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Terry Elliott

Howard Rheingold Connected Courses - How is #ccourses going? Where should it go? Let's ... - 6 views

    • Terry Elliott
       
      I see it as a a rich space where I am responsible for my own learning and knowing.  But I am also responsible for those who are with me.  I worry that I don't get more of a sense of who has skin in the game and who doesn't.  I am trying to use these tools in my own connected courses, I am trying to connect with students here and in those classes.  How do I make connecting as routine as a syllabus AND how do I make it as valued as a syllabus.  I want to know more about how I can navigate the existing sharky waters of hied. How have others used aikido moves to enable connected values and principles in what amount to mostly unconvivial sharing tools.  
    • Kevin Hodgson
       
      My only wonder/concern is that other than you, Howard (and Alan, to some degree, earlier), facilitators seem to be absent from the online conversations, other than the scheduled video hangouts.  It can feel a bit ... like the classrooms that Connected Courses is trying to remix, where the knowledgeable person in the front of the room (or in the hangout on my screen), talks and shares expertise, but then is not all that active in the ancillary conversations going on outside of the classroom (hangout).  Tell me I am missing those conversations, and I will be happy/content in that knowledge.  When I bounce around the blogs, I am most often likely to see you (Howard), Terry, Mariana, and a few others in the comment sections. Maybe more plans for projects like #WhyIteach are in the mix (hope so) and ways to get folks to make content (a shared ethos of open learning? A collaborative letter to a Dean about the need for more connective learning? etc) connect deeper will emerge (doubly-hope-so).
    • Maha Bali
       
      You just reminded me: I see nothing in the course design that helps people who are TEACHING students and involving them in #ccourses to help those students interact with each other. I am mostly seeing other educators here...
    • Maha Bali
       
      Agreeing with Kevin here. There are a couple of other facilitators active in some spaces. Helen on twitter and blogs (did not realize she was a facilitator at first, though); Mia Zamora (she's a facilitator, right?) and Jonathan on Google+ and Mimi is starting to respond on Twitter now. But in general, I would have expected the facilitators to be active throughout and across. The only ones who are really doing that are Howard and Alan. As in, they were there from the very beginning (pre-pre-course) and everywhere in all spaces, "listening" & responding. Not every facilitator can read/listen to everything (though Alan/Howard almost seem like they do! don't know how!) but given the sheer number of facilitators their responsive presence has potential to be so much stronger.
    • swatson217
       
      I am agreeing with Kevin and Maha.
  • a better sense of how the course is being perceived and how participants would like to see it go in the future
    • Howard Rheingold
       
      I hear you and we're working on it. Give it a few days and you'll see some action.
    • Terry Elliott
       
      You guys are the greatest.  Really proud to be working with you.
    • Kevin Hodgson
       
      I realize, too, my comment goes against the grain of Connected Learning. While I appreciate all the facilitators, I shouldn't sit around and wait for them. As Howard notes, "What it is, is up to us."
    • Maha Bali
       
      I don't think its going against the grain, exactly, Kevin. It's a kind of speaking out. And it's also the case that some learners need more direction, or more support or explicit permission in knowing they can take their own direction... If that makes sense?
swatson217

Chicken/egg reflections on intercultural maturity, criticality, & open-connectednessRef... - 1 views

  • Then again, it might just be because I now know them enough to understand their humor
    • Tania Sheko
       
      Me too, born in Australia but from Russian and German background - both parents born outside Australia. I've always felt that I am both and neither.
  • I still feel kind of hybrid)
  • our ability to share humor might be a function of how well we know each other
    • Tania Sheko
       
      Yes, there is the connection between friends who respond to the same humour and share interests, but there is also the shared history that allows common responses. 
  • ...29 more annotations...
  • Then this got me thinking about the difficulty of sharing humor not only across cultures, but online
    • Tania Sheko
       
