CCK0809

highlighting the purpose of the tools (e.g., skill-building) and stating clearly that the learners can choose their preferred tools

Although formal attendance seemed to be the main driver for completing assignments and the course, the main reason for not completing the course was a lack of time

Learners, in the absence of a stronger motivation, attend only partially

a literature review is a controlling, heritage-preserving system

A colleague in the faculty is currently researching the opportunities that use of asynchronous discussion forums can offer to leveling the playing field, and providing more equitable opportunities for people to share their thoughts. From what I’ve heard, the results so far are exceptionally promising.

The view that experimentation is bad; that mistakes are a pox to be ashamed of, rather than opportunities for learning and re-evaluation; that unique approaches are a thing to be scoffed at – these are all shortsighted views that need to be cut out from the root.

Subverting the dominant paradigm should be job one for educators anyway.

the noise is worse than ever. Indeed, it is being magnified every day as more people pile onto Twitter and Facebook and new apps yet to crest like Google Wave. The data stream is growing stronger, but so too is the danger of drowning in all that information.

the fact that Seesmic or TweetDeck or any of these apps can display 1,200 Tweets at once is not a feature, it’s a bug

if you think Twitter is noisy, wait until you see Google Wave, which doesn’t hide anything at all.  Imagine that Twhirl image below with a million dialog boxes on your screen, except you see as other people type in their messages and add new files and images to the conversation, all at once as it is happening.  It’s enough to make your brain explode.

In education, content can easily be produced (it’s important but has limited economic value). Lectures also have limited value (easy to record and to duplicate). Teaching – as done in most universities – can be duplicated. Learning, on the other hand, can’t be duplicated. Learning is personal, it has to occur one learner at a time. The support needed for learners to learn is a critical value point.

Learning, however, requires a human, social element: both peer-based and through interaction with subject area experts

Content is readily duplicated, reducing its value economically. It is still critical for learning – all fields have core elements that learners must master before they can advance (research in expertise supports this notion). - Teaching can be duplicated (lectures can be recorded, Elluminate or similar webconferencing system can bring people from around the world into a class). Assisting learners in the learning process, correcting misconceptions (see Private Universe), and providing social support and brokering introductions to other people and ideas in the discipline is critical. - Accreditation is a value statement – it is required when people don’t know each other. Content was the first area of focus in open education. Teaching (i.e. MOOCs) are the second. Accreditation will be next, but, before progress can be made, profile, identity, and peer-rating systems will need to improve dramatically. The underlying trust mechanism on which accreditation is based cannot yet be duplicated in open spaces (at least, it can’t be duplicated to such a degree that people who do not know each other will trust the mediating agent of open accreditation)

human brain networks represent a balance between high efficiency of information transfer and low connection cost

Members of the audience and other Twitter users were asked to tweet during the lecture about the concepts that were being discussed, using the hashtag #csftwitterbrain. At the end of the talk Professor Bullmore displayed the resulting image showing the interconnectivity of the hashtagged tweets, and explained how Twitter networks can be compared to the human brain network. “We found that the #twitterbrain network was somewhat like the brain network in being small-world and modular with highly connected hub nodes; however the brain network was more clustered and less efficient than the twitter network. So at first sight there were some points in common and some points of difference between these two information processing networks.”

“It has been intriguing to see the spectacle of watching the twitter network grow or evolve over the course of several days. And I have learnt a lot about the power of new media to engage and communicate, and the potential scientific value of using Twitter to map and measure social networks.”

something seems to be changing in the conference world. In the past, they’ve been great places not only to learn from the leaders in your industry but to make connections, spark new friendships and form potential new partnerships. That sense of the hallway conversations being as important as the sessions themselves seems to be receding, largely because the conversations…aren’t really happening.

I’m all for the back-channel and having a spirited conversation about a presentation, but I can tell you that as a presenter, to have it broadcasted while you are presenting sucks, especially once the spammers and the trolls join in. There’s even a term now, “harshtag”, which is when people start tagging their related tweets with something insulting in order to get it to trend.

There’s something seriously wrong about a thousand people who won’t talk to each other in the hallways bonding together to silently mock presenters, who have taken time, energy and in many cases personal expense to come speak.