Best concerts of 2010 :)

1. Rufus Wainwright - Crossing Border, The Hague, November 18
Stunning. Great seats (second row, just left of centre) and an awesome view of the grand piano. The hands! The big surprise of seeing Stephen Oremus enter to accompany Rufus on a set of Judy songs. I could never have imagined that I would enjoy these so much. Stunning indeed :) Third time around this year but The Hague was the best. Meeting Rufus per chance again outside the venue. I love being able to thank him for the performance and I know he enjoys that. He truly loves his fans. Being recognized = bliss :)

The Walking Song. Emotions rippling through the theatre. The tears. Nuff said.

2. Sam Amidon - Cultuurcentrum Roepaen, Nijmegen, November 7
Imagine a nightclub setting in a former convent. Red drapes everywhere, small tables, red wine on the table. Front row. Sam singing 'Im Wunderschoenen Monat Mai', at least part of it. Alienating, mesmerizing. Saying hello to Sam passing by the ladies room. Getting a big smile and a 'Hi!'.

3. Jónsi - Paradiso , Amsterdam, June 3
Awesome show with amazing visuals. Great view from the balcony. Loved every moment! The album didn't make it to my list of 10 but was a great runner up!

4. Britten Sinfonia with Pekka Kuusisto & Mark Padmore - Muziekgebouw Eindhoven, January 27
A duet by Steve Reich, John Adams's Shaker Loops and a world premiere by Nico Muhly. Cafavy's poems set to music and sung heavenly by British tenor Mark Padmore. Goose bumps. So looking forward to see more world premieres by Nico next January!

5. The Whale Watching Tour - Barbican, London, September 27
Had front row tickets for the concert planned in April, went to London only to find the gig cancelled because of the ash cloud. Returned my tickets and got front row tickets again for September. Ah well, another trip to London... Glorious gig!

Best albums of 2010 :)

"Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer:
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer."
Sonnet 115 - William Shakespeare

Sometimes passion returns with a vengeance and that's what happened last year. Here's my list of 10 Albums of 2010, in alphabetical order - please click the titles to listen:

1. Antony & The Johnsons - Swanlights
I saw Antony last year and his concert made it to my list then. Must admit that I did like 'The Crying Light' a bit better than this album but Antony's albums are always of such high quality that they make it to my top ten!

2. Daníel Bjarnason - Processions
What a revelation to hear this album! Awesome music on the crossroads of experimental, noise & classical. This should have been on my list of 2009 because that's when a few lucky devils (including me) got the special pre-order edition... but it came out officially in 2010. Will be seeing Daníel at Cross-Linx festival in February and looking forward to that very, very much!

3. John Grant - The Queen Of Denmark
Discovery of the year for me. Very intense and self deprecating (with tongue in cheek), just the way I like it! Hope to see him live sometime.

4. Nico Muhly - I Drink The Air Before Me
This album blew me away, it's soooo powerful! Everyone should listen to this at least once. Saw Nico live 3 times last year and already have 2 concerts planned (with tickets in hand) for January 2011! Talk about crossroads... Nico is always exploring new horizons while working with some of the finest musicians in both the classical and pop/rock world. Catch one his many gigs if you can!

5. Owen Pallett - Heartland
Intellectual pop with an edge, always a pleasure to listen to. Will catch Owen at Cross-Linx festival as well! (hey, guess cross-linx music is my music)

6. Rufus Wainwright - All Days Are Nights, Songs For Lulu
Ah, what can I say? Back with a vengeance indeed. The album I've been waiting for: pure, naked Rufus (lol, I wish). Only for the initiated! Attended 3 of his solo shows and already have tickets for 3 more in July 2011...

7. Sam Amidon - I See The Sign
I did a blog review of this album a while ago. Sam at his best with haunting folk songs that will touch you to the bone. Was lucky to catch him live 3 times this year, once with The Whale Watching Tour and twice solo. Amazing experiences!

8. Sufjan Stevens - The Age Of Adz
The Brooklyn Scene on spots 8 & 9. Sufjan surprises again with a very upbeat album. Again, melodies with a twist and layers of sound & meaning. Get dancing!

9. The National - High Violet
I just love the side projects of the band members, always in for some fun. Hope to see the Dessner Bros perform in some side projects (along with a full set of The National) at Cross-Linx festival next February...

10. Valgeir Sigurðsson - Draumalandið
Ah, Valgeir - one of the friendliest and most generous musician/composers I've met last year. Turned out an album called Dreamland but don't be fooled by the title! Powerful landscapes of sound that are sometimes soothing and sometimes menacing, like Iceland itself I guess. Saw him live twice this year (as a duo with Ben Frost and with The Whale Watching Tour) and both concerts were mindblowing :)

Best concerts tomorrow!

Whale Watching Tour - second time

Last Monday's concert was a second time in two ways. It was not only the second time I saw the Whale Watching Tour in full glory (the first time being in 2009, Eindhoven), but also the second time I travelled to London to catch them at the Barbican (the first time in April cancelled due to the Icelandic ash cloud).

Second time's always better, they say... we'll see.

What I liked better about this concert, was the fact that the four 'supporting musicians' -who were kept at the back of the stage in Eindhoven- got to take centre stage now in certain compositions. Una Sveinbjarnardóttir on violin was stunning in her glorious performing of 'Honest Music' by Nico Muhly. Her face reflected the different moods of the piece and I really got absorbed in those moods; absolutely beautiful.

And Nadia... I love Nadia Sirota and the things she does on her viola. When Nico Muhly asked her to step into the limelight for 'Keep in Touch', I held my breath for it's such a demanding song - not just to play, but also to listen to. The piano understream, the repetitively disrupting sounds made by Valgeir Sigurðsson tapping the microphone, together with Antony Hegarty's (taped) wailing vocals, provided a perfect background for the haunting sounds Nadia created. She's something else.

What I liked less was Helgi Hrafn Jónsson singing 'Baby Architect' and 'Kin' at the front of the stage. In Eindhoven, Helgi amazed us when he started to sing Nico's 'Mothertongue' composition from the back of the stage. Who'd have imagined that the unassuming trombonist could sing? Centre stage, and in these specific songs by Valgeir, Helgi is not well casted (IMO). His overly dramatic gesturing, his often artificial dynamics and abrupt changing from high to low singing, was a bit distressing to my ears. I would have loved to hear Sam Amidon sing 'Baby Architect' as he has done before.

