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David McGavock

Brainstorming With Howard Rheingold - WikiBrains blog - 1 views

  • reminding us that the tools we have available to us, for the most part free (given internet access), are fantastic compared to what we had in the early 1990s -a search engine like Google was the stuff of dreams ‘back then.’ The technological progress is happening so fast that many people may not know how to make use of all these great tools that are becoming available.
  • we are humans because we’re social learners
  • He defines the Personal Learning Networks (PLN) as “Not just a network of sources to learn from, but  a network that learns together.”
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  • He  is currently working on a free handbook for peer learners that is in part a collaboration and in part a collection of single-author works, which you can access at peeragogy.org 
David McGavock

A New Culture of Learning | Social Media Classroom - 3 views

  • A New Culture of Learning
  • what strikes me is the second part of the title Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change.
  • I love seeing a child's imagination being captivated
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  • I am challenged by many who see social-media as the next project rather than a shift in the paradigm of existence.
  • I believe that dissatisfaction with the factory model of school, along with the growing number, ubiquity, and accessiblity, of tools (for connection, collaboration and creation) will tip the balance toward new models and cultures of learning.
  • I love to see teachers and student figuring out how to use technology together; asking questions, trying stuff, "messing around" as Brown would say.
  • The Social Life of Information by John Seely Brown and Paul Duguid
  • Can I just say that it is amazingly prescient and still relevant even a decade later? I'm interested in comparing it to his more recent book in discussion here.
  • Howard reponds with an idea on assignments (and the power of assignments). I found the questions (or in other courses the assignements) to really good at directing my brain. 1.Read the question 2. go to sleep 3. stare at the ceiling for hours 4. brush teeth 5. eurekaThese methods are also used in action learning and action research
  • I'm reading the book "the myth of management" (which is not related to learning), and I found out that finding "faults" is actually a dirty consultant trick, as it expands the window through which you can sell your solution. I hacked that idea and replaced solution with learning.
  •  The role of the instructor in balancing freedom and structure -- setting enough structure so that the unlimited freedom doesn't become vertiginous and overwhelming -- resonates with my experiences with Rheingold U. so far. Assignments seem to help, but they can't be too onerous.
  •  Very nice article comparing Thomas/JSB ideas to John Dewey's:
  •  http://charlestkerchner.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/DeweyThomas.pdf
  • Ernst - I am particularly interested in Action Research of the "plan, act, observe,reflect" variety where we never really arrive at conclusions but start again in a new cycle of teaching and learning.
  • that idea of teaching people to fail is very important - I notice that this is acceptable very often in business especially in the contexts of 'start-ups' but unacceptable in most schools. Here in Europe, the work of the Finnish educationalist Pasi Sahlberg gets a lot of attention - one of his motifs is learning to be wrong.
  • Knowing who to listen to in the 'noise' of all the information overload is important - I'm looking forward to our continuing review of how we all re-imagine that new culture of learning.
  • Can You, and if yes, How,  Change a system from within? This is one of the key issues of our time. Learning, PLN, Community support structures, activism, Social media, cooperation.. are all part of that... so it is realIy at the heart of our SMC Alumni topics. 
  • I would suggest, we should be dialoguing in depth about the question, and how to formulate it, before jumping to solutions...
  • The work of social and developmental psychologist, Carol Dweck can inform our discussion about failure,
  • Her book, Mindset, posits that some students have growth mindsets and some have fixed mindsets.
  • Ernst, I adore your description of problem-solving (especially the enumerated part). Downtime is essential for processing information and I agree, even subtle shifts within group dynamics can cause huge internal vistas to open up.
  • The idea of structuring for failure in itself is a whole new take on creative thinking.
  • Schools reward success.  That's our measurement system, our "leaderboard".  Some winners at school go on to run schools. Schools punish failure deeply, systematically.  Remember dunce caps? So taking failure as a good thing is, at the very least, weird and defamiliarizing!
  • Chapter Two of Thomas and Seely-Brown's book  is so short - just five pages - They conclude with the idea ....the point is to embrace what we don't know, come up with better questions about it, and continue asking those questions in order to learn more and more, both incrementally and exponentially. I wonder do the authors want us to reflect repeatedly on the contents of the chapter given its brevity.
  • is it certain type of people who fail, who are subsequently allowed to start again?
  • book's first chapter
  • Two key elements: network ("a massive information network that provides almost unlimited access and resources", sounds like mobile + Web) and environments ("bounded and structural") (19).
  • what do you make of the examples they present?  What do they suggest about the theory they exemplify?
  • ohn Seely Brown is particularly interested in the idea of tinkering. He suggests one of the best 'tinkering' models is the architectural studio -- the place where students work together trying to solve each others' problems, and a mentor or master can also take part in open criticism. Find out why this is a model for us all.  http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bydesign/stories/2011/3147776.htm
  • The first chapter is a pretty rosy, and might I say westernized, view of the power of Internet access + play in learning.* It manages to enlighten and engage using a few choice narratives (I imagine we will get to the power of those at some point in the book, too) and sets us up for the rationale to come.
  • * I'm looking for some reaction with regards to that comment
  • based on WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic) concepts. (An aside, here's a truly wonderful post unpacking of the idea of WEIRD in social science research.)
  • I can only talk for myself but there are contradictions between what I think is best to do with the students I teach and what I actually do. This "living contradiction" is something I consider in my own studies - I noticed a Tweet last night from Howard: Online and blended learning is NOT about automating delivery of knowledge, but about encouraging peer learning, inquiry, discourse.
  • The sentence I liked most from Chapter One reads "One of the metaphors we adopt to describe this process is cultivation. A farmer for example takes the nearly unlimited resources of sunlight, wind, water, earth, and biology and consolidates them into the bounded and structured environment of garden or farm. We see a new culture of learning as a similar kind of process - but cultivating minds instead of plants"
  • Everyone - you may have seen the piece below - if not please take 12 minutes to view it - it fits nicely with our current discussion
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    This is the first capture of the conversation from the thread "A New Culture of Learning". We'll see how this goes
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    I read the book almost cover to cover. It led me to think more about pushing what I've been doing closer to pure p2p. One of the co-learners in the latest Mindamp told me about "paragogy." That one is worth bookmarking.
Charles van der Haegen

