First, is the potential of the Internet to offer individual learners increased freedom from the physical limitations of the real world.
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The Internet and Education - OpenMind - by Neil Selwyn - 0 views
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Secondly, the Internet is seen to support a new culture of learning—i.e., learning that is based around bottom-up principles of collective exploration, play, and innovation rather than top-down individualized instruction
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Thirdly, the capacity of the Internet to support a mass connectivity between people and information is felt to have radically altered the relationship between individuals and knowledge.
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self-directed, non-institutional learning are initiatives such as the hole-in-the-wall and School in the Cloud
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But will the majority of children/youth access these learning opportunities, or will they - as I have observed in hosting a community access point - gravitate toward entertainment? What learning experiences can be developed that will grab a young person's attention when watching Tupac and gang fights are available? Is there something that will motivate them to provide well-considered comments on Youtube and Facebook?
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Fourthly, the Internet is seen to have dramatically personalized the ways in which people learn—thereby making education a far more individually determined process than was previously the case.
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the most successful forms of Internet-based education and e-learning being those that reflect and even replicate pre-Internet forms of education such as classrooms, lectures, and books.
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elping already engaged individuals to participate further, but doing little to widen participation or reengage those who are previously disengaged
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It remains for teachers to figure out how to leverage the opportunities of the internet for their learner's advantage. It is not enough to rely on the internet to "do it for you". The internet is still not a teaching machine. Best practice (Jim's version): teach content creation, collaboration, and reasonable dialogue - globally if possible.
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Wanna do a cMOOC? | doublemirror - 5 views
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Matthias Melcher – he made it so easy to follow everyone’s blogs
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power is not due to the technology or its design, but to the actual people involved
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So, when I did DS106 as a course for the first time in 2013, life was already set up in such a way that I could give it my full attention.
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So, what was Rhizo14 setting out to create? A one of what? Stephen uses his own courses as an example
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I have a great deal of respect for Stephen, and enjoyed his talk at Vlaencia (referenced in this blog) immensely. It seemed to me though, that he was explaining a landscape rather than prescribing a recipe for a MOOC. Might it be better to examine Rhizo14 in light of what Dave Cormier says about it, rather than force it to be scrutinized through the lens of questions raised by Steven Downes' lecture? Dave Cormier at MIT "MOOCs as a selfish enterprise" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Smt8lsPU_Mo If any "making one" objective(s) existed in Rhizo14, it(they) would be very subjective. Dave says he threw a party to see if anyone would come. I certainly participated as part of my process of "becoming", but without conciously adding "...one of X". I just know by experience that by "hanging out" with groups like this, I am able to do interesting things in teaching that I had not deliberately set out to learn (and I borrow that articulation from Dave Cormier), so from time to time I keep engaging with communities and courses that interest me. Some others have expressed or evidenced more clearly defined objectives - academic research, webtool development, and building a PLN are some examples.
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I agree with you that Dave is defferent from S.D. and rhizo should be described with Dave's terms
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If my need for inclusion had been high, then I think I would have felt excluded from what some called Rhizo14FB.
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They did what humans do so well in new situations: gather in their tribes and by definition exclude those not in their tribe, or try to ‘convince’ those outside ‘it’ to join it;
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The design of Rhizo14, I have to assume, is the current state of what Dave as an educational technologist believes works for massive open online courses.
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diversity was managed out through a group dynamic that excluded what the majority did not approve
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I did not see much by way of supporting the importance of diversity in action rather than theory.
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gossiping about other participants
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but Rhizo14 as an experiment on the future of higher education as a whole is not what the originators intend
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This critique of Rhizo14 accuses it of not producing what it was not intended to produce. Seems a bit like criticizing an alligator because, while it has great hide, it makes an unsatisfactory mount since it was never intended to be a horse. I understand the author's dissatisfaction with the course. Rhizo14 neither met expectations nor satisfied any personal objectives. A dissenting opinion eloquently expressed is very valuable. The underlying tone of the post, however, carries a distinctly subjective disapproval or dismissal of anyone who has received satisfaction in their own experience in Rhizo14. The author speaks repeatedly of observing attempts to silence or marginalize those who did not buy into the opinions of the majority. Yet the author engages in a similar tactic against possible critics.