Sam doesn't need any addings to his pleasant voice and easygoing stage presence. He's just there as if he was singing in his parents' living room.

It was very nice to see the chemistry between all these people on stage again. Nico brilliantly conducting with his eyebrows and pointed index finger, Ben Frost testing the hall's foundation with his deep drones (I can still feel them in my stomach). Ben & Valgeir exchanging glances & laptops. All four of them changing places at times. Borgar Magnason on double bass being the steadfast character on stage, providing rhythmic undertow and eerily channeling whales as well as wolves in Ben Frost's haunting noise pieces.

All in all an excellent evening that went past much too fast. Oh, did I mention the different start from Eindhoven? As an 'opening act', we got Marc Silver's bird film featuring half a million starlings, coupled with Ben Frost's music 'There are no others, there is only us'. Magnificent.

Some pictures to be found HERE.

Birthday weekend

Had a lovely birthday last Saturday! Per chance, I'd found out only a week ago there was to be a festival of sacred music in Maastricht (which is quite close to us), called Musica Sacra. The two things on Saturday that I wanted to attend were both free and quite extraordinary! The family was with me.



We saw Alain Louafi performing 'Inori' by Karlheinz Stockhausen in the morning. Inori is Japanese for prayer, evocation, adoration, and the performance consisted of ritual movements as laid down meticulously in the score by the composer. The Centre de Recherche et de Formation Musicales de Wallonie delivered the sounds, beautifully distributed over the immense factory hall of Ainsi. When we lived in Maastricht, we used to know this as Enci (Eerste Nederlandse Cement Industrie), a cement factory that took away large chunks of the landscape of the Sint Pietersberg. It's great to see these old industrial buildings being reused as buzzing cultural centres.

I was very moved by Stockhausen's score and the performance of Louafi. My husband couldn't stand watching him because of the 'artificial movements' that kept repeating to certain recurring sounds. Well, ritual movements are inherently artificial and I found the repetition in both music and movements quite trance inducing. But then again, listening with eyes closed is nice too :)



After lunch we went for the heart of the city, the relatively new Entre Deux city mall. This is an enclosed, but open-aired mall - check the picture! Imagine the impact of the beggar's voice in 'Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet', slowly pervading the space between the shops. This well known composition by Gavin Bryars was performed by ensemble Insomnio, sitting in the middle of the mall. A lonesome trombonist walking the higher shopping galleries, intermittently taking over from the beggar's voice. Powerful stuff. Nice to see some people watching and listening for a while, then just going on with their shopping - while others stood there silently and attentively for 45 minutes.

A lovely dinner with my beloved ones afterwards, what more could one wish for? Extended family on Sunday, as it should be... Great weekend all in all, thanks everyone!

Cagelist

The late Mr. John Cage celebrates this Sunday his ninety-eighth birthday. Last year or the year before, someone on the Internet — was it The Standing Room? — had the excellent idea of marking the occasion by creating a 4'33" playlist on iTunes.

I'll follow Alex Ross's example but couldn't find as many tracks as he did... Lots of Cagelists on Twitter, just use the hashtag #Cageday to find them. Fun! Please click the image below to get a better view of my list:



We went to see Else Olsen Storesund playing Cage on prepared piano yesterday which was awesome.

Form vs function - why (micro)blog?

A few interesting things I came across last week, pointing in the same direction. Someone complaining about nobody apparently missing his tweets that hadn't come through for quite some time. When nobody notices, why twitter at all?

Then someone else worrying about the nature of his own tweets, compared to the blogposts he used to write. While his former blog read as a diary -an external memory-, the chronology of tweets offered at best a fractured, incomprehensive and utterly useless list of seemingly random quotes (rephrasing and exaggerating a tad here...). Had he been wasting his time microblogging?

And then there's the 'outsourcing of memory through Google' that I wrote about in my last post. I've heard this before. When printing was invented, pessimists predicted that it would be the end of human kind as we knew it. People would become lazy and dumb because they would no longer have the need to remember or recall. Before long, they wouldn't memorise anything anymore and their brains would shrivel.


For a few years, I've used Flickr as an emotional diary. Pictures speak a lot of words, you know... I was into a few hobbies that were easy to catch in images and evoked reactions from likeminded people. We felt connected through these images, captions, tags, comments & faves.

Then I started using blogging alongside to Flickr, because some work-related stuff was more suitable for posts. Again, there was a community of people that shared information and opinions through comments, blogrolls & trackbacks.

I've stopped blogging the way I did when I started checking and doublechecking whether somebody else had already blogged about this new thing. Twitter has neatly filled this space. Anything new is on there within a minute of publication elsewhere in the world. It's kind of an express RSS-feed, a digital marquee. And I don't feel the need to be the first to announce the news anymore so I'm more a consumer than a producer on Twitter :). Moreover, tweets are disposable. If I want to keep a link someone tweeted, I keep it somewhere else - not by retweeting it. I never look back.

Like everybody else, I started using Facebook as well. Now here I am a true prosumer. Facebook has gradually become the emotional diary of choice for me, with things like Flickr, YouTube, blogposts, events & links coming together. And here I DO look back, my notes, links and embedded clips neatly stored chronologically. Everybody has their own 'blog' on Facebook and the 'home' setting acts like an RSS-reader of sorts.

I don't really care if I miss anything. Important issues will inevitably come to me sooner or later. My contacts are my filter on the world. Their interests and daily doings are reflected on my screen. We are connected in many ways. Even with the ones I know IRL, there's an extra connectiveness.

And then I felt the urge to start blogging again. I needed my own emotional diary again. If I don't blog for a week, nobody will notice and that doesn't bother me. I'm still visible elsewhere. This is MY space.

picture: British Library, London

Preciousness

"It's hard not to develop an aural antsiness when YouTube is there for the flighty browsing, iPods for the impatient shuffling. Meanwhile, Spotify and every other streaming service allows us to take for granted a song being there for our ears when we demand it. In short, our restless listening might mean we're in danger of becoming careless listeners, too.

(...) Perhaps we need just a bit more reverence when it comes to listening.

(...) Over the last few years, theatre in this country has realised the heightened awareness that odd venues and small-scale performance instill in audiences." (Hermione Hoby for The Observer)

Hoby thinks 'precious' is a word in need of rescuing, whether it's about music, theatre or any other art. In a time where everything that can be reproduced digitally seems to be there for the taking, anytime and anywhere, she might just be right.

In the same issue of The Observer, Geoff Dyer (writer) claims that 'Googling has drained some of the purpose from his life'. No less.

