And we learn in those uncomfortable moments, including how to create our own agency with technology. With Zeega, you've pushed the boundaries in many directions, Captain Zeega.
I think I now find it easier than f2f too... That probably requires elaboration, though :) as I know it's not intuitive. I wonder if it is a phase everyone goes through to finally reach that comfort, or if it is just something some people are more disposed to enjoy/be comfortable with, while others not (like intro/extroversion)
with an online comment/post, there is no interruption, no direct contact to 'see' how others take what you say or do, and this can make it easier- or at least appear 'safer' on a personal front - esp. considering the teens Mimi was talking about... but, there is also a sense of permanence when people write and put something out there, whereas in f2f, what you say is gone in that moment. When something is written, people (potentially anyone) can come back to it, and this can be perceived as a threatening sort of exposure, perhaps even the person writing it might not want to have to see it again... so it is both easier and harder at the same time for different reasons for different people.
Despite the encouragement of local mentors, they didn’t see themselves are part of that world and ready to contribute, at least not yet.
Schema. Or as max Stirner calls them,"wheels in the head". Wheels in the head are any ideas that the mind cannot give up. For example, I am not an artist/creator/maker, I am a consumer.
How do we decide who's enthusiastic?
What is being Net Savvy?
The difference between introversion, extraversion and the level of ease a person finds in company of others for whatever reason.
Are all modes of communications comfortable to everybody and why? On a personal note: I am not comfortable writing at all but I can talk for hours when it comes to f2f :)
I've experienced Maha's talking firsthand via phone and it's awesome :) But I like her writing too, even if she doesn't feel comfortable with it. So cool to have you here in Diigo Maha!
I'll graciously accept your kindness, both of you /curtsy (a WoW emote, if you're wondering) :)
But seriously, I've had managers and even senior mangers who would sit very quietly, apparently (stress on apparently) reluctant to contribute to a conversation/discussion in a training situation. I used to catch myself making assumptions as to why (won't go into that here, too long) then see them fully engaged in an exercise where they had to sit on the floor and use Lego pieces. When I tried different approaches they did join A conversation, not necessarily mine, not necessarily with me watching, but they learned and contributed to the learning.
hmmm now I'll start editing myself /lol so better stop and hit post. .
Yes, I have this problem all the time in the classroom where my expectations get in the way of reality. Trying more to be mindful of this blindspot in my teaching.
A good reminder that everyone has their own thresholds for navigating the flow in a "space" like #ccourses, and that even the most savvy will miss a whole lot of the interactions. That's OK.
This also raises one of the essential questions of connected learning: what do we attend to and how? We have to have a basis for filtering (another name for attending). Some of these filters are very fine and designed to have potable water as their product, but most are very porous screens designed to get the big rocks out so that we can build meaning with them. And the ability to switch out filters should be one of the hallmarks of a capable person in digital systems.
Thresholds were originally a barrier to the grain escaping from the threshing room floor and out the door. It was intended to prevent waste. We don't have the same kind of scarcity in a connected space. We can't be concerned about "waste". Instead we have to be obsessed with making sure that we have the best grain in the mill so that we can have the best flour. Maybe we need one out of a hundred of the grains in order to have the very best flour. You don't get that with a threshhold. You get it by finding a way to sort and winnow the best from the rest and not just the wheat from the chaff.
Yes, #clmooc was my first nonlinear course, and it was a learning curve to grasp the webbed nature of participating - but once I did, it was such a beautiful thing!
In many ways these different forms of participation fit into what Internet product people might call an
> engagement funnel where newcomers and the less net savvy like me march steadily from awareness to engagement to becoming active contributors and content generators.
Yes, and we need to value all levels of the participation, too. Us loudies need to make sure we are inviting, not shouting so loud that others feel they can't contribute, or feel guilty about not contributing. Now that I think of it, my own appeal for more facilitators to get involved in the social media spaces of CCourses runs into conflict with that very statement. Dang it.
No, I think it can be reconciled,Kevin. If other step up, you can step back or shout in a different direction or encourage and cajole in different spaces. Or just chill and observe and report back.
@Kevin I don't think there's a conflict. More involvement is not equal to shouting so loud. May be we need to think of being more inviting in more ways?
