I’m not part of this MOOC, but I wanted to say how much I enjoyed your post Maha. My awareness is far from deep, but it seems to me that the notion of the rhizome (whether according to D&G or Cormier) does not provide an *explanatory* theory; it offers only an *orienting* theory (a very useful one). It is a theory to *think with*, since it is one step removed from the empirical. This makes grounding things in practice essential: to discover how the metaphor might inform learning and teaching. And of course, more often than not (and across the disciplines) it is through practice that theory emerges. To engage only with theory is to remain head in the clouds…rather than (here) in the cloud 😉 – i.e. grounded in the connected conversations that help make the theory work for pedagogy, for personal learning, for research endeavours, etc. As Basil Bernstein wrote, we should have allegiance to a problem, not to an approach. Let’s not reify theory, but rather make it work for us, to improve what we do as learners, with learners and for learners.