Group items tagged

Heil shares Krauts theory on identity vs. bond (concepts vs. people) and how this can affect the building of online communities.

How Howard Rheingold uses online tools Twitter, and Twitter search, Diigo and Delicious, and desktop (MAC) tools DEVONthink, and Scrivener to find, refine, and organize information -->knowledge

Online interactions reinforce face to face class interaction. A case of "weak ties" strengthening/supplementing the strong ties? More ties is always more better, i would think.

Nice summary of the first week's readings and discussion by Stefanie Pike, Educational Technology and Change Journal.  "Both the discussion and readings helped me to refine my understanding of both concepts. To me, the term personal learning network refers to processes and structures within the personal learning environment. Another personal learning outcome is my new awareness of the importance of "curation" in online classes, an issue I have not yet thought about. A great deal of discussion time was dedicated to the problem of curation, that is, how to make the results of a forum or live discussion available without having to read through all comments. Dave Cormier and the participants vented different ideas and approaches - from structuring the process of curation in a wiki and using word clouds like Wordle and visualizations like concept maps to discourse analysis and approaches from computational linguistics. "Stephen Downes encouraged participants to be selective in their attention and activities within the class. "Think of it as football.  People do not stop watching football just because they cannot watch everything!" I wonder if Stephen was talking about american football or soccer? In soccer you just watch the player with the ball.

One of the several thoughtful summaries of the Week 1 topic PLEs versus PLNS, The author summarises the PLE/PLN conversation as: # People being accountable in their own learning # People connecting and forming communities # People using online tools, as well as others # Personal knowledge and learning growing and expanding # A life-long portfolio of learning Apart from the need for on-line tools (I think we could and did have a PLE/PLN using traditional human contact and pre-web technology), I can largely accept these definitions.

A Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) for the Personal Environments, Networks and Knowledge (PLENK) 2010 Massively Open Online Course (MOOC). Created by @cpjobling from a dynamic OPML file provided by Stephen Downes, at the suggestion of @psychemedia by following the instructions provided by @cogdog.

Workplace learning

Fun map of online communities

Some really high quality reflection/summarization/curation coming out of the Week 5 topic on Assessment in a PLE/N. This is one example.

Howard says: Infotention is a word I came up with to describe the psycho-social-techno skill/tools we all need to find our way online today, a mind-machine combination of brain-powered attention skills with computer-powered information filters. The inside and outside of infotention work best together.......................Unless a great many people learn the basics of online crap detection and begin applying their critical faculties en masse and very soon, I fear for the future of the Internet as a useful source of credible news, medical advice, financial information, educational resources, scholarly and scientific research

The early stages are when it's important to GRAB the learner before they get that "I'm alone" feeling.

"Online, we are obsessed with size and numbers (Twitter followers, open courses, number of blog hits, Google alerts on ourselves/blogs, etc). But you don't need to run an open course with large numbers of participants to make an impact. An open course for five people is just fine. It's the act of giving, not the subsequent impact, that is most significant. "

Pedagogy first!

Open online courses

Interesting blog post that uses Dawley's social network engagement levels (identify network, lurk, contribute, create, lead) (Dawley, 2009) to annotate a PLE diagram.

"A definition for the term Personal Learning Environment (PLE), remains elusive. Conception about what should constitute a PLE depends on the perspective of the commentator. For example, the priorities for a PLE are different for a tertiary student, a university administrator, an instructor, a working professional, or an adult who persues an eclectic path of lifelong learning. Metaphorically, an individual may engage in a learning process that is either more acquisitional or participatory (Sfard, 1998). There are inconsistencies across these positions about what a PLE should do. But whether constructively and defensively, interest in PLE appears to be growing. At the time of writing this introduction (August 2006), no particular product or service exists that can definitively be categorised as a PLE, although some prototypical work is in progress. An inclusive, authoritative account about PLEs does not yet exist. Only a handful of articles have appeared in the academic and public press about PLEs since the term gained currency in 2004. This article has been compiled after tracking recent conversations in the blogosphere and following social bookmarks. "