I also don't see a conflict but I do think the question of what the right invitations are is crucial. Having the "loudies" (lol) to keep modeling high engagement is essential and I at least have appreciated the individual pokes and invitations from this same core group.
Love this thread, and thank you Maha and Mimi for letting us know that we "loudies" (cute term, will adopt!) are not shouting too loud for you (though we may be too loud for others)
I never thought of myself as a loudie, and am on the introvert-side of the continuum for sure, but the folks at #clmooc taught me that exponential things happen when you jump in. Thise who are "too" quiet may not know what they are missing.
colliding through a loosely orchestrated cross-network remix
Made me think of u immediately, Kevin, that thing u did for #clmooc - the word constellation evokes that for me now
This heterogeneity can feel like chaos and collision of competing styles and expectations, but I also see it as a site of productive tension that is characteristic of connected learning. Connected learning is predicated on bringing together three spheres of learning that are most commonly disconnected in our lives: peer sociability, personal interests/affinity, and opportunities for recognition. In kids’ lives these are friends, interest-based activities, and school. In connected courses, this is the reciprocity and fun in the social stream, our personal interests and expertise, and institutional status/reputation.
Simon Ensor's Clavier Project simplifies this to providing an interesting space so that interesting people can do interesting 'things'. I admire the abstraction here and would love to see the practice in the previous paragraph. Phonar/clmooc/ds106/diy.org/kqed's do now/Paul Allison's Youth Voices. This is where this theory tears into the road and the rubber either stays on the tire or you get new tires.
I am not sure how are they disconnected?
I see them as intersecting. Take the example of someone playing a team sport that they love. All spheres are represented and interconnected almost merging together. School and work can be sketchy where, depending on teachers,managers, colleagues, available choices etc, some spheres become larger or smaller and affect the balance of the picture.
Maha that must mean you are a connected learner :). Sadly I feel a lot of kids are "learning" just for the grade and they don't see it as part of what they are interested in or what they are socially connected to.
Maha's and Mimi's responses are a good reminder about how connection is not just about online or tech. It should be obvious but we can sometimes forget that!
And what is interesting -- most of their tweeting has been making connections together (I think -- no data to back that up. Jamieson?), as Simon and Maha work magic in the social media sphere.
Yeah, what is more interesting is the amount of UNHASHTAGGED tweeting between us (Simon, Kevin, Terry, Susan) as well as other stuff where i stop using the #ccourses tag... I sometimes do it on purpose to reduce my noise; other times to just squeeze a few extra chars in, and sometimes for semi-privacy.
Until recently, Alan and Mariana were top tweeters, too. Tho i find the majority of their tweeting "supportive" as in, helping others, which i love about them both, whether it is official or unofficial
I admittedly get caught up and forget to hashtag. :)
We can see that so far about half our visitors are new, and that the spikes, again come with the live events
I hope that we can continue to embrace the abundance and diversity of forms and intensity of engagement while also guiding each other to try something new, to slow down or speed up our default metabolism, or appreciate a new perspective or geekdom.
One of those filters is the folk and all manner of them, expert and otherwise. The lived experience of the folk is one of the most profound filters we have. Books are another. The idea of ideas is another. Metaphor and figurative language in general are others. I think the notion of love is one of the most profound filters there is.
My team had a motto back in the early days of Internet studies: "The best search engine is a well-informed friend." I am probably defaulting to this as my filter strategy. Not sure if this is the right one given the opportunity for new encounters on ccourses though.
Well, Mimi, you can add to your list of well-informed friends as you go :) that's how it works for me, a few key people connect me to everything and everyone else, then i'll meet a new person who becomes "key" coz i love what they help me connect to... And so on :)
This would be a very profound filter to read about. Not what Ito found in her research but how she mucks about it, how her ruminations follow and work. Her discoveries on how she filters the great steaming compost of her research from start to intial finish.
I wish there was more conscious method to the madness... It's not that I don't have any systematic process, but I really rely on having mental space for pattern recognition to happen over time and that's why I think I'm challenged by the pace of ccourses. I do like the metaphor of filtering that you're bringing to this. I find the thought that good filters might exist to be comforting. But I don't have them! I tend to rely on immersion more than filtering as a method I guess. Which is anthropological... but at some point, yes, one does need to make some choices!
