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This is an article about the technology to create openness in learning networks.

Hi Brainy. Good post on lurking. I "lurk" when I listen to radio, download podcasts, watch TV, and read the newspaper. Works for me. A live session where "presence" and group dynamics is central to the activity is a bit different (if the name of everyone "in the room" is displayed, lurkers are visible to others, even if they say nothing). In live MOOC sessions, most people lurk most of the time. That doesn't mean they are not engaged, they may simply feel that sitting at the back of the room suits them better. Mark McGuire

Hello Brainy Smurf, Guess I've been lurking in #cck12, but I don't see it as much different from face-to-face classrom behaviour. Not everyone comments no matter what the forum--eliciting participation is part of the "dark art" of facilitation, no?

Hi, Sandra, thanks for weighing in. I agree that lurking online is essentially the same as a classroom, it just might not be as obvious since the online facilitator (if there is one) can't see body language or eye contact. The more I play around in moocs (currently in my 3rd, 4th and 5th at the moment), the more the idea of eliciting participation (or 'engaging' participants) is starting to make me cringe. I'm becoming more confident that learning doesn't need to invite engagement as explicitly as we think it does. Participants will decide how much/little to interact for a million different reasons on any given day (e.g., fatigue, boredom, illness, distraction, reflection, synthesizing, doodling) and I think we should let them own those choices.

As I slog through APA formatting, I found their guidance on how to source wkis very interesting: "Please note that the APA Style Guide to Electronic References warns writers that wikis (like Wikipedia, for example) are collaborative projects that cannot guarantee the verifiability or expertise of their entries." - It sounds like Purdue doesn't overly value connected knowledge!

Thanks for sharing Joanne - I have used the purdue owl quite a few times over the years but have never had to reference a wiki. Our of interest I think I'll take a look at the APA style guide tomorrow and see if they are similarly sceptical...

Thank you for posting Joanne, you beat me to the punch. I use this site often for paper writing and was wondering why it wasnt posted sooner.

"Scaffolding, according to this author, "fades out" over time and enables the learner to perform a skill or task autonomously. Distributed intelligence, on the other hand, is a support system that emerges from a network of people, artifacts, and situations to support learners at any given moment."