Group items tagged

Slide show by Harold Jarch on PKM--personal knowledge management--uses systems theory to show how we learn on mega (society), macro (organization), and micro (person) levels. (February 2010) It seems to me that a large part of a MOOC's value is forcing people to build a personal knowledge management process. They might have been able to ignore such a need before enrolling in a MOOC but cannot manage the avalanche of material otherwise. Not only do they need to become better organized in their seeking (this is where the MOOC departs from the day to day personal/professional learning sequence since it aggregates the begining content for them and continues to aggregate the work of MOOC participants), they then need to make sense of it (here again the social filtering and assessment are very helpful), and share their findings/unique perspective. As feedback is received, it motivates the first learner to keep trying to go forward. We all need an alliance of informed and thoughtful folks to keep up with the speed of change. The tools developed in the course of the MOOC can then be the core of PKM. This slide show also makes me realize that ALL online learning communities require some type of PKM and if one doesn't have a regular method for pulling information in and pushing tentative or firm opinions/conclusions out, full value cannot be realized.

blog on connectiv--heutagogy, andragogy, pedagogy

Change MOOC blog "On Brain Rewiring and Speed of Access" by Multilitteratus Incognitus, January 31, 2012. An amusing view that I find myself responding to positively on the assertions being made about the advent of the internet and connectivism and connected learning.

Incredible assessment in less than 2 minutes of Too Big to Know premise and how internet has changed the way we assume knowledge. The certainty, the order of facts and conclusions, the 'proven' nature of knowledge was the "old ideal of knowledge, not human based." Need to watch the hour long full talk by Weinberger.

Article identified on Stephen Downes' home page, Juy 20, 2012. Excerpt "Although MOOCs share the common characteristics of being large courses open to anyone, there are two main types, one called an "x MOOC," and another called a "connectivist MOOC." The companies and partnerships that fall into the "x MOOC" include Coursera; an MIT and Harvard partnership called EdX, and a new venture founded by three roboticists called Udacity. Other universities follow a connectivist MOOC model developed by George Siemens, Stephen Downes and Dave Cormier in 2008. What's the difference between the two? Connectivist MOOCs are more social and focused on deriving meaning of the learning experience with others, Virginia Commonwealth's Becker said. And they allow students to participate through blogs, RSS feeds and other decentralized methods, said Downes, a senior researcher for Canada's National Research Council. By contrast, x MOOCs emphasize content mastery, centralizes courses on one website and uses automated grading tools to support hundreds of thousands of students. But regardless of the category, MOOCs as a whole will change how universities offer courses, Downes said. And they're not going away. "Universities can't just keep doing what they're doing and hope this whole online thing goes away," Downes said."

Article from Metropolis Magazine, October 2008 on Asset-based Design See excerpt: "In contrast, an asset-based approach works with communities to identify their skills and capacities, and invites them to play an active role in the renewal of their environment. "This approach says that all communities have assets. The needs-based provision of services really only addresses the symptoms of the issues without doing any deeper social analysis to uncover the root problems. If joblessness is linked to a lack of educational activities, well, then that is the root issue. We're not saying designers can come in and fix all of those problems; we are saying that designers themselves have a particular asset to contribute, which is their professional expertise at creating beautiful spaces and using design to involve the community in discovering and expressing who they are." How to practice design that builds on a community's strengths and priorities: 1. Identify your community partner. Target a specific organization to partner with, whether it's a design center, a development corporation, a block association, or a nonprofit. By honoring the community building that has already taken place, you will also attract less suspicion as a new face. Begin a dialogue to find a design project. 2. Immerse yourself in the life of the community. Spend time or consider living there. Find out where people like to eat and hang out, what kind of meetings they go to, and what places have a lot of energy-perhaps an arts or a recreation center. Find out what the kids are excited about. Connect with community leaders. Go door-to-door if necessary. 3. Conduct a social analysis. Who has power? What are the challenges facing the community? What are its demographics? What are its core values? Who makes the decisions, and who benefits from or bears the costs of them? It helps to understand how the neighborhood came into being, its history, and the larger town or region in which it is situated. Map ex

Interesting blog by Sui Fai John Mak on February 20, 2012 from CCK12 on online leadership and comparing it with transformative and servant leadership practices.