This is all getting me itchy to read about Mimi's work on researching connecting learning for several reasons:
1. I want to know how she researched it when she's not comfortable on twitter (haha)
2. I am interested to know about research methodology
3. I fell in love with Mimi reading this post and I want to immerse myself in her work and anything she writes!!!
Strange how seeing Mimi on hangout for a few mins did not give me much insight but this post was like..wow... I can't explain the profound effect it had on me, both for my own reflections but also how it made me feel and think about Mimi.
Yes, how have the staff been involved. How are they filtering and testing and adjusting and doing? They are deep in the mill, grinding the wheat, keeping out the chaff.
If you are feeling the pull of the notes you should succumb to their siren call and gives us those unpolished notes. Just let us know that they are just that. Let us filter them if they really are pulling at you.
I suppose I could think aloud on twitter more. It's hard to find time to find the quiet time to pull together a blog post. Or maybe I'm setting the threshold too high on blogging :)!
I love what Tania Sheko has done: put together her annotations into a blogpost.
I understand that not all people can blog as often and not all feel comfy with unfinished thoughts being out in the open. It's a risk, and i regret it sometimes. But i think there is a middle way for people like Mimi who can blog such awesomeness but feel they cannot do it as frequently.
One really useful way of blogging is to curate what you've been reading. I do it sometimes to help me organize my thoughts, and also to let people know i appreciate their work.
Mimi's post we are annotating here did so much of that for me and did not feel long at al actually. It was v engaging and full and rich.
Yes, you are missing something. I take solace in the disturbing fact that almost every stream of infor mation you might have received was only so much noise. It is only when you drink it in that it becomes signal. Your signal and your meaning. The faith we need is that our system of connections is robust enough to be trusted. So...the system of connections both digital and actual is what is 'holy'. It is what we do to honor that web and remake that web that is our greatest task. Connecting is a social craft. It is time we started honoring it as such.
I’ve so appreciated observing and learning from my more experienced online co-facilitators as they surf the rapids;
I have spent the better part of the last two summers internalizing and then externalizing your research into connected learning--the values and principles you have so carefully drawn out of your research. We are surfing the rapids on the kayak that you and your researchers designed especially facilitators from #clmooc.
I think that praise is due here to Alan, but I would like to remind you that there is a web of unsung and unheralded and unknown that are yet to be uncovered. it is our work as facilitators and helpers and participants to tease and ease them onto the dance floor. God knows they can boogie better than I can if we can just get them onto the floor and teach us how to juke.
Actually I prefer descriptions of what people do when they legitimately and peripherally participating. The abstractification of digital space I think is the occupational hazard of researchers. it is my job to shout out that the emperor has no clothes. What is legitimate and what is peripheral and how is that different from marginal and what constitute participant membership? No...freaking...clue.
This is interesting to try to visualize; it takes my mind into photos of intertwined galaxies. I wonder sometimes "how" different the narratives are that we each experience. Perhaps the similarity fades as you move away from each rhizome that you participate in. Of course, our perception of our narrative is crucially affected by our lens, our filter(s), our biases.
special atmosphere or guardian spirit - had to look this up! What a cool concept. I am not sure my blog is due such a sense of wonder...though I do fling the words out into it without much editing, in hopes that some part or piece of a true spirit of words will survive the process. It really is filled with mostly my gut impulses. If I thought too much about any of it, I wouldn't write any of it.
Your blog does have it. Hovering and angelic and full of deviltry, too.
There really are undiscovered connections everywhere. Holy digital spaces that we believe in because others do and because we do. Inspiring, breathing in, like the zephyr at dawn. Sweet and wild and impossible to word.
I think there are many many people who would think this is impossible in digital spaces, to be made to "feel" like this. Yet we live its veracity and veritability. And yes, the words to describe it are impossible, though you and Simon seem to create words from the mist/fog/smoke.
when "flow" is reached in teaching, it is gorgeousness.
We become the pipers at the gates of dawn if only for a few moments and the seeming chaos of improvisation, of taking our lead from the pipedreams in the ayre, becomes impossibly logical, a transcendent logic.
I don't even know what to say here except that your writing is beautiful and you manage to lead me down some ever-twisting/changing/flowing thought process that makes no sense and yet makes perfect sense as long as I don't try to pin it down. As long as it stays in my peripheral vision, it is crystal clear.