"Then there's the outsourcing of memory. From the age of 16, I got into the habit of memorising passages of poetry and compiling detailed indexes in the back of books of prose. So if there was a passage I couldn't remember, I would spend hours going through my books, seeking it out. Now, in what TS Eliot, with great prescience, called 'this twittering world', I just google the key phrase of the half-remembered quote. Which is great, but it's drained some of the purpose from my life."

But there's relief too, from Colin Blakemore (neurobiologist):

"It's curious that some of the most vociferous critics of the internet are the very sorts of people who are benefiting most from this wonderful, liberating, organic extension of the human mind. They are academics, scientists, scholars and writers, who fear that the extraordinary technology that they use every day is a danger to the unsophisticated.

They underestimate the capacity of the human brain to capitalise on new ways of storing and transmitting information. When I was at school I learned by heart great swathes of poetry and chunks of the Bible, not to mention page after page of scientific textbooks. What a waste of my neurons, all clogged up with knowledge that I can now obtain with the click of a mouse."

Related issues in my opinion. When everything is available at a mouseclick, you can either consume what's right before you until you drown in middle-of-the-road entertainment or use the advantage of unlimited choice (the far end of the long tail) and sophisticated filtering to find hidden gems. To uncover preciousness. Yes, this can be as time consuming as going through your bookcase to find a certain line of prose used to be.
Who's with me?

I Drink The Air Before Me

"I Drink the Air Before Me is an evening-length score for Stephen Petronio's dance piece bearing the same name. Inasmuch as it was celebrating Stephen's company's 25th anniversary, the piece wanted to be big, ecstatic, and celebratory. Our initial meeting, in which we discussed the structure of the work, yielded a sketch: a giant line, starting at the lower left hand side of a napkin, and ending in the upper right. Start small, get big!"

Awesome music, please do have a listen! Check out pre-ordering possibilities on Nico's Bedroom Community website.

If you liked this...

Yes, I know I wrote about my dislike of recommendations when it comes to my own personal taste (especially music but in reading as well). I do think that this has got to be part of the future for libraries, public and educational alike.

The world is a social place and online strategies do seem to work. There's something quite touching about seeing a book with a customer's review attached to it. A good bookstore (or library) should also leave the bad reviews on, if they're well articulated. This particular store offers only good reviews...

I know I would love to leave a tweet-length review on some cd's, if the opportunity is provided. Borders offers it throughout their stores in the shape of blank notes that wrap neatly around a book cover of your choice. Show & share your likes and dislikes! To read the reviews on the books, go to the original picture.

Now think again

"God's thumb"?

What was I thinking? That everyone would know what I was talking about?
Google doesn't know, apparently...

But how poetical does 'jugular notch' or 'suprasternal notch' sound to you?
I'm pretty sure I didn't invent this. Look at it: God the Sculptor put his thumb there for the finishing touch - to entice us.

On true art (2)

Here's another excerpt that underlines my point of view very eloquently:

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with enjoyment per se - I like having a good time as much as anyone. However, in order for a work of art to be successful, it needs to pull as well as push - often, the goal is to anger, disturb, or even to deliberately bore or tax the audience, viewer, or listener in pursuit of some larger goal. The obvious response to this is the one we have heard throughout the history of modern art - "it's pretentious bullshit," "my kid could paint that," etc. And yes, that is often the case. However, even work that enlightens or entertains often needs to mystify, or to defer pleasure, in order to be successful. Of course what we say we want is the thrill, the laugh, the cheer, the beautiful sound or object, but most often those moments need to be surrounded by something else, or the experience is meaningless - art as a series of positive stimuli that zaps our animal brains in a pleasing way, but offers little else.
(by Jason Grote)

I thought I had suppressed those animal brains but looking at it this way, it seems I've been using them all along. The laugh, the beautiful sound, the shape of hands caressing the keys, God's thumb. Impressions. But then offering endlessly more.

Beauty in simplicity - Sonnet 20

I adore Rufus Wainwright and this Sonnet sums it all up for me. I've seen him playing it while wearing a pompous long black dress with feathers and sequins - a 15 feet long train trailing behind him. But this little video offers as much Rufus as you can get, he's all there and giving everything - every time. He's for real.

On true art

“It’s something which reverberates within your psyche, it disturbs the whole life cycle within a person. It affects the atmosphere in which you live. Most of what its called art, your eye just flows over. It may be charming or nice, but it doesn’t change you”. Francis Bacon

June 21st

There you have it, the longest day. It is what it is.
It should be nice & warm but I feel cold.

Synchronicities

I wrestled with a blog post a few weeks ago and then let it rest a bit. Today I found the incentive to pick it up again. Here's what I wrote before:

Last week was a pretty turbulent one, as in pretty AND turbulent. I attended two concerts in a row in the same city, and the contrasts were quite remarkable. Jónsi in Paradiso (the ‘Pop Temple’, mostly for indie music) vs. Rufus Wainwright in Carré (massive, rather high-brow, think opera and plays). One general admission standing, one seated in plush. Different audiences, age wise and otherwise.

Different also from the opera I attended in London last April. Very, very different from the concert in London that was cancelled (and is still eagerly expected in September), the idiosyncratic Whale Watching Tour. I feel like a chameleon.

I am always very apprehensive of ‘recommendations’ – if you like this, you might like this as well, or – people who bought this, also bought this. It’s even worse when friends do it. I hate to disappoint them because apparently music comes in clusters for them and you just have to choose which one fits you.

Music doesn’t fit me, I fit into music and somehow I fit into lots of different music. I guess the common denominator for me is not genre based. Then what is it based upon? I will try to tackle this issue from different sides.

Firstly, music is not just notes to me. Just like the books I care to read are not just words and the art I like to watch is not just paint on a canvas. I can (and do) find music in my books and words in the paintings I love. The thing I’m looking for is not media specific, if that makes any sense.

Secondly, I don’t care for things that are pleasing to the eye only, or to the ear only. Or things that touch the mind / soul / body only, for that matter. How can anything be perceived as ‘beautiful’ if only one sense, one part of your being is involved? Think about it. It seems such an obvious thing to say but it sums up my life. And it’s not easy if you feel that way, trust me.

