The list of web2.0 tools is fantastic! I had forgotten (or not realized) that wikis are in some ways a PLN.

Excellent realistic advice on how to make connections that will help your career without being overtly obnoxious.

So glad you found this link b/c it has one of my favorite YouTube videos- the one about college students today. I also appreciate the sentiment in the blog because it reminds us that teachers still play a role in facilitating connectivism.

Seeing connectivism (one of the "C" words) in connection with MOOC is not "new", but seeing how MOOCs can be categorized as cMOOCs or xMOOCs and what they mean explains a few things to me. I've been dabbling with being a participant in MOOCs, #change11 probably being the first one I tried. Since then I've tinkered in Coursera, Udacity, Udemy, Canvas, and a couple others. I look forward to the unit we do on MOOCs because it may help me understand why I get confused as I go from MOOC to MOOC because the style, presentation, and expectations differ so much from one to another.

Don't let the academic sound of the title push you away from reading this article. The author, Bopelo Boitshwarelo, presents arguments: "This paper set out to propose a research framework that will aid in advancing the research agenda of connectivism, particularly developmental work. " It is very dense with lots of synthesis of research that has been done on Activity Theory, Connectivism, and Communities of Practice from 2000 - 2011, when it was published. If you need to do a content-based paper on activity theory, connectivism, or communities of practice, this has several references listed at the end that will help you find original sources of ideas.

To make the most out of this link, you'll want to explore beyond the first page because the entire website is a product. This website seems to stress the importance of doing cooperative learning that has much more structure than collaborative learning. In emphasizing the role structure plays in group dynamics, I am starting to see the differences between these "C" words more clearly.

This article is helping me see how if I were to create a Venn diagram of these two concepts, there would be some overlap. Keep in mind, the article was crafted in 1996, which I think adds strength to it because it is not clouded with current conventional ways of communication. I can see the points Panitz brings out where cooperative learning is much like how I was taught to teach science. We have groups, most likely created by me, and each member of the group plays a role. In more recent years (like the last 15 or so), there has been more of a push for inquiry which emphasizes putting control in the students' hands. Let the students decide the outcome (collaborative) as opposed to the teacher knowing what the outcome will be (cooperative). In my later years of teaching I was striving toward bringing in as much inquiry as possible, but even in 2010 I found students still molded into vessels who thought the job of the teacher was to fill them.

I really am stuck on how these words can almost look the same and yet they are supposed to be different. Cloudhead, the author, simplifies the concepts in a way that lets them make sense. I am starting to see the beauty in these terms because he does an excellent job of providing examples I can understand and relate to. If you are also stuck on the "C" words, this seemingly simplistic explanation may help you, too.

This is a clip from a conference in New Zealand where the speaker starts to discern the differences between the focus of a network and that of a community of practice.

Coursera is a place where people addicted to online learning can get a fix. I think by default all of their courses are free. I get to take courses taught by professors I may never meet who teach at universities I may never be admitted to as a student, so it is in many ways an honor to have access to the information in the courses. I have yet to actually finish a Coursera course, but they don't seem to mind. It is someplace you can go for the joy of learning without the anxiety that comes with accountability.