Beautiful 5 minute video on Personal Learning Networks for educators but I believe this orientation could/should extend to all professionals in their work/personal lives, too. Uploaded by skipvia on June 10, 2010 on YouTube.

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. ***

Wonderful blog by George Siemens from 2010 enriched with good comments and exchange on teaching in social and technological networks. He reviews the traditional role of a teacher in a classroom (role model, encourager, supporter, guide, synthesizer) and shows how this model falls apart in a distributed learning network with multiple educator inputs and peer-based learning. Instead he says the roles teachers play in networked learning environments are to amplify, curate, find the way to help students make sense of information fragments, aggregate, filter, model (to build apprenticeship learning), and provide a persistent presence (place to express herself and be discovered).

Brief look at social media use pros and cons in classroom; pros outweigh the cons of well-managed Twitter, Facebook, and Linked-in-based social learning activity.

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.

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.

Redo of Wenger's schema on cops and levels of membership

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.

blog on connectiv--heutagogy, andragogy, pedagogy

"Some see more potential for badges in K-12 education than at colleges, as an incentive similar to the frequent "power-ups" and accolades that videogames offer. At the free online-education provider Khan Academy, for instance, students get a "Great Listener" badge for watching 30 minutes of videos from its collection of thousands of short lectures. "

Learnlets is Clark Quinn's blog. This is what he wrote on January 26 about Sharing Failure. The closing paragraphs are the most interesting to me. Excerpt: "Now, just getting people sharing isn't necessarily sufficient. Just yesterday (as I write), Jane Bozarth pointed me towards an article in the New Yorker (at least the abstract thereof) that argues why brainstorming doesn't work. I've said many times that the old adage "the room is smarter than the smartest person in the room" needs a caveat: if you manage the process right. There are empirical results that guide what works from what doesn't, such as: having everyone think on their own first; then share; focus initially on divergence before convergence; make a culture where it's safe, even encouraged, to have a diversity of viewpoints; etc. No one says getting a collaborating community is easy, but like anything else, there are ways to do it, and do it right. And here too, you can learn from the mistakes of others…"

The state of Minnesota offers an efolio for each state resident to 'showcase' their education, career, and personal achievements. It doesn't go quite far enough as a developmental PKM tool but is still very cool!

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.

Weaknesses of Online Learning described on the Illinois Online Network website, 2012. It offers the unsupported view below that 20 is the maximum number of students that could be accommodated in an online class without losing the interactive elements. I disagree. Levels of Synergy Online learning has its most promising potential in the high synergy represented by active dialog among the participants, one of the most important sources of learning in a Virtual Classroom. However, in larger classes (20 or more students), the synergy level starts to shift on the learning continuum until it eventually becomes independent study to accommodate the large class. At this point, dialog is limited as well as interaction among participants and the facilitator. The medium is not being used to its greatest potential."

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?

Virtually Foolproof blog on Ender's Game and Cognitive, Collaborative, and Collective Learning, January 23, 2012. Remarkable blog provoked in part by Dave Snowden's presentation at the Change MOOC, week of January 16, 2011 on what kind of learning is required in different situations.

Book about online courseware case studies at MIT, Yale, Columbia, Berkeley, etc. with the best known at MIT by Taylor Walsh, 2011, Princeton Press

Connecting the dots by brainysmurf on Change#11, reactions to and summary of Dave Snowden's comments

19 minute presentation by Dave White, University of Oxford, on differences between internet visitors and residents, 2009. TALL blog Digital residents see web as social space; visitors see web as a collection of resources. Visitors are more goal oriented and ROI is a bigger issue for them in learning new technology which they are capable of doing when they want to do it than being on the net is for residents. Visitors do not value social aspect of learning in same way as residents do. A visitor needs content, will to learn, and expert. A visitor probably not wish to learn or value Twitter because it is a residential platform that is understood and appreciated only when used repeatedly. Similarly, we never got some educators to appreciate our conversation platform because they were in and out asap. They never got a sense of the place. White says that culture and motivation are biggest factors in people becoming more residentially inclined on the internet, not age or skills attainment. Interesting dichotomy that works better for me than the digital natives and immigrants model by Prensky in 2001