Group items tagged

methodology of "collaboration by difference"

how we both thrive as creative individuals and understand our contribution within a network of others

sumption that today’s student are computer-literate because they are “digital natives” is a pernicious

critical capacity to glean the implications, and limitations, of technologies as they emerge and become woven in

Arguing that there should be new standards for tech literacy and that most students don’t meet them implies a third piece -- one that is likely to make course designers hem and haw: You need to teach them.

instructors might try to do their best to integrate discussions that might improve students’ tech literacy into existing units in the syllabus

filtering the pertinent from the misleading

critical thinking skills that enable them to use various technologies wisely

Ted Talks

Where do ideas begin and end? Can ideas be ever completely “owned” as we do we property? Does it all come down to control of resources as a means to be powerful

Maybe ideas are like DNA, that can change and evolve, mutate and be of someone but never completely “theirs”. Maybe ideas, as DNA evolve in spite of us, rather that because of us.

This reminded me of  Kirby Ferguson’s Embracing the Remix

three issues that I find important in this respect.

1. Intelligent data connections are one exciting option for PLE development and networked learning,

Recommender systems of information, resources, critical friends and experts could form part of the access options

the challenges of an open online networked environment for learning.

The reality, however, is different and research is available to show that not all adult learners are able to critically assess what they find online and might prefer to receive guidance

difficult it is for anybody to reach and access a deep level of information by using search engines

need for critical literacies while learning informally on networks

3. Access to technology

trends in access and digital divides

reasons for their non-participation. Some are related to age and socio-economic group, but some are also related to relevance, confidence and skills set.

people least likely to use the Internet are also the least likely to participate in adult education.

What components would be needed?

1. A personal profiler that would collect and store personal information.

The second aspect of language use today arises in part from the characteristics of the new information and communications media

extend the range of literacy pedagogy so that it does not unduly privilege alphabetical representations, but brings into the classroom multimodal representations, and particularly those typical of the new, digital media

pedagogy of synaesthesia, or mode switching.

The Multiliteracy Project is a national Canadian study exploring pedagogies or teaching practices that prepare children for the literacy challenges of our globalized, networked, culturally diverse world. Increasingly, we encounter knowledge in multiple forms - in print, in images, in video, in combinations of forms in digital contexts - and are asked to represent our knowledge in an equally complex manner.

ighlight two related aspects of the increasing complexity of texts

(a) the proliferation of multimodal ways of making meaning where the written word is increasingly part and parcel of visual, audio, and spatial patterns; (b) the increasing salience of cultural and linguistic diversity characterized by local diversity and global connectedness .

It reduces the complexity, yes, but more importantly it provides a starting point for a common process. Without it, we would be lost in theory. 

The same holds for learning to some degree. We look for structure, but if none exists on sight, we combine things until some structure emerges. That structure can be represented in a single symbol, but its foundation might shift as new understanding emerges. Occasionally, there is need to ditch the symbols or invent a new one altogether as emerging learning dictates. That is a healthy and complicated process. The MOOC captures this process a bit and adheres to an open structure to allow pattern language to emerge, a shared vocabulary, a knowledge construct (however ephemeral).

Feedback as friction as forces interact. A spark, a collision, waste, and occasionally a nova. A big (learning) bang. This makes me think a learner's responsibility (among many others) is to be open to this collision of actors, agents, feedback, waste, noise, and then, ideally, pattern, understanding. The only way out is through.

Disturbing- an ontological disturbance, an unknown, an uncanny sense of veering through uncharted, potentially treacherous waters. It is a good place to be as a learner, but it requires a strength and confidence that only an empowered learner could put forth. But in that disturbance, that mess, there is the friction, that meat-grinder of understanding.

This is learning as curiosity and sometimes it can be quite scary. 

Often we seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge (anyone subjected to my endless banal history lessons will understand this), but I do believe that most learning is action oriented. To learn not only to get a job, to live in a world, to subsist, but rather for acting as best as we can. For improvement, for progress, for self-actualization.

disaggregated, emotive, functional machine of interaction. One that has to be tinkered with constantly.