I did, just now, and was blown away by it. I read it a LONG time ago and I don't think I ever truly appreciated it until now.
we really are rescuing children from the leg traps and snares of the world when instead we should be taking them to meet the pipers at the gates of dawn.
The images in that chapter - wow. That chubby little baby otter being saved and protected by Pan, while the two who search for him are pulled along by the music they aren't even 100% sure they can hear. The purposeful forgetting. The joy in the baby knowing them already, yet still looking for the now-missing Pan.
So many of my kids are missing joy. Do they even know what it is? Will they ever? When you come to school just for food, is that joy? How can we teach joy???
A vibrating string. There are an impossibly large number of connections for us to parallel process, but we need to send out a pulse every once in awhile, a ping to the freaking world that says, step off, I got sumfin to say.
'You hear better than I,' said the Mole sadly. 'I cannot catch the words.'
'Let me try and give you them,' said the Rat softly, his eyes still closed. 'Now it is turning into words again-faint but clear-Lest the awe should dwell-And turn your frolic to fret-You shall look on my power at the helping hour-But then you shall forget! Now the reeds take it up-forget, forget, they sigh, and it dies away in a rustle and a whisper. Then the voice returns-
'Lest limbs be reddened and rent-I spring the trap that is set-As I loose the snare you may glimpse me there-For surely you shall forget! Row nearer, Mole, nearer to the reeds! It is hard to catch, and grows each minute fainter.
'Helper and healer, I cheer-Small waifs in the woodland wet-Strays I find in it, wounds I bind in it-Bidding them all forget! Nearer, Mole, nearer! No, it is no good; the song has died away into reed-talk.'
'But what do the words mean?' asked the wondering Mole.
'That I do not know,' said the Rat simply. 'I passed them on to you as they reached me. Ah! now they return again, and this time full and clear! This time, at last, it is the real, the unmistakable thing, simple-passionate-perfect--'
I love the fumblng for the concrete here: faint but clear, the dwelling awe, frolic to fret, the helping hour, reed, trap set, helper and healer, reed-talk, pass them on, sighing and dying away sound. Nearer,nearer. The 'approaching-ness' of words and, inevitably, their 'failing-ness'.
Old Crow Medicine Show:
We're all in this thing together
Walkin' the line between faith and fear
This life don't last forever
When you cry I taste the salt in your tears
Well my friend, let's put this thing together
And walk the path that worn out feet have trod
If you wanted we can go home forever
Give up your jaded ways, spell your name to God.
All we are is a picture in a mirror
Fancy shoes to grace our feet
All that there is is a slow road to freedom
Heaven above and the devil beneath
All we are is a picture in a mirror
Fancy shoes to grace our feet
All that there is is a slow road to freedom
Heaven above and the devil beneath
when I think about MOOCs I think there's a connection between them and really good conferences, where people expect them to come around every year, and they get a tone and a feeling
Idea!
In some conferences there are break out rooms dedicated to different topics. How about using hangouts and Google docs to create those spaces for synchronous and asynchronous conversations?
we are all on edges, out here together, in some kind of weird edge-filled connected space...I seem to have found my people, far-flung throughout the planet.
How does singularity feel?
How do we express being a part, being apart?
massively fun....
You know, the intricacy of #clmooc was a surprise for me, since I had never been involved in such a nonlinear "course" - it takes getting used to, but once you do, you can't imagine it being any other way....which is why some of the PD fare I am in now seems ever so flat.
I am thinking of Pan here. You know...the panpipes. i have such wonderful associations with this word because of The Wind in the Willows. The very title of Grahame's book is a reference to Pan and the gods of otters and water rats and moles and badgers and toads. I read this book over and over to my children growing up. I want Chapter Seven to be read aloud to me as I die. It is titled "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" --Pan, the source of all inspiration, speaking to use through the wind in the willows at the gates of dawn.
I am inspired here to suggest that your blog like every loved thing or space has a genius loci, a Pan of its own living within like the little island in the middle of the weir in The Wind in the Willows. Your work is to give it room to breathe out that inspiration, to be another's wind in the willows. There really are undiscovered connections everywhere. Holy digital spaces that we believe in because others do and because we do. Inspiring, breathing in, like the zephyr at dawn. Sweet and wild and impossible to word.