Paper by Mandia Mentis on assisting practitioners to navigate the "changing and complex terrain of e-learning and topography." (2008) The graphics depict clearly the continuums (and choices!) that exist on traditional to emergent technology, pedagogy from homogenous to diverse, and context from formal to informal that make up elearning. This paper explores the issues that affect the role of online learning facilitator. ***

Absolutely fabulous video (6 minutes) on Connected Learning and how we must change the outcomes based focus of education to awaken the curiosity of each learner and engage with them in learning how to learn given the distribution of resources, ideas, experts, etc. while preserving the learners' autonomy, access to diversity, openness to others for learning, interactivity with similar and diverse co-learners, etc. Film by Nic Askew at Soulbiographies.com interviewing McArthur Foundation person and two professors of education

Interview by Hugh McKellar with David Weinberger, author of book: Too Big to Know: ReThinking Knowledge Now that the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room, 2/1/2012. Discusses how books as a medium for knowledge sharing have been overtaken by knowledge that is drawn from the internet through instantaneous sourcing, updating, etc. Very interesting idea on how greatest value may be derived by network of 'experts' who disagree and differ in their points of view rather than have full harmony on issues. Excerpt from interview: "The value of a web of ideas comes from the differences among the participants in that web. If everybody's saying the same thing, there's negative value in networking them. This gives us an idea that knowledge contains difference, rather than knowledge being that from which all disagreement has been driven, that which has been settled once and for all. I think that in many fields we're finding knowledge to exist in networks that contain disagreement and difference. This is not an entirely new idea, for sure. In Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin's book about Lincoln's cabinet, this is shown quite clearly. A group of people who disagree is wiser than any of the single people in it. This idea is not new but we now have an environment - a medium of knowledge-that makes it manifest; it's the norm. The medium only has value as far as it contains disagreement. That's a very different idea of expertise-expertise consists of a web of people who disagree-than the old idea of expert advice.

Very very interesting--a year ago we talked about a learning concierge service in the studio. And look at Jane Hart's post published in July 2013 about how we need to provide such a service for people to take charge of their learning. She mentions towards the end of her post that this could be an outsourced function and then shares how she does it. Look at the link to her page describing the service here-- http://learningconcierge.co.uk/about/ She is offering a workshop, too, and one may join her free learning concierge practice group now. Will also share with Change MOOC for Brenda to see.

For the first time, a reputable institution, the Georgia Institute of Technology, will off a master's degree in computer science through MOOCs for a fraction of the on-campus cost, a first for an elite institution. If it even approaches its goal of drawing thousands of students, it could signal a change to the landscape of higher education.

Interesting NY Times article on a new direction for MOOCs.

Interesting POV about how lack of bridging assistance in MOOCs may fall unduly heavily on learners who are not able to integrate ideas with their life experience. Quote: "Daphne Koller, promotes the "personalized" learning that a MOOC can offer. Coursera can track how each learner uses the course material and how his or her quiz performance correlates with given in-course behaviors. With that information, Coursera can guide students toward the activities that will best help them to learn: additional video lectures or a specific discussion-forum thread. I cannot customize each student's education as precisely as Coursera claims it can. But I can personalize it, in the sense that I can help students connect what they learn in my class to who they are as people-their biographies, aspirations, shortcomings. MOOC creators assume that learners' intellects are detachable from their broader life circumstances. You take the MOOC, but you're on your own in figuring out how your learning fits into the rest of your life-or how it might require changing your life. That's fine if you just need to know about analog circuits to work on a specific project. But people come to universities at all ages, with unsettled identities and life plans, or with plans that education itself will unsettle."

Unusually good assessment IMO by Jane Hart of how modern learning differs from traditional training practices, 4/28/2014. She identifies six key features: autonomy small and short continuous on demand social anywhere, anytime, on any device Are these features then the new standards for learning concierges, learning coaches, learning stewards and facilitators? As well as for the learners themselves?