Above all, I seek intensity in life. What a strange paradox, somebody hypersensitive craving sensory overloads. But with the above in mind, imagine what it feels like for me when all senses are involved, when my whole being is touched by something or someone. It happens and most of those instances turn out to be intertwined in some way, convincing me it’s not just a personal thing. Francis Bacon talking about his paintings and Ben Frost talking about his music are almost interchangeable. Ben using metaphors from visual art with the same impact. Rufus reaching over the ages by setting Shakespeare’s timeless sonnets to music. Nico Muhly contributing to both Jónsi’s and Rufus’ last albums, touring with the Whale Watching Tour, while being a classical composer. Intertwined on many levels.

I agree, that does make me seem blasé a lot of the time because I perceive many things as superficial that others marvel about. They seem to be able to find joy in fleeting fancies, which is all right of course – just not for me.

And then John Adams, on his highly recommendable blog 'Hell Mouth', writes as follows:

The critic and aesthetic philosopher Walter Pater, who lived at roughly the same time Flaubert flourished (around the middle of the 19th century), talked a lot about the “sensuous material” in a work of art, i.e. the pure sources of stimulus before they’ve been processed in the viewer’s or reader’s or listener’s mind by intellection. This “sensuous material” is for Pater the most important element in a work of art.

The aesthetic experience for him is a kind of three-fold process that begins with the sense organs receiving an impression (a sound, a visual image, a tactile or even olfactory stimulus). Then the intellectual process kicks in, analyzing the stimulus and processing the data, comparing it with previously stored experience. This is the cognitive state. Finally a third, synthesizing activity that Pater calls “imaginative reason” goes into action. “Imagination” in the sense that Pater uses it is a higher, more sophisticated process than either mere perception or “mere” intellectual reasoning, being a sort of fusing of both the sensory experience and its intellectual, analytically derived interpretation.

If this process is successfully carried out a kind of sublime meta-experience takes place, producing a situation in which the “sensuous material” is experienced as pure form. If I understand him correctly, this then would be the essence of the aesthetic encounter.

Lovely. More to follow on similarities in art. Wait for quotes by Francis Bacon and Mark Rothko, coupled with quotes by Ben Frost. Remarkable stuff, I promise!

Happy sad

I still have this "happy/sad" feeling (Tim Buckley always comes to mind) from when I got back from five days in London.

Happy, because we had a swell time, my daughter and I - dividing our attention between shopping, culture and good food. Sad, because the concert I was soooo looking forward to for months on end, had been cancelled. Remember that ash cloud?

While we were there, I got several text messages from my son, informing me about The Whale Watching Tour. With great apprehension, I postponed reading every message until I felt up to it (after a very nice meal for instance).

So it was during these peaceful moments that I learned about the start of the greatly anticipated tour in Berlin being cancelled because more than half of the musicians & crew weren't able to fly in. Next day, Ghent was also cancelled but there was still a positive feeling about London. Until Monday morning.

As I said, I love to combine culture with shopping. I love to have a 'goal' set when planning a trip abroad, something to really look forward to, besides the usual treats a foreign city has to offer. With this 'goal' gone, the rest of the trip was different. I felt sad.

On top of that, I felt jealous once I got home and discovered that the tour had finally taken off. I wonder if I will be able to get front row tickets for the rescheduled concert in September... apart from the hassle of getting days off from work again - and the money involved.

I really, really needed that break - and now I feel more exhausted than before.
The things we do for the music we love.

Facebook & the library

(...)it has become clear that Google is recovery, just like the great library it was built to be. You don’t walk in a library and get handed books by librarian. You go to a section and find what you are looking for.

A comment on a great blog post that stuck in my mind. The social web is all about discovery, not recovery. The media were all over the 'battle' between Facebook and Google when for the first time ever, Facebook had more hits than Google. But the distinction that is so well put in those few words above, shows that these giants are not up against each other as they represent different things. You go to the (Google) library, define your search word (section) and find what you are looking for.

Now go to your Facebook homepage (assuming you have a friend list that mirrors your everyday life/work/interests) and discover. During the time you were away, friends have handed you all kinds of information: links to websites, videos, pictures. But they've also handed you emotions and experiences, whether you asked for them or not.

And there's more! They've let you know they liked the video you put up earlier and have given you an update on a link you posted. This makes you feel good. Makes you feel like a librarian just handed you a book, knowing you'd be interested. It's all about caring.

Libraries have been struggling long and hard to resist Google but most of them have incorporated it into their everyday work now. It's all about recovery, right? Question is whether we want the 'caring' part of information distribution too.

For me, Facebook has become an aggregation device of sorts. I know it makes me neglect my Netvibes pages just because it is more personal, more interactive, more real time. It serves as a big inhale of what's going on right now among the people and issues I care for. I think the best thing it has taught me is that most of the time information doesn't have to be exhaustive to be satisfying. When it does, I will still have Google (the library).

Now read that great blog post: How Internet Content Distribution & Discovery Are Changing

TMC Requiem: Ben Frost - Forgetting You Is Like Breathing Water

Inspiration comes in the the most peculiar ways. I was listening to Iceland-via-Australia artist and producer Ben Frost, who is playing the highly anticipated Big Ears Festival next weekend in Knoxville, and I ran across a comment from a young woman named Sybilla Poortman on Last.fm for the track "Forgetting You Is Like Breathing Water" from his 2006 album Theory of Machines. She said of the song, "I want this played at my funeral, awesome stuff." That gave me an idea. Try out a new feature about songs you would want played at your funeral. I had Sybilla try out for the first cut to see if this peculiar inspiration could actually work as an interesting topic of conversation and I think she did a magnificent job. I present you with the first edition of TMC Requiem for Ben Frost's "Forgetting You Is Like Breathing Water".

Danny Perkins wrote this as an introduction to my post as a guest contributor on his music site 'The Milk Carton'. Here's what I penned down:

It’s all about intensity, whether I listen to Verdi or Muhly, Joni or Jónsi, Swans or Joy Division. I’d like to thank Danny for giving me the opportunity to write on music once again, as it’s been years since I penned my last review for an underground music mag called Fake. I had the privilege to interview musicians like Jim O’Rourke, Oren Ambarchi, AMM & Felix Kubin – all of them still among the best in their field.

I’ve seen Ben Frost perform live twice and was quite literally blown away by the sheer intensity and power of his music. It invades all senses simultaneously and is not for the faint-hearted. Sounds that will resonate inside your ears, your mind, your body. Taking nothing for granted, Frost is always engaged (as well as engaging), questioning and pushing boundaries.