Yes, in teaching I yearn for these moments where the artifice fades away, the planning drops off, the dross of the past is slagged off and a new presence is born. We become the pipers at the gates of dawn if only for a few moments and the seeming chaos of improvisation, of taking our lead from the pipedreams in the ayre, becomes impossibly logical, a transcendent logic. And no wonder we are called 'touched' because we damned well are. And the world in these times makes abject sense, abject in the sense that wonder and awe always cast off sense.
We get the idea because it is a river that passes through this familiar yet undiscovered country. We all come to it through teaching for whatever reason. Teaching flips the switch that allows us to see the light that "grows and grows" in Wind in the Willows.
Mimi's post was added to the Diigo group so we could all jump in and annotate.
Mimi's post is just a little rowboat, a place to put the hamper as we search for Old Otter beloved youngest child along the river banks. (Please read Chapter Seven of Wind in the Willows here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/289/289-h/289-h.htm#link2H_4_0007). Not to put too hyperbolic a point on it--we really are here to rescue children at this point from the leg traps and snares of the world. Instead we should be taking them to meet the pipers at the gates of dawn.
If you love words, you'll love 'resonate'--I think it is directly analogous to the word recursion. Where recursion is tied to vision, resonation is tied to the ear. It is not an old word at all according to the OED. it is a science word. Many disciplines use it. To re-sound, to be a re-sounding board, to echo back and forth. It is like the empathy of mirror neurons. It is memory and the experience of shared discipline and questions and ranging out into the world. We are all looking for someone's lost child. We have all found Pan at the Gates of Dawn. Hence the resonating chord stretched between us and only felt as it vibrates, akin.
I think that we skirt around the issue of how we go beyond an "amalgamation" when we lower our gates and release the bloody-minded wards of routine. We really are Kevin and Mimi and Maha and Alan (well, maybe not Alan ;-) ). I think they are our fractal selves. Is that nuts? Is that perhaps lowering the prison walls a bit too much? None of us is free. We are all tied to each other. If one goes down, the rest of us will be pulled down the mountain. Do I really believe that as more than a damned abstraction? Sometimes. At the best of times. All the time? I just gotta keep working that garden.
"We may not be too big to fail, but [she] would like to believe that we are too diverse to fail and distributed to fail."
In many ways, this is the value of the open education movement -- the chance to interact without direct instruction from the "talking head" in the classroom. It's a dip into the unknown, though, and requires a certain social media/reading skills -- what to ignore and what to pay attention to, and how does it all connect to the learning and discovery
This could be an alternative tag line for my blog!
by focusing on my small groups of people (often not even using the hashtag to be honest; sometimes in DM or in private hangouts; other times in public on blogs) I am making my own path as I intersect with others’ paths.
Yes, I can remember at every conference there is a canceled presentation where folks gather around and just chat about...stuff--ad hoc and improvisational. We need a simple discussion protocol that is quick in and quick out, save for asynchronous discussion.
Did you see that post by... A wordpress site called emergentbydesign (Simon shared it, i think) where the author suggests a kind of mindful chat roulette based on interest?
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.
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).
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...
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.
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."
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?
that she found reading books (quickly, i assume?) easier than wading through tweets and blogs; whereas I clearly did the tweets/blogs things quite comfortably but found reading books “too much”
I feel the same as Maha, easier to read and respond to blog posts than read a book on my own - with nobody to talk to and no way of sharing my thoughts. Claustrophobic.
I can both ways, depending on the situation. Here, with Connected Courses, I find I am (like Maha) completely ignoring all the recommended reading and diving right into the social stream.
Kevin I keep remembering that you were initially planning to lurk coz ur not in highered. I think (assuming here) that given your personal goals and interests it makes absolute sense to go that route. I made me realize, reading this, that in some other MOOC, my behavior may be slightly different, where my goal is to get some theory rather than interact w ppl (umm i've yet to participate in such a MOOC, but i do sometimes sign up for an xMooc and just download resources and never follow the 'MOOC itself
Anyway, it made me reflect on why I, someone who LOVES reading by all accounts, have a strong preference for reading blogs/tweets over books/academic articles in MOOCs. There are many reasons,
This is something I've been thinking about for ages but feeling like I've failed in that I've lost the enthusiasm for reading books, or maybe don't have the focus stamina any more. Thanks for writing this out, Maha, I might do my own blog reflection.