Interview of Kio Stark by Howard Rheingold on interdependent learning, April 2013. See video (15 minutes). Kio Stark wrote a handbook on how to do in(ter)dependent learning--"Don't Go Back to School" From post: "But one important change has erupted in recent decades, enabled by the advent of digital media and networks, that alters the traditional power equation between holders and seekers of knowledge: schools no longer hold the monopoly on learning. When I want to learn how to do something, I can find a video, an Instructable, a blog post, a peer-learning platform. Schooling is still essential for many - perhaps for most - but for independent learners, tools we didn't dream of a generation ago are available through the nearest web-connected device." Excerpt: In our brief video interview, I talked with Stark about what she learned from independent (more properly, we should probably call them "interdependent") learners like "Cory Doctorow about learning to be a working writer, Dan Sinker about learning to code, Quinn Norton about learning neurology and psychology." I suspect that Anya Kamenetz, Kio Stark, and the Peeragogy Project are forerunners of an entire nascent genre about how to learn anything outside of formal schooling.""

I just signed up for this as it looks really interesting. A Professor at Duke, Cathy N. Davidson has created a MOOC about MOOCs and the future of learning, which also is part of a global initiative to examine this topic. Here's the link to the inside Higher Ed article about it: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/11/04/duke-u-professor-plans-massive-collaborative-effort-tackle-challenges-facing-higher Davidson is the co-founder of the Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Alliance and Collaborative, or HASTAC. The MOOC will track the origins of what has become accepted features of higher education, from majors and graduate programs to grades and multiple choice tests, and evaluate new forms of teaching and learning. At the same time, students in affiliated face-to-face courses in disciplines as different as African and African-American studies, gender and sexuality studies, and film studies will contribute to a centralized wiki. The end result could be a massive collection of ideas on how to change higher education.

Funny and accurate blog post about MOOC oversell and overfailure of same to HE. By Dave LLorens in Fast Company. Excerpt: ..."MOOCs certainly have a point that online education will not boldly improve live learning unless it includes genuine, specific, individual interaction between students and teachers (run on sentence). That's simply a fact and something to keep in mind as online educations evolves, but it is not by any means a reason why online education "doesn't work." Yet we seem to remain focused on shiny polarizing topics of online versus offline education. MOOCs work, they don't work, etc. It sounds like what they tell you to say as extras on a set when they want a "murmur," Watermelon, cantaloupe. Watermelon cantaloupe. Rhubarb Constantinople. SUMMARY: Even today, MOOCs are the main focus of anyone in any kind of online education capacity, and MOOCs are polarizing in a way that is hurtful to the discussion. MOOCs are also (at least today), only the repackaging of and a new delivery mechanism for traditional education. Being disappointed that MOOCs haven't changed the world yet is like switching over from cassette tapes to CDs and then being disappointed when the CDs don't contain untold and unimagined wisdom. "

Interesting assessment of MOOCs and push toward MOOLEs on EdTechDev (developing educational technology), early May 2012 Lisa Lane shows up in comments advocating for her SMOOC (small to medium open online course) on pedagogy. Need to check it out. She has a lot of cred with me!

"attributes. When entities are connected to other entities, different attributes will be activated based on the structure of those connections and the nature of other entities that are being connected. This fluidity of attribute activation appears to be subjective, but in reality, is the contextual activation of the attributes of entities based on how they are related to other entities. Knowledge then is literally the connections that occur between entities. I don't see networks as a metaphor for learning and knowledge. I see learning and knowledge as networks. In global, digital, distributed, and complex settings, a networked model of learning and knowledge is critical."

A blog titled "Inside the Ivory Tower" about teaching musings. This blog brings up the issue of cost in teaching and learning, i.e., the online courses that this professor designs and teaches are often shared by students with non-enrolled learners. The nonenrollees get the materials but not the camaraderie in the online classroom or credential or tutoring that completing this class at the instituion under the teacher's guidance provides enrolled students. The professor would like to share his/her knowledge with the world but his/her reimbursement package is based solely on the # of enrolled students. He is still paying for his own higher education and that of two children, and soon, a third child. What is fair use in this situation when the teacher is just getting by economically himself/herself? It begs the question: How can open learning initiatives that have started at MIT, Carnegie Mellon, etc. be emulated at state universities or other less well endowed settings? Further, how can professional associations offer MOOCs or COOLS when they are not capitalized to do so?