This kind of music is sometimes referred to as noise and that’s fine with me. Noise to me means hearing music in everyday sounds and enhancing it. Appreciating it is a gift of the senses, like being able to distinguish new, meaningful forms in things that have been broken, torn apart, or crammed together. It’s discovering new meanings in ideas that have been rejected or misunderstood.

Why would these sounds be fitting for a funeral, my funeral? There are two sides to that question. Of course you would pick music that meant a lot to you for your own funeral (if you get the chance to pick it). But on the other hand, you wouldn’t be around to enjoy it, would you? So choosing that particular music is a message to the ones you leave behind as well. And the last thing you want is to send them away screaming in terror because of the auditory onslaught you condemned them to suffer.

‘Forgetting You is Like Breathing Water’ grants us the best of both worlds. It combines a ‘noise ethic’ with a wonderful ear for gorgeous sounds. It’s everything the title implies: “I would choke & drown when I try to forget you”. The elements and nature in all its raw and unsurpassed beauty are very important in Frost’s oeuvre, as is the notion of breathing, in nature and through the elements. Breathing air means life, breathing water means death. Breathing fire means creation. Ashes are beginning as well as end. The cycles of nature should run their course so that we will never forget.

The piece enfolds like a procession march, unrelentingly building up through sustained rich drones that solemnly ascend in slow motion (an acquaintance of mine who teaches music at UCLA recalled Stravinsky’s Orpheus upon hearing it). There’s chiming electronics at first, with a heartbeat drum pulsating throughout. Then the heartbeat fades and gives way to grief as acoustic strings take over, surrendering to a majestic, thankful kind of grace that urges us to remember - and move on.

Posted first on The Milk Carton

Ending one thing to master another

I have abandoned my 'old' blog, which was in Dutch and primarily about my work at the library. I am now looking forward to using this new blog to its full potential, not just for my master course.

Ideally, there will be a mix of information/education related things (think media literacy, digital & mobile learning) and cultural issues (music, literature, art, language) with perhaps a family story thrown in for good measure. And I always love to mix issues that at first don't seem connected. Be surprised as I surprise myself!

Must admit that I thought about changing the name as 'Mastering Things' was clearly chosen because of my master course. But then again, this is the story of my life: I strive to master the things I like doing. So 'Mastering Things' it is.

Will you bear with me?

Red

My personal review of Sam Amidon's brand new album 'I See The Sign'

In times like these, when I ponder abandoning the Catholic Church, I need someone or something to remind me that true spirituality is to be found within ourselves. A church that tells people what to do and where to abstain from, meanwhile covering up their own mistakes and wrong-doings, cannot be my church.

Sam Amidon deals in spirituality. From the blood-pumping heart beat of ‘How Come That Blood’ onwards, his new album is like a catalogue of human emotions. Some reviewers wrote about this album as a collection of children’s songs. No way. This is as mature as it gets, hell – it could do with a parental advisory warning.

Despite the fact that “we are one, the war is over, there’s an angel in the sky and love is still alive”, there’s a veil of blood all over his music. People drown their sisters out of jealousy; kill their brothers over a hazelnut tree; shoot their lovers’ suitors and kill their wives because they feel ill treated. People are vain, credulous, ignorant, and selfish and still believe all will be well in the end. Will it?

Yet the songs are so beautifully performed, with meaning not merely conveyed in the lyrics themselves, but also in their delivery. For example, in the heart wrenching ‘Rain and Snow’, the first time Sam sings “this way, and I’m not gonna be treated this way”, it sounds raw, displaying constrained anger and deception. When the same line returns after the deed is done, it sounds soft, wondering and almost remorseful.

Judgement Day, that’s what this album is about in my opinion. Everyone will have to account for their deeds, if not below, then above. And it’s a struggle to get to that day, to get home. Some hope to cover up their deeds, others offer justification or seek understanding. Most show remorse, all are afraid.

And right there in the middle is 'Kedron', unfolding like a lost gospel. A gorgeous hinge around which the album’s songs revolve. Don’t be afraid, it says. “Oh, look how patiently he hangs - Jesus our Lord is crucified”. What could be worse than that? This is not a song; it is a prayer for redemption.

“Thou Man of grief, remember me.
Thou never canst Thyself forget.
Thy last expiring agony.
Thy fainting pangs and bloody sweat.”

The songs’ order is crucial. A reviewer mentioned that the album should have finished with ‘Relief’ (an amazing R Kelly cover). Yeah, you wish it would. But things rarely end in relief, although there may be some of it along the way to keep your spirits up. The end is Red, blood red. All the major themes on the album come together, musically as well as lyric wise. 'Red' is the one song that Sam wrote himself; the others are traditional songs. The lost sheep have been found and gathered. The last mountain is to be conquered to get home. Ben Frosts guitar pounds relentlessly, like a heart beat counting down – but with climbing notes. And then that sweet but haunting Kedron theme kicks in from Nico Muhly’s harmonium, leaving you with goose bumps all over.

Is this The Sign Sam wants us to see?
Don’t know if I’ll stick with that church. But I will stick with Sam Amidon, that’s for sure.

Out now on the Bedroom Community label.
Search the internet if you want to read reviews that deal with the music, the instruments used, the musicians performing. This is just a very personal view.

Summing up

Looks like we have ways of examining the studies on mobile learning according to:
• aspects of learning (Ally)
• types of learning (Vavoula)
• intrinsic characteristics of mobile technology (Laurillard)
• affordances of mobile technology (Gibson, Kirschner)
• a theory of mobile learning (Sharples)

I find many points in these studies underlining my proposed principle of iterative negotiating in context. This very principle illustrates the sheer impossibility of separating device or didactics from context (setting). Sharples puts it this way: context is not a fixed shell surrounding the learner, but a construct that is shaped by continuously negotiated dialogue. Kirschner states: Mobile technologies offer distinctive educational affordances - they 'afford' real-time information whenever, wherever and they 'afford' a rapid access interface. These two characteristics of the artefact 'on hand' (i.e. a PDA), determine if and how a particular learning behaviour could possibly take place within a given context. And Laurillard says: mobile technology often changes the pattern of learning/work activity; the context of mobile learning is about more than time and space.

One could regard the task-artefact cycle (negotiating in context) as the next step up from the 'substitution-transition-transfer' three step. To see the context of mobile learning as merely a step forward in being able to learn anywhere, anyplace, is not going beyond that three step (that suited 'regular' e-learning). Mobile learning is also about negotiating the tool used and the pattern of learning, both process and goal. This can go on and on because the possibilities of the tool will keep changing endlessly, adapting to the need of the learning intended. In return, the learning goal will keep changing because more has become possible through the tool used. Mobility in time, space and learning context.