‪George Siemens on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)‬‏ - YouTube - 0 views

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    Thanks Howard for having conducted this interview and having allowed George Siemens to expose the philisophy behind his MOOKC idea. Great educational content. Also a path is shown for the future of self-determined and self-managed, life-long autonomous, learning in teams and around personal and wider, global, community networks "George Siemens, at the Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute at Athabasca Universityhas been running "Massive Open Online Courses" (MOOCs). I talk to him about what a MOOC is, how it works, and the educational philosophy behind it." Excellent Interview by Howard Rheingold
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    This video is really great. Howard is a master interviewer. George Siemens is provoked in answering the kind of questions that allow the viewer to reallt comprehend his thinking and the power of his MOOC. By the same token, it gives a nice indication of the similarity in design that Howard is following for his course... When will the two combine to a greater whole
David McGavock

Interpersonal ties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • more novel information flows to individuals through weak rather than strong ties.
  • Acquaintances, by contrast, know people that we do not, and thus receive more novel information.[1]
  • the fact that two people may know each other by name does not necessarily qualify the existence of a weak tie. If their interaction is negligible the tie may be absent. The "strength" of an interpersonal tie is a linear combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (or mutual confiding), and the reciprocal services which characterize each tie.[2]
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  • In 1954, the Russian mathematical psychologist Anatol Rapoport commented on the "well-known fact that the likely contacts of two individuals who are closely acquainted tend to be more overlapping than those of two arbitrarily selected individuals." This argument became one of the cornerstones of social network theory.
  • In a related line of research in 1969, anthropologist Bruce Kapferer, published "Norms and the Manipulation of Relationships in a Work Context" after doing field work in Africa. In the document, he postulated the existence of multiplex ties, characterized by multiple contexts in a relationship.[4][5]
  • Social networks In social network theory, social relationships are viewed in terms of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. There can be many kinds of ties between the nodes. In its simplest form, a social network is a map of all of the relevant ties between the nodes being studied.
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    "Interpersonal ties From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Nodes (individuals) and ties (connections) in social networks. In mathematical sociology, interpersonal ties are defined as information-carrying connections between people. Interpersonal ties, generally, come in three varieties: strong, weak, or absent. Weak social ties, it is argued, are responsible for the majority of the embeddedness and structure of social networks in society as well as the transmission of information through these networks. "
David McGavock

How to cultivate a personal learning network | Mind Mapping Software Blog - 0 views

  • Next, I view the topical searches I have set up, looking for gold among the dross. Then finally, if time permits, I’ll view my entire Twitter feed. That’s how I get the most out of my time on Twitter.
    • David McGavock
       
      This is an important point - using Twitter strategically.
  • 5. Feed the people you follow if you come across information that you suspect would interest them.
  • As you begin to understand what motivates some of the key people you follow, you will naturally encounter nuggets of information that may be of value to them. Make the first move. Share it with them.
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  • So be proactive – share FIRST. Don’t wait for someone you’re connected with to share something with you.
  • 6. Engage the people you follow. Be polite, mindful of making demands on their attention. Put work into dialogue if they welcome it. Thank them for sharing.
  • They’re also a platform for dialogue and discussion, going beyond information exchanges into deeper levels of communication – sharing insights and experiences. Rheingold reminds us to be kind and show gratitude;
  • 7. Inquire of the people you follow, of the people who follow you. But be careful. Ask engaging questions – answers shd be useful to others
  • Being mindful of being useful to others helps to ensure that we build mutually productive and gratifying relationships in our social channels.
  • 8. Respond to inquiries made to you. Contribute to both diffuse reciprocity and quid pro quo
  • 1. Explore: It’s not just about knowing how to find experts, co-learners, but about exploration as invitation to serendipitous encounter.
  • In a recent Twitter conversation, he laid out 8 key thoughts on how to build your own personal learning network from your social media channels. Here they are, along with my thoughts on each:
  • You need to be open: To new people, opportunities, possibilities, to knowledge.
  • 3. Follow candidates through RSS, Twitter. Ask yourself over days, weeks, whether each candidate merits continued attention
  • 2. Search – Use Diigo, delicious, listorious, to find pools of expertise in the fields that interest you.
  • Your goal is to identify people and potential sources you can add to your personal knowledge network.
  • Once you’ve identified people who are posting information that appears to be relevant to your areas of intererst, follow them.
  • Analyze the quality of their social media posts. What is their point of view? Is the information they’re posting accurate? Are they focused or scattershot? What is the “signal to noise ratio” of their feed? In other words, out of everything they post, how much useful information?
  • 4. Always keep tuning your network, dropping people who don’t gain sufficiently high interest; adding new candidates
  • I follow about 900 people on Twitter. But I’ve developed a list I call “rockstars” who consistently provide the best ideas and resources in their feeds. That’s the tweetstream I visit first, because that’s where I’ll find the best stuff in the least amount of time.
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