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Theoretically, the most helpful metaphor discovered in the context of this study is that of‘rhizome’, discovered in the work of Polsani (2002).In 1989, I was not at all self-conscious of networks and I was a long way off my meeting withPithamber Polsani and reading his work. However, I recognised the need to draw down wisdomfrom those networks that I identified as potentially helpful. In IM1, I allude to the relationship Ideveloped with the head of IT at St. Simon Stock School who was endlessly helpful in trainingme in skills that I still fall back on from time to time. I attribute to him my knowledge ofspreadsheets, databases, anti-virus software, silver bulleting software and the use of simpleprograms in learning and teaching. It was in his room, that I first began to witness twoimportant phenomena. First, I noticed that it was possible to learn a lot about technology byobserving the computing behaviours of the pupils. Indeed, I frequently ‘networked’ with youngpeople and then tried out what I had observed in the relative security of my office - Furtherevidence of the sequence from personal learning to professional learning. Second, when askedto cover for absent members of his department, I became aware that for the first time in myclassroom, there was an object that was much more interesting than me – the monitor. It dawnedon me in those networking moments, that there was a potential future for schooling withouttraditional conceptualisations of the teacher-pupil relationship. Indeed, I had benefited from theinversion of that model in more ways than one. Lave and Wenger (2008) might evaluate thisillustrative moment as an example of ‘Legitimate Peripheral Participation’:“As an aspect of social practice, learning involves the whole person; it implies notonly a relation to specific activities, but in relation to social communities – it impliesbecoming a full participant, a member, a kind of person.” (Lave and Wenger, 2008 p.53)Of course, what I was experiencing was a precursor of the internet. Playing with the concept ofa rhizomic network, it is possible to argue that the IT Department of St. Simon Stock School was243Simon Hughes Ph.D. Thesis (October 2012)