Which leads to one more question next to the three discussed in my last post:

4. Where does CELSTEC stand in all this? Are there studies being conducted at the time (or have there been in the past) that address these issues?

Waiting for answers - meanwhile more questions

I'm struggling with a few questions that need to be addressed before I can go on.

1. I find that the matrix I set out to use is bound to generate ambiguous results and insufficient conclusions. The model that Frohberg, Goeth and Schwabe (2009) use, is far more detailed and so offers more space for fine-tuning – thus describing the crucial elements of each mobile learning study in a less ambiguous way. Obviously, in a master course of limited time, it is impossible to use a model like Frohberg’s but I wonder how to avoid some of that ambiguity and still get usable data from each study.

2. There are so many ways of categorizing the findings from these studies on mobile learning. One could categorize according to ‘Aspects of Mobile Learning’ (Ally, 2009), to types of learning (Vavoula), to intrinsic characteristics of mobile technology, regarding its pedagogical implications (Laurillard) - and possible more ways. Which one to use?

3. If ‘context is everything’, how will I ever be able to separate device from setting, or setting from didactics? Or setting from didactics?

Some summing up to do next.

A theory of Mobile Learning

According to Sharples et al, a theory for mobile learning should be tested against these criteria:
* significantly different from current learning theories
* account for mobility of learners
* cover both formal and informal learning
* theorise learning as constructive and social process
* analyse learning as personal and situated activity mediated by technology

This brings him to a tentative definition of mobile learning as 'the processes of coming to know through conversations across multiple contexts amongst people and personal interactive technologies'. Sharples puts the communicative interaction between learner and technology central. He regards learning as a conversational process of becoming informed about each other's 'informings', whereby the context is not a fixed shell surrounding the learner, but a construct that is shaped by continuously negotiated dialogue.

I like Sharples' notion of convergence of mobile technologies, which would demand a new learning theory and didactics. Look how New Learning and New Technology go hand in hand in this table:

New Learning / New Technology
personalised / personal
learner centered / user centered
situated / mobile
collaborative / networked
ubiquitous / ubiquitous
lifelong / durable

More on a theory of Mobile Learning by Sharples, Taylor & Vavoula next.

Affordances of mobile devices

Lai et al put didactics first by designing the learning script as well as the mobile device to facilitate experiental learning, thereby placing the device between technical setting and pedagogical practice.

This is a fierce move away from Ally-syndrome - they describe learning material as designed from the affordances of the device to be used! Lai tries to tackle the paradox of experiental learning: how can students in an authentic learning context be motivated to learn effectively without any careful design or guidance? In other words: authentic learning also needs a constructed setting and this could be achieved by technical (mobile) support to facilitate learning.

The term affordance originally refers to the relationship between an object's physical properties and the characteristics of a user that enables particular interactions between user and object (Gibson, 1977). In the same vein, educational affordances can be defined as the relationships between the properties of an educational intervention and the characteristics of the learner that enable particular kinds of learning by him or her (Kirschner, 2002).

Mobile technologies offer distinctive educational affordances:
* they 'afford' real-time information whenever, wherever - supporting learning flow and providing learning materials
* they 'afford' a rapid access interface for note & photo taking, for sound & video recording

These two characteristics of the artifact 'on hand' (i.e. a PDA), determine if and how a particular learning behaviour could possibly take place within a given context (Kirschner, 2002).

Will look at attempts by Sharples, Taylor and Vavoula to set up a Mobile Learning Theory next.

Mobility in context

Diana Laurillard has some interesting thoughts on pedagogical implications of mobile technologies. She lists the following intrinsic characteristics:

* Enable knowledge building by learners in different contexts
* Enable learners to construct understandings
* Mobile technology often changes the pattern of learning/work activity
* The context of mobile learning is about more than time and space

The first two characteristics of mobile learning are quite obvious and undisputed. The third and fourth are different and these are exactly the characteristics that relate to my study and the task-artefact cycle. The tool changes the pattern of learning, and ideally, the pattern of learning changes the tool in turn. Actually, the task-artefact cycle (negotiating in context) is the next step from the 'substitution-transition-transfer' threestep.

To see the context of mobile learning as merely a step forward in being able to learn anywhere, anyplace, is not going beyond that threestep (that suited 'regular' e-learning). Mobile learning is also about negotiating the tool used and the pattern of learning, both process and goal. This can go on and on because the possibilities of the tool will keep changing endlessly, adapting to the need of the learning intended. In return, the learning goal will keep changing because more has become possible through the tool used. Mobility in time, space and learning context.

Will discuss the notion of 'affordances' in connection to mobile learning next.

Ben dancing

What a strange night yesterday, Nordic Night in the Cultuurcentrum in Hasselt, Belgium. Have you ever attended a concert where the larger part of the audience didn't know the performers? It seemed that way yesterday.

Not the entire truth. I guess a big part of the audience came to see Jóhann Jóhannsson, who is quite well known outside of Iceland. I was there for Valgeir Sigurðsson & Ben Frost who did just what I expected them to do: make a lot of droning noise and weave in unexpected twisting & turning melodies and rhythms. Music to be felt in your stomach, which was a bit hard to stomach for most people present I guess... Four people in the first row left during their set. Applause was scarce and not very spontaneous. I don't know how these barefooted gentle men keep their concentration up. Because that's what they do, concentrate on the music, communicating through little nods and eye movements that the people right behind me (third row, "do you know any of the names on the bill?") will not even have noticed. I loved watching them.

And Jóhannsson, the top of the bill? It's not meant for me, too ambient, too slick. Not a single word to the audience, no introduction of the musicians, no communication. No respect for the obediently clapping masses. I know I would have preferred to watch Ben 'dancing' on tiptoes for another hour.

Find more pictures here! More info with links to audio and video here.

Edit: just found this on the wonderful blog 'Life's a Pitch':

I am pretty surprised how unaware audience members are of their own responsibility in preparing themselves to possibly have a special experience. (Or their own culpability in undermining it.) The process of opening one's self up to the experience...in my mind it is a kind of "unclenching"...is hard, and getting harder it seems. Helping audience members understand that they need to meet an artist half way is a start.

Yes, couldn't agree more. Source

Mobile Learning SIG

I'm starting to think I could spend the entire 120 hours for this particular master course on reading only - and then I still would have covered only a part of the available relevant literature. I bet the minute I'm typing this, somebody somewhere is submitting a report to a journal or uploading an article online that I cannot afford to omit in my study.