I think finding our own way is a key element here.
Mimi’s point that a connected learning experience “welcomes people with different dispositions and orientations to learning”,
In terms of learning: Is the MOOC about experiencing connecting? Or about reading about it?
the MOOC is about reflecting on connecting,
My first PhD supervisor was big on encouraging me to read diverse articles not single-authored books
My second supervisor (who replaced the first) was big on me reading original works by e.g. Marx, Foucault, etc.
I also find reading translated works really difficult and find it a better investment of my time to first read more contemporary (or at least, more education-focused) interpretations of the “greats” works, before reading the original. It helps me read it better
I do not value the book-authors more than I value the blog-authors
can interact with them more regularly
more accessible, easier to read quickly
2. Attention issues
Philosophical approach to reading
This is particularly funny because I keep not finding time to read the”attention literacies” part in Howard Rheingold’s Net Smart, as I get ‘distracted’ into reading different parts of it (i’ve probably read half the book already, just not in order).
Very clever. I think this method wards away the guilts and also sustains engagement in the course. The alternative would be to give up and feel defeated if you couldn't do everything.
P.S. some ppl may say that w blog posts u have no guarantee of quality vs a book recommended by the facilitators. However, there are many ways to gauge a blog’s quality, incl knowing the person, seeing it retweeted often or with many comments – and it takes v little time to skim it to decide to read deeply;
lovely quotes from Mimi’s post
Connected Courses is a veritable cornucopia of ways of participating with no central platform.
colliding through a loosely orchestrated cross-network remix, immersive theater where participants are all experiencing a different narrative.
hybrid network, more like a constellation that looks different based on where one stands and who one is.
a site of productive tension that is characteristic of connected learning.
Connected learning is predicated on bringing together three spheres of learning that are most commonly disconnected in our lives:
I was reading and getting excited by what I was reading, highlighting what spoke to me, and annotating my thoughts in Diigo – to myself! D’oh! How absurd was this scenario? I was part of Connected Courses, reading the same things as the very large cohort – why wasn’t I annotating to the group?
I think we've all had those moments of "how can I make this experience better" as we move towards a more connected, collaborative stance.
I admit that I try to engage in too many things on too many platforms at the same time, and recently I’m feeling the loss of a network of people I connect with in a deep way.
Yet there is another way - open learning, where the majority of the students interact online with the face-to-face course being taught in a more traditional manner. With this comes a chance to share in the knowledge being offered by a wide range of tutors, photographers and others in the industry.
"I'd had to rethink what my product was as a photographer - I'd grown up thinking it was my images, but digital cameras meant everyone was a potential image maker. So I had to think why it was that I'd been successful in the past and I found a number of strands which proved very fruitful. That's the stuff we talk about in class."
I realised the real thing of value was not the knowledge but the learning experience.
He uses Creative Commons licenses (CC) for his classes. "I'd always been an avid All Rights Reserved user but it just stopped making sense. The open classes can only work with a CC license, which was a big deal for the university because it turns out education establishment are avid All Rights Reserved users too. Much like me thinking I was just an image maker, the uni thought its product was 'knowledge' and their old business model relied on keeping a tight grip on that.
Worth's classes live on blogs and on Twitter (hashtag #phonar), and are proving a popular resource amongst photography enthusiasts and professionals alike.
accessible nature is appealing
list of contributors impressive.
Through my work with #phonar I have learnt the world is filled with lots of different people and we all think and learn differently. Coventry University has shown me it doesn't matter what disability you have, anything is possible.
Anyone new to connectivist MOOCs had, by the end of the session, not only been engaged in helping create the learning experience through contributing to content within online whiteboards, but had also heard Cormier recap five learning tips he includes in his online video: take time to become effectively oriented to the learning landscape rather than letting it overwhelm you; “declare” yourself within your learning community by sharing information about yourself with your learning colleagues; network by posting content and responding to content posted by others; “cluster” by working within subgroups of the learning community rather than unrealistically expecting to read and respond to every online contribution; and “focus” in a way that keeps you from burning out and succumbing to the idea that you have better things to do than to stay with the learning community as long as it is continuing to support the learning needs that initially attracted you to the MOOC.
