Book Review: Chris Jones "Networked Learning" 2015

So I review books occasionally for the British Journal of Educational Technology. Last year I put my hand up to review Chris Jones' new book and they sent me my copy. I am a busy guy and things do not always get the right priority. By some happenstance, Springer also sent a copy of the book to a scholar in Iran who has clearly got his act together better than me because when I eventually sent my review in (having actually read the book - it's a conscience thing) I was told by the reviews editor that BJET had already published a review on it!! So I thought I'd look elsewhere. Seems not many learning tech journals bother with book reviews now. I found one that did and I'm giving up on emailing them a third time. I have a blog. That'll do nicely. Here it is...

I was excited to see that Professor Chris Jones had published a substantial contribution to this topic. He was my personal tutor in Lancaster from 2002-2008 and I have since followed his published work with interest. He is one of the only scholars I would trust or expect to take this project on and carry it off. 

Thanks Chris!

I look back with great affection at the times I get to learn from Chris. I've been mulling over the symposium about the place of technology in networked learning he led in Maastricht ever since. What does the technology do? Can we ascribe agency to it or does it just transmit human intentionality? He quoted the example of 'Siri' which, when asked for an abortion clinic, would point you towards a pro-life advice centre. The ethics and intentionality were embedded within the device and the code that runs it. Where is cause and effect there?
Chris doesnt participate that much online, as far as I can see, most of his tweets are about his left-leaning politics :) But I came across a discussion on Leigh's blog, and, as I read down, I was just willing him to return to carry on the debate about the nature of networked learning. Thanks for giving so much to that Chris - very useful contribution.