Last week I came across this SIG (Special Interest Group) on Mobile Learning, called Kaleidoscope. How come I didn't find out before? Anyway, they put out this 'Report on literature on mobile learning, science and collaborative activity' (main author Giasemi Vavoula), which means another 100 pages to read... Not to mention the 'CSCL Alpine Rendez-Vous' they organised, with (among other stuff) a 100 pages manual to a workshop called 'Beyond Mobile Learning'. All of these written by the best on mobile learning, I've come to recognise their names.

So I'm suffering from information overload and could do with a word from my coach. Christian, where are you? I need some guidance here to find a red thread, a theme to work on.

I am not being entirely honest here. I didn't just stumble upon the SIG. In my initial list of reports on mobile learning projects, there was one article about adult learners, dealing with 'intentional informal learning'. This means that the learning process and the learning goal are explicitly learner defined (within informal learning). A matrix to visualise a typology of learning as introduced by Vavoula was shown and this caught my attention.

Vavoula uses three types of learning:
intentional, formal learning - process and goal are explicitly teacher defined
intentional, informal learning - process and goal are explicitly learner defined
unintentional, informal learning - process is non-prescribed, goal is unspecified

I'm taking this a bit further next and hope to catch some important papers on this issue from the Kaleidscope SIG.

Transition or merely substitution - again

Upon reading through the various articles on mobile learning studies, it struck me how many still suffer from what I would call 'Ally-syndrome'. Mohamed Ally (Athabasca Uni, Canada) talks/writes about the benefits of transition when it comes to mobile learning but his many examples of accomplished projects show merely substitution of existing didactic materials onto a mobile medium.

I do like Ally's 'aspects of mobile learning', that seem to hint in the direction of a separate mobile didactic. Those aspects in ascending order of complexity:
object (using buttons)
linearity (putting things in order)
support
update (keeping track)
construct
reflective
simulation
hyperlinked (synthesise information)
non-immersive contextual
immersive contextual (virtual)

And so again I found mentions like 'for courses that offer Web-based materials, redesigning is necessary if they are to be accessed by mobile devices' (Thornton & Houser, 2005). Redesigning is substitution, from Web-based materials to mobile devices as much as from books to Web-based materials. Mobile learning is about more than just changing the medium. It could provide a starting point for a different view on learning and teaching.

Oh, and by the way - the concert last Wednesday was absolutely brilliant! Loved that world premiere of 'Impossible Things', you could hear a pin drop through all the 30 minutes of it, mesmerising and powerful stuff.

Britten in America

A little diversion...

"A programme of music from both sides of the Atlantic that delves into the subtle and rich sonorities of strings and voice. This concert offers a rare opportunity to hear celebrated tenor, Mark Padmore paired with the exuberant and imaginative violinist Pekka Kuusisto in a new work by Nico Muhly. A protégé of Philip Glass, Nico Muhly is gaining a reputation as being one of the most impressive innovators of new music, effortlessly crossing the boundaries between classical and pop.(...)" Source

So looking forward to seeing Nico Muhly for the third time in just over two months! And in the beautiful Muziekcentrum in Eindhoven again (less than an hour's drive away), where Nico is composer-in-residence for a few years. More info here!

Struggling with the matrix of dependent/independent

Reading through reports of mobile learning projects, I find more questions than answers regarding my intended framework. To establish whether a setting is dependent or independent, one has to know what 'setting' stands for. Location can mean many things; it can have a geographical connotation or perhaps be more about demographics.

A mobile language learning project in Japan could only work there because of the very high percentage (99 percent) of students using their mobile phones for e-mailing (at very low costs, compared to the US & Europe). Does that make it setting dependent? The same project could be used anywhere but would require a lot more preparation and additional funds. What exactly is 'setting' when context is everything? (Sharples, 2008).

Same with devices. Is a mobile learning project considered 'device dependent' if it can be used on a mobile phone only? Or should this be narrowed down so that it's 'device dependent' if it can only be used on e.g. a Nokia n900?

Of course the element of didactic dependency/independency is even more complicated. How is didactics defined?

There's a contradiction in the notion of 'Ad Hoc & Mobile Classrooms'(Chang et al, 2003). 'Ad Hoc and mobile' points to setting independency, while 'classrooms' indicates didactic dependency, purely from its terminology. The teacher and pupils are provided with all learning aids they have in a normal classroom setting. It's like a snake biting its own tail because if the setting is the same in both mobile and normal classroom, then the project is setting dependent.

Looking into different ways of categorizing next, very interesting insights there.

A different framework

About this different framework, used by Frohberg, Goeth and Schwabe (Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 2009), to categorise Mobile Learning projects. First they claim to have searched every relevant project to date, where I will only review a limited number of projects (due to limited time for the module). Then they start from the Task Model for Mobile Learners (Taylor, 2006 and Sharples 2007), designed to structure and analyse Mobile Learning. What the model does (more so than the activity theory it was rooted in), is taking into consideration the complex interdepencies and dialectic of learning and technology. Which is exactly what I aim to do when using either didactic & setting or didactic & device together with dependent/independent in my framework (which looks quite simplified compared to the framework Frohberg et al. use).

Can't seem to be able to copy the model here but it comprises of a triangle with 'Tool' at the top corner and 'Control' & 'Communication' at the base corners. There are lines from each corner to the middle of the opposite triangle side and on these 3 new points are placed 'Subject' (between Tool & Control), 'Context' (between Control & Communication) and 'Object' (between Communication & Tool). That way, all 6 factors are connected. All items are viewed from a technological as well as a semiotic angle. Hope you get an idea from this description (draw it!).

Frohberg et al. then move on to make tables for all 6 factors, arranging the reviewed projects on Mobile Learning on a scale from 1 to 5. For example, for the factor 'Control'(regarded as responsibility for learning process and goal), the scale ranges from 'Full teacher control' to 'Full learner control', while for the factor 'Tool', the scale ranges from 'Content delivery' tot 'Content construction'.

The number of projects is mentioned for each category of the scale accordingly. It comes as no surprise that most projects are to be found in the lower categories but Frohberg doesn't leave it at that. He argues why and how a lot could be gained by having more projects in the higher categories (apart from the factor 'Control' which would have its optimal level in between both extremes), and goes on to give examples of projects for each category.

I hope I will be able to use some of this in my own framework. Some more reading to do...

