. But are they fighting a losing battle? Maybe the fluidity, the flexibility, the freedom of English has helped it become the lingua franca it is today?

Anyway, as usual I digress; the reason for this post was simply to comment on the photos I just posted to the edcmooc Flickr group. One of the course participants suggested that people might like to submit a photo that epitomised our ideas of a mooc. Mine is really just an image that reflects my feelings at the moment and I expect them to change – maybe we should also get people to submit a photo at the end of the course to see how our ideas have developed?

The first image, “A confusion of networks” reflects  the confusion I sort of feel at the moment – so many connections, so many threads …. I edited my own photo using ipiccy which is a free application that is really easy to use. I tried to find logos that were free to use but have a record of the websites I got them from. Always find that a tricky thing to manage! Photo originally taken in Pnomh Penh in 2011.

The second image “Finding the Balance” is how I hope to feel when I have managed to get some balance with all the different connections that edcmooc seems to be! I used ipiccy again. This photo was originally taken in Dalat, Vietnam.