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I hope that after my comment on my blog this feeling has eased in you. I absolutely did not intend to disapprove or dismiss any individual. I disagree with some of the choices made in design and educator intervention precisely because I feel they closed down the possibility of having a space where multiple perspective could be held openly without the need for filtering through an agree/disagree frame. This led to people who we could all have learnt from leaving and I was sad about this. Also - just for clarity I was not at all dissatisfied with the course. It was set up as an experiment and I love experiments. I was dissatisfied with our human inability create more silence and space for listening and the compulsive drive to talk. Nick put it beautifully in his blog: "that kind of dialogue. It is a way of being that one has to learn, but seems to me to be integral to what we might call "deep" learnign. The word retreat is interesting, one of the first pre-requisites of that dialogue is to shut up and listen. Online you are largely characterised by the noise you make, the text you generate. Silence online transmutes to a lack of presence, and described as "lurking". Lurk has too many negative associations to be reframed. But we do have the right to remain silent! Another issue, as you observe, is that dialogue is not transactional, but online interaction does very often seem to devolve to that kind of behaviour…" http://avisodemiranda.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/marram-grass/ I chose to create the space I needed for learning and this may be meant I chose 'no intervention' when intervention may have benefitted us all. I need to take time to reflect on this. I will leave it here for now, let's see if this is a space for us to engage before I spend any more time here :)
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Mariana speaks so well but why it is so challenging to hear, I am wondering after reading these notes
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I recognise this clearly from my
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You were definitely the right kind of ‘one’ if you believed in emergence, non-linearity, poetry and art rather than theory and explanation.
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to connect with ‘old MOOC friends’ no mention of rhizomes of the metaphorical or garden variety.
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Rhizomatic Education : Community as Curriculum | Dave's Educational Blog - 7 views
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Knowledge as negotiation
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The rhizome metaphor, which represents a critical leap in coping with the loss of a canon against which to compare, judge, and value knowledge, may be particularly apt as a model for disciplines on the bleeding edge where the canon is fluid and knowledge is a moving target.
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clear definition of the word "knowledge" is difficult
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The definition of knowledge is considered 'key' to the search for shared understanding. The more I read that sentence, the more it becomes the worm Ourboros. If it's a key, then the there is a locked something behind it. In litcrit this has been a fiercely fought battle. Some say it unlocks the power relationships undergirding any society, some say it unlocks the mysteries in the knowers themselves. Some say, fuck it and let's just look at the shiny things inside the vault with no further intent. Yes, it is difficult.
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simply another part of the way things are"
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I believe that one of the functions of theory is to reveal our cognitive blindspots. This they very much do while at the same time creating new blindspots that arise from the use of the 'tools' of the new theory. Any new system of knowledge exposes the assumptions of the the old system. For example, awareness meditation reveals the blindspot of categorization and differentiation, but the Buddha realized that say focusing on the breath is like pointing at the moon, just another step along the path toward no-mind. Mind and knowing is the problem.
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Horton and Freire
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The expert translation of data into verified knowledge is the central process guiding traditional curriculum development.
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I am quite taken by the word 'translation' here. I think the metaphor of translation is central to rhizomatic learning as we are always connecting and sharing information that then gets translated into knowledge (actionable knowing).
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Experts are not to be trusted anymore, they work for big companies, their translation is skewed.
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no community can live a healthy life if it is nourished only on such old marrowless truths.
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a negotiation (Farrell 2001)
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social contructivist and connectivist
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(Cormier 2008).
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Great question by Alec Couros in the comments: how do we get to a place where we are really and truly decentralized, and will this make the difference?
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I don't think the decentralized rhizome has reached a tipping point society wide, but perhaps we can play at the rhizomatic game for this short few weeks and see what it might mean to live in this world that may or may not be emerging.
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Information is the foundation of knowledge.
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If a given bit of information is recognized as useful to the community or proves itself able to do something, it can be counted as knowledge.
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the prestige of a thousand-year history,
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all over this history the prestige has been attacked. Prestige and knowledge are to be separated, so many experts were proven false and wrong.
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It's a loaded term, for sure, because those who call themselves experts are often the ones in power, and with books and writers to back them up. Is the Internet changing this paradigm? Not yet. Not yet.
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fluid, transitory conception of knowledge
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rhizome.
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The explosion of freely available sources of information has helped drive rapid expansion in the accessibility of the canon and in the range of knowledge available to learners.
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In the rhizomatic model of learning, curriculum is not driven by predefined inputs from experts; it is constructed and negotiated in real time by the contributions of those engaged in the learning process.
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The living curriculum of an active community is a map
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The cartography of learning. I am always intrigued by how this plays out, if done successfully. Most of the curriculum mapping I have done ... I would not call them maps. They are just plot lines going nowhere, it often seems. But the idea of a map continues to intrigue me.
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I know D&G speak of a map as opposed to a tracing. I struggle with understanding this. The best I can come up with is the idea that a map gives possibilities for exploration, as opposed to a photo which declares what exists. This leaves me wondering about sites like Lino and Pinterest. Might they function as a map of one's exploration too, rather than just a collection of discoveries.
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Knowledge seekers in cutting-edge fields are increasingly finding that ongoing appraisal of new developments is most effectively achieved through the participatory and negotiated experience of rhizomatic community engagement. Through involvement in multiple communities where new information is being assimilated and tested, educators can begin to apprehend the moving target that is knowledge in the modern learning environment.
