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Jane (not her real name), a long-standing member of the congregation of a local church recently died at quite a young age.

THIN PLACES

At her funeral, the minister giving the address referred to the concept of thin places. This idea comes from pre-Christian Ireland and describes special places where the distance between this world and the next seems very small. Some of the aura of the other world seems to have crossed into these places through a divide which is thin enough to allow this kind of transfer.

Everyone experiences thin places differently and everyone has their own, personal collection of thin places, whether or not they are religious. Perhaps they have special memories of a place or a time when they were happy, at peace or in love. For me, thin places include Trinity Hall Chapel where my wife and I sang in the choir, Culbone in Somerset where we stayed in a fantastic holiday cottage and the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, where we were married.

THIN PEOPLE?

It’s not very helpful terminology but it seems clear to me that there are also ‘thin’ people. Jane was one of these. The minister visited her shortly before she died and said it was like being in the presence of someone who was beginning to be ‘beamed up’ in the Star Trek fashion. Jane was always thin, though. Everyone who met her noticed it. She was the leader of the church welcome team for a reason.

THIN LEARNING?

So what has all this got to do with education, learning or elearning? Well, I was wondering what we might be able to do to create thin learning – online or offline.

The ultimate in user-centred, usable and accessible online environments would, I suppose be the thinnest – the ones which get in the way the least. I have heard people saying that when the technology becomes essentially invisible the learning takes over but it’s not really possible to have invisible learning environments – they are always visible in some way. It’s easy to give examples of environments which are the opposite of thin – several I have used are at the very least ‘tubby’.

Another obvious example would be the presentations we have all had to endure which are so thick they message is completely obscured – you can’t see the message for the medium.

It won’t be the same for everyone, of course, just like thin places. Art studios in secondary schools are manic, disorganised, chaotic places for some but for others they are thin – letting the creativity flow and stimulating deep learning. I suppose the trick is to maximise thinness for as many as possible.

THIN TEACHERS?

I’m sure we can all think of thin teachers – mine was a history teacher who dramatised the topics with dry humour and had an amazing mastery of the subject. History came alive and the room melted away – the walls were made thin and history flowed through.

I also tried to create a thin environment in my classroom. When introducing a year 3/4 class to the internet (this was a long time ago!) I suspended thin tape in a complicated web from the ceiling, joining pictures of various types of computers – pretty obvious but seemed to work for them.

WHO’S THIN?

Maybe I’ll finish with a few recommendations of people I think may be amongst the ranks of the thin:

• @tombarrett with all his collaborative and creative crowdsourcing activities (amongst many other thin practices)
• @dawnhallybone the doyen of classroom games-based learning
• @russeltarr history teacher and online guru
• @mwclarkson ICT super-teacher and blogging super-power

That’s only scratching the surface, of course – add your own nominations for thin people below…

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