Proposal - the second part

Resuming where I left off:

There are recurring themes of overall flexibility, immediacy and continuous ‘fluidity’ discernible throughout the aforementioned eight principles. Nothing is predisposed or fixed; the user/learner decides. Not only does the learner expect method and means to be adaptable to the given task (and vice versa), he also interacts with, and adapts to both method and means himself. This relates to a study currently conducted by Dirk Börner (CELSTEC Lab) on the "Educational problem of mobile learning”.

I would like to research whether this ninth principle of "Iterative negotiating in context” might be the specific principle to mobile learning in education. My main research question is: What is specific to mobile learning in education?

9. Iterative negotiating in context: Adjusting and revising task as well as means, in a cyclic process of negotiation and mutually dependent development.

Method
In order to find out what is specific to mobile learning in education, I will conduct a literature survey into the use of these eight principles in existing publications. There are three dimensions to mobile learning: didactic, device and setting, and publications on the subject will relate to any of these dimensions or not (dependent or independent). I will choose two dimensions and categorise publications into four quadrants, according to possible combinations of these features (e.g. didactic & setting, as below). This way, I hope to identify patterns (or gaps) in existing literature about mobile learning.
The four quadrants are:
didactic dependent/ setting dependent
didactic independent/ setting dependent
didactic dependent/ setting independent
didactic independent/ setting independent

Furthermore, I will explore current studies on this subject and technologies used at the CELSTEC Lab. Clustering of these findings will enable me to prepare relevant questions for interviews with experts in the Lab. After processing the information data from the expert interviews and relating these once more to the patterns emerging from the dimensions matrix, I will be able to answer my research question on what is specific to mobile learning in education.

Process
1. Literature Study into distinction between digital learning didactics an mobile learning didactics, with a focus on the selected dimensions
2. Integration with the educational problems study done by the CELSTEC Lab - exploring technologies on site
3. Clustering the findings for preparing the expert interviews
4. Guideline-based expert interviews at the lab, focusing on the clusters identified in step 1 and 2.

Course goals
- gain insight into digital didactics and their underlying principles
- find distinctions between didactics for digital learning and mobile learning
- establish what is specific for mobile learning and possible usefulness and validity of the ninth principle

Learning goals
- developing and applying an original idea in a research context (the ninth principle)
- applying problem solving abilities in an unfamiliar environment (mobile learning, media labs)
- demonstrating the ability to integrate knowledge and handle complexity (comprehensive research coupled with hands-on activities & questioning)
- communicating conclusions (publication) and underpinning knowledge (comprehensive research report) to specialist and non-specialist audiences
- studying in a largely self-directed or autonomous manner (using a weblog to inform and reflect: http://masteringthings.blogspot.com/)

Products to be assessed
- proposal - adding to eight existing principles of digital/mobile learning didactics, a ninth principle as being specific for mobile learning (2 pages)
- comprehensive report - research into usefulness and validity of eight existing principles and ninth proposed principle of mobile learning didactics (16 pages max)
- article (e.g. for OnderwijsInnovatie) about ninth principle of mobile learning didactics, taking into consideration the eight existing principles and the way they differ from digital didactics (3-4 pages)

I have already started collecting literature about mobile learning projects and stumbled upon a very interesting article that claims to give 'a critical analysis of the state of the art'. The interesting part is mostly in the framework used for categorising mobile learning projects, which is quite different from the one I aim to use. More about this later!

Happy New Year!

Finally got around to rewriting my proposal for the capita selecta master course, ah - the holiday season taking its toll... Here's the first part.

Proposal for Capita Selecta course – Master Active Learning
Introduction
In 2003, Simons introduced seven principles (aspects, pillars) of didactics for digital learning. These seven principles were converted to principles for mobile learning didactics by Pols (2008), and one more didactic principle exclusive for mobile learning was added by Rubens (2005). For this course, I would like to elaborate on the eight existing principles of didactics for mobile learning and their distinction from those for digital learning.

Principles
1. Relating - Digital didactics: Identifying and creating relationships and roles, social interaction. Consulting sources and experts, peer-to-peer feedback.
Mobile didactics (extras): Finding relevant information just-in-time, in formal as well as informal settings. Rating and voting systems.
2. Creating - Digital didactics: Actively creating knowledge and constructing meaning, individually as well as together. Research. Stimulating reasoning and argumentation.
Mobile didactics (extras: Creating knowledge just-in-time and wherever, individually as well as together. Making IT-applications more accessible.
3. Sharing - Digital didactics: Publishing and sharing learning outcomes. Broadening audience by applying products as learning objects.
Mobile didactics (extras): Digital testing and assessing.
4. Making transparent - Digital didactics: Visualising patterns of social interaction and thinking processes. Schematising.
Mobile didactics (extras): Offering teachers better information about students’ abilities and knowledge.
5. Learning to learn - Digital didactics: Enhancing meta cognitive development through peer-to-peer feedback, online reflection and visible learning processes.
Mobile didactics (extras): Immediate feedback and reflection.
6. Competences first - Digital didactics: Assessing competences online (e.g. through 360 degree feedback). Digital portfolios to visualise development of competences.
Mobile didactics (extras): Enhancing accessibility. Digital testing to clarify competence directed assessment.
7. Increasing flexibility - Digital didactics: Independency regarding time, space, learning conditions, learning styles, tempo and occasion.
Mobile didactics (extras): Even more so! Motivation through ownership learning process. Adapting to students’ personal environment.
8. Organising learning - Mobile didactics: Designing organisation of learning more efficiently and effectively. Synchronising.

Subject and research question
Towards a ninth principle of didactics for mobile learning
The previous principles do not fully reflect the specific usage of mobile devices in education. Therefore, a ninth principle might be based on user interaction with a mobile system, similar to what is described in the ‘Task-Artefact Cycle’ (Carroll et al, 1991).

A given task sets requirements for the design of an artefact to help an individual perform the task. The resulting artefact, in turn, creates new or unexpected possibilities or poses new constraints on the performance of the task. These possibilities and/or constraints often suggest a revision of the original task for which the artefact was made. The new task sets new requirements for the redesign of the artefact and so on and so on). The task-artefact cycle is in other words an iterative process of continuous, mutually dependent development between task and artefact, a process that will never reach an optimum state.
http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/task_artifact_cycle.html

I would like to research whether this ninth principle might be the specific principle to mobile learning in education. My research question is: What is specific to mobile learning in education?

More of this when the proposal is finished.