For me, the word ‘explication’  has always been associated with poetry and religious exigesis.  I has morphed for me into the word “unfolding” and more recently has come to be associated in my mind with Nick Sousanis‘ idea of “unflattening“. The Tiktok video below is both a metaphorical and actual example of this unfolding. It is a form of learning by thinking out loud (LTOL)

@color.nerd an attempt to prototype an affordable color solid led me to a happy accident. #colortheory #colorscience #steameducation #edutok #artteacher #artandscience #complementarycolors #colorwheel ♬ Acoustic guitar chill (no wave sound)(1254171) – KBYS

Here are some of the ideas that this content creator, color.nerd, has sparked for me.

1.  Be open to the world in all its wildness.
2. Bring “projects” to that openness and be looking for solutions/answers to the questions raised by the ideas.
3.  Be very specific about what you want the world to bring to you.  This is a form of feedforward.
4. In these use cases of new ideas you discover, find a place to ‘slot’ them in unexpected ways where they can click.
5. Be aware of and acknowledge ideas that “take possession like a fever dream..”
6. Make the idea in the real world to see if it’s feasible.
7. Make an overt physical connection from the idea to reality.
8. Be cognizant of unexpected adjacent possibilities.
9. Explain difficulties out loud, making quandaries and questions open and in the air.
10. Describe what happens to this idea as you make it real.
11. It doesn’t matter if your understanding is partial or seemingly inexplicable, just tell us what is happening in your head.
12. Sometimes a visual explication (perhaps a screencast) is all we can do–user experience at its best, incomplete but helpful.
13. Consider further adjacencies beyond the initial ones.  Some will be closer and some will be further away.