"Anyone new to connectivist MOOCs had, by the end of the session, not only been engaged in helping create the learning experience through contributing to content within online whiteboards, but had also heard Cormier recap five learning tips he includes in his online video: take time to become effectively oriented to the learning landscape rather than letting it overwhelm you; "declare" yourself within your learning community by sharing information about yourself with your learning colleagues; network by posting content and responding to content posted by others; "cluster" by working within subgroups of the learning community rather than unrealistically expecting to read and respond to every online contribution; and "focus" in a way that keeps you from burning out and succumbing to the idea that you have better things to do than to stay with the learning community as long as it is continuing to support the learning needs that initially attracted you to the MOOC."
2. How are you thinking about trust in regard to connected learning?
When we talk about connected learning, we're implicating a whole host of different actors to enable learning - educators, parents, students, librarians, administrators, government agencies, technologists, learning companies, etc.
4. Do you know of any tools, procedures, apps, and/or systems enabling or disabling trust? How are they doing this? What do these tools, procedures, and/or systems change how learning can happen in connected learning environments?
But trust starts from collectively recognizing that we're all working towards a desirable goal of empowering learners and realizing that getting there will be imperfect and require iteration.
3. What are some of the biggest challenges to engendering trust you see in connected learning?
understand, respect, and trust one another. And then we need them to help bake trust into the systems that they build - technological, social, and governmental.
The other core issue is that people's failure to understand technology's strengths and weaknesses mean that the public often has unreasonable expectations regarding technology and its application.
So a huge part of the process of building and sustaining trust is to plan for what happens when things go wrong. We do this all the time in education - think about fire drills - but we don't realize how important this is when we think about technology.
. What are some of the literacies you think are required for learners to have a digital “trust literacy”?
think that people need to understand how data is collected, aggregated, sold, and used in the process of enabling all sorts of everyday services.
How did Amazon decide to recommend that other product to you?
Why do you think you got the results you got on Google?
Why are you seeing the ads you're seeing on your local newspaper's site?
Just for the sake of crazy recursion here is the comment I mad about commenting here: I have begun adding group annotations to this blog post. Here is the group page for those who might want to join our Diigo group and comment along with us: https://groups.diigo.com/group/ccourses
I think annotating this way is superior to commenting. I suppose it is commenting, but carefully targeted to responding to a specific sentence or as fine-grained as the choice of a word. Downside? While it is a public group it does call for an investment in learning how to annotate with Diigo. My experience is that that investment pays back royally. Positive and negative? It is messy, especially when you get tons of annotstors in the group.
I love the annotated link tool that allows you to send a cached link to anyone to view even if they are not a Diigo user: https://diigo.com/04j3l2. I love how you can scrape all the comments and highlights out and then repurpose them. It would be so much fun to try a project where each of us would do group annotations, turn them into a blog post and then create a zine or storify or use WP Anthologize to create an epub with all the posts and then commentary at the end.
Ok, sorry Maha. This has become some sort of recursive monster of a comment about comments within a comment. With no real comments about what you wrote in your comments box. Technically, I think this might be a Klein bottle or s moebius comment.
I never bought into this guilt free deal. Shame free, but I think guilt might also be a byproduct of not reciprocating. It is one's conscience at work. I feel guilty that my papers are not marking themselves. I feel guilty that my markings are si imperfect and often futile. I feel that guilty is like friction: you had better have some if you want navigate a twisty track with others.
The why for me is to introduce open, connected learning -- the infrastructure, the methods, the culture -- to more educators. To model, support, and communicate with them. With the hope that they will enlist, educate, and support others. I do buy into the guilt-free deal. Why should learning and communication always be painful? Why not do what you feel like doing once in a while.
I have no idea if I am doing any of this annotating correctly. Bear with me, folks. Maha, I think I told you that a collegaue is using your can of ingredients" activity with her class. I will share if any of them actually finish it.
Here we run into the newbie's problem of not knowing what you don't know. It takes some active engagement and searching out connections and information to start to feel like you have a handle on it...catch 22 if you don't, you have no idea what you are missing.