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we see as our goal the co-construction of those secret connections as a collaborative effort
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the conversion of information to knowledge
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members of several communities—acting as core members in some, carrying more weight and engaging more extensively in the discussion, while offering more casual contributions in others
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students had the opportunity to enter the community themselves and impact the shape of its curriculum
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Sharing power - deconstructing the tradtional power structures of the educational system. Did this recursion result in "watering down" the curriculum? From what I recall of Dave's story, the students put in extra effort instead. Like me, they had difficulty in knowing when to quit, the exploration was so rewarding.
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if knowledge is to be negotiated socially
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Stephen Downes (http://www.downes.ca/post/61209 and elsewhere) argues against socially "constructed" knowledge, saying instead that knowledge is recognized. Cormier's "negotiated socially" fits nicely.
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the expert is the power. No resistance is tolerated, because who knows better than the expert? But curriculum is not only made by experts, pressure groups do influence curriculum, hypes and politics do either. Here is the reason for cheating.
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Recommended by Telli01 in Vialogues conversation https://vialogues.com/vialogues/play/13001 as good intro to Dave's work on rhizomatic ed
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It's amazing what happens over coffee: or deterritoralising the curriculum (a #rhizo15 ... - 7 views
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coffee
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my first full academic year in the job
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I am curious if this newness is freeing or is it constricting? Can you try new things or are you expected to toe the line? I suppose it depends on the "boss man" in charge.
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Well, a mixture really. It is 'my' course but that doesn't mean it is always viewed that way by those upstairs - this is a very small unit and can be claustrophobic at times. Dealing with a bit of a culture of talking the talk but not necessarily walking the walk. If you get what I mean. It depends how assertive I wish to be.
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My recent engagement with digital scholarship and #connectedlearning has propelled me to consider other options, and to think about how I might hack my own course, hybridise it.
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sets of resources organised around difficult ideas
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I like this phrasing and the idea here ... of shifting the learning, as long as you don't focus on the tool/technology but on the learnings elements. Sometimes, the tech drives the learning, not the other way around. We want our students to have agency of exploration in their learning.
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This year we used the closed box of the institutional VLE to do some of this work but I want to push this further by using more open platforms and ask participants to find their own materials. The assessment will have to be tweaked to facilitate this.
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have shorter workshops that model many of the ideas we promote
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This might up the engagement factor. I think a few folks from Connected Courses are tinkering with collective design of curriculum, right? Of allowing students to have a say in the learning. This is what Dave is doing with us. I think.
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The 'time' allocated to 'teaching' sessions is driven by the Bologna process (Tuning in N.America) and 'European Credit and Accumulation Transfer System' which usually gets reduced to 'time on task' rather than learning. We can play with this though
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Emergent objectives could become points for reflecting on what the course should be dealing with, what the difficult ideas and issues are, and therefore the content required.
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I am after all a final arbiter, the one who, institutionally, is responsible for assessment
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Also, could we introduce aspects of peer review?
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@davecormier
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we don't need no thought control: the deep grammar of schooling | the theoryblog - 0 views
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a constant filtering that exhausts us
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desire for trusted channels
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those channels tend to be corporate or institutional hierarchies
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what would (or do) YOU do in a classroom full of people with devices
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I teach a small adult literacy class and provide connected devices for each of them. I encourage them to use social media, help them to create Google and Facebook accounts if they don't have one. At least they are reading and writing authentically if not gramatically. Yes, it is a distraction, especially when I think we need some whole-class activity. I have not found THE ANSWER to balancing power and independence. But we have some wonderfully illuninating moments. See my blogpost about my own serendipitous encounter with Pink Floyd http://www.wayupnorth.ca/blog/2013/01/14/something-weird/
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without new ways to conceptualize the work of learning, we end up replicating top-down power and knowledge structures
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but our culture is not giving us the meta-literacies to recognize and value and utilize those skills
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The Art ofCritical Making, Rhode Island School of Design on Creative Practice. Ed: Rosa... - 1 views
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"In my teaching, I stress the importance of the creative process over the product, but the impact of how or when this shift in understanding takes place came into sharp focus only recently. In preparation for the final of my Studio Design{ course, I took my class to the study Room at the RISD Museum to view a portfolio of paper folding structures by the artist Tauba Auerbach. The Complex structural and color interactions in the portfolio make it a favorite to show[….] instead of witnessing surprised joy, I watched a roomful of heads and shoulders slump in desperation. I was startled to realize the little more than half-way through their first semester, my students were projecting themselves into this portfolio not with the passive eyes of spectators, but with the knowledge of makers. No longer just an end product to them, this portfolio now embodied hours of toil and experimentation, trial and error, measuring and calculating. Seeing it demonstrated to the students that if they wished to make successful work they needed to build up their creative muscles." Page 37
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Dave who? - un content ed - 1 views
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they should just come and watch and stop wasting my time with the idiotic managerialist systems
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I find it easier to be kind and open hearted in class than at home sometimes
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Yeah, what's with that anyhow? Do I assume family members "should know this already" just because they live with me? Been much more conscious of that since an adult learner overheard me "teach" my wife a missing computer skill with a note of impationce. Learner rebuked me with, "You don't talk to me that way when you explan something to me."
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