      Because, of course, open online environments do not discriminate on the basis of race or anything else.  Humour is such a tricky thing. You can live in the same house for decades and still not get somebody's sense of humour. It's almost a language in itself.
  • And some “i have nooo idea what you’re talking about” things
  • It’s interesting to study the effect of this on how well creative brainstorming works…
    • Tania Sheko
       
      What do you mean by that, Maha, your point about creative brainstorming?
  • how I never got the refs to Greek mythology
    • Tania Sheko
       
      Me too, and at Uni I studied literature, and was too busy to catch up on all the reading I needed to get the references. So when my first son proved to be a big reader, I made sure he read a lot of the mythologies - Greek, Roman, Norse, etc. I'm sure that kind of roundedness helps with self confidence. There's so much referencing - how much of our culture is referenced from history!
  • In my PhD research, I ask a chicken-and-egg question about intercultural maturity and critical thinking.
  • empathy
  • is likely to be open-minded, curious, willing to question one’s own views, interested in understanding different world views – all of which mean this person is likely to behave positively in an intercultural learning experience
  • A good critical thinker
  • intercultural
  • exposure to diversity
  • But how to develop these characteristics?
  • If you’re closed minded and not curious, you’re unlikely to seek intercultural exchange
    • Tania Sheko
       
      Can you change students from being closed minded to open minded? I hope so, because otherwise education is a waste of time. But sometimes I meet teachers who are so closed minded (in terms of trying new ways of teaching) that I give up hope.
    • swatson217
       
      Can you change teachers fro being close minded to open?
  • So which comes first?
  • But if you have never been with people different from yourself, how do you learn to behave in these situations in such a way that helps you learn from it?
  • and so you keep finding yourself in situations and you take advantages of opportunities to connect openly, and then you reap the benefits of that, which fuels you further?
    • Tania Sheko
       
      This is such an important question, and one I've been thinking about over the years. Do I give up with certain people and just focus on convincing those who are open? My job as a teacher librarian depends on convincing teachers that it's worth collaborating with me. Otherwise I can't work with students apart from traditional resourcing.
    • swatson217
       
      yes yes yes
  • how do you get someone into intercultural experiences
  • Is it that you start out as someone who loves openness and connection
  • Same questions could be asked of open/connected learners
  • how do you develop critical thinking needed to develop intercultural maturity without being in an intercultural experience;
  • But how would you “get in” if you don’t already have that attitude?
  • That question plagues me with reference to whether we can actually draw people into open/connected learning
  • Like Laura Gibbs, i’d take curiosity over security any day.
  • A lot of people are monuments/avatars/objects before we decide to engage
  • Someone said her students were shocked when a book author (Howard Rheingold) replied to their tweets. As in, they had not before really thought of him as a real person. Funny.
    • Tania Sheko
       
      Yes, my students are confused and very surprised that a 'real author' would even consider connecting to them online. Once an author was involved in my students' blog comments, and one student said he would rather not know him as a real person because he wouldn't be able to live up to his 'imagined' persona (my words).
  • is it possible for someone to get interested in open and connected learning, to become a connected educator, without first experiencing the beauty, the potential of that, if they are not originally of open/connecting attitude? Or not digitally literate, even.
    • Tania Sheko
       
      I still wonder if what I experience as an enjoyable connective experience is unique to me and those who have chosen to participate. Maybe some teachers wouldn't find this kind of thing interesting or enjoyable.
  • How do you draw them in to try? If you give a workshop on it, hands-on, will they come? Will it sound like gibberish and feel overwhelming?
    • Tania Sheko
       
      And how do you sustain that even if the workshop is successful?
    • swatson217
       
      I struggle with this with my teachers.
  • about how joining an academic conversation midway feels? It’s the same for joining an open online community or finding oneself in a new culture
  • It takes time to figure out where to start, whom to talk to, how to talk, how to engage in culturally acceptable ways, etc.
    • swatson217
       
      Maha, this is a great question!
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