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"Dave Cormier, the mind behind Rhizomatic Learning 2014 (#rhizo14), just posted thoughts on his blog about creating a wonderful learning experience that went from a 6-week course to a self-propelled learning community.  The challenge as Cormier articulates it is how to bring in new learners into this community. His original plan - create a new course, but what about the energy of the existing learning community?  Connect the new course to the first course or simply bring the new learners into the existing community?"

from Dave's Educational Blog: "this course came back to life without a 'head' as it were. After my last goodbye was sent out to the participants, a week 7 popped up on the website. The participants continued the course, but without any 'teacher' filling the role as guide or decision maker. They continued on like this for another 6 weeks, and while activity is now only active in the facebook/twitter/gplus realm (that i know of), the communal learning process continues. The course (now called #rhizo14 by all involved) has refused to die. It has become that individual/community space that i was hoping for when the course started. People post ideas, challenges and thoughts and others bring their perspective to it… we learn, often in vastly different ways, from each interaction. And then this post shows up on the original P2PU course today -"

Kop & Fournier 2010 paper on Self Directed Learning: Abstract New technologies have changed the educational landscape. It is now possible for self-directed learners to participate informally in learning events on open online networks, such as in Massive Open Online Courses. Our research analyzed the agency and level of autonomy required by learners participating in a course of this nature. Using Bouchard's four dimensional model of learner control, we found that there are new dimensions to self-directed learning in connectivist learning environments. The research also brought to light new challenges and opportunities for self directed learners who might not be able to call on trusted educators for support in their learning endeavors, but rely on the aggregation of information and informal communication and collaboration available through social media to advance their learning

Kop & Fournier 2010 paper on Self Directed Learning: Abstract New technologies have changed the educational landscape. It is now possible for self-directed learners to participate informally in learning events on open online networks, such as in Massive Open Online Courses. Our research analyzed the agency and level of autonomy required by learners participating in a course of this nature. Using Bouchard's four dimensional model of learner control, we found that there are new dimensions to self-directed learning in connectivist learning environments. The research also brought to light new challenges and opportunities for self directed learners who might not be able to call on trusted educators for support in their learning endeavors, but rely on the aggregation of information and informal communication and collaboration available through social media to advance their learning

Michael Wesch's NetVibes aggregation page: links, feeds, Padlet message wall, resources, etc for digital ethnography/webculture courses, Kansas State University. Wesch's network - aggregation page, personal and course blogs, YouTube channel, etc is (in my opinion) a rhizome ~ with the caveat that my own understanding of the term is continually shifting

Kevin, I've been doing the subjective learning thing on my own for a very, very long time. Not coming to Vance Steven's multiliteracies, connectivist moocs or any open online courses as a "practicing" academic or educator (except in free range, heutagogical sense), I start with making my own subjectivity alignment -- if only to feel at least somewhat less the total outlier. Besides, isn't all learning is idiosyncratic and subjective?

The system of education will change, teachers should be change agents.

"As part of a MOOC on rhizomatic learning that performs itself in many different spaces (Facebook, P2PU, G+, Twitter and others), I am a member of an 'open' Facebook group.  It is endlessly fascinating, and has given me a lot of scope for reflection about back channels and the exchange of information between open and closed spaces. Of course, I say that as if a space could be categorised as open or closed:  it's often a lot more complicated than that, acted out by technical aspects of the space and by the agency of the people who interact there. Facebook groups can be open, closed or secret, the meanings of these being laid out in the Facebook help."

"As part of a MOOC on rhizomatic learning that performs itself in many different spaces (Facebook, P2PU, G+, Twitter and others), I am a member of an 'open' Facebook group.  It is endlessly fascinating, and has given me a lot of scope for reflection about back channels and the exchange of information between open and closed spaces. Of course, I say that as if a space could be categorised as open or closed:  it's often a lot more complicated than that, acted out by technical aspects of the space and by the agency of the people who interact there. Facebook groups can be open, closed or secret, the meanings of these being laid out in the Facebook help."

About teaching and learning to be rather than learning to know. You could open this link and highlight annotate this paper with us. You need to download a little app for that: see https://www.diigo.com/tools

to annotate and highlight.

Thoughts about the #Rhizo14 MOOC Research Project? INTRO BY MAHA: We can EACH have our own research agenda and work together to support each other in making it work for this course. This might mean four or five or ten different research questions led by different people, and supported by as many of us as are interested in the other's question. I see already we are on the path to a rhizomatic research approach that is not unidirectional and slightly chaotic but has such rich potential. This would hopefully result in different research projects and publications that each give a different perspective on rhizo14. A metaphor i like is "crystallization" - like a crystal, u can look at it and illuminate it from different angles and see totally different things. Would be beautiful to have this about #rhizo14.

I'll preface with Stephen Downes's commentary in Feb 14 OLDaily. His question about what kind of undergraduate degree is needed for today and the future and how we might best prepare students has #rhizo14 all over it ;-) This came out about a month ago but according to my logs I haven't mentioned here yet, so here goes. First, let me quote Laurillard's five myths: the idea that 'content is free' in education that students can support each other that Moocs solve the problem of expensive undergraduate education that MOOCs address educational scarcity in emerging economies that Education is a mass customer industry The essence of her criticism is that "a course format that copes with large numbers by relying on peer support and assessment is not an undergraduate education... it requires personalised guidance, which is simply not scalable in the same way." I think we both agree that MOOCs - even cMOOCs - are not an undergraduate education. The question, though, is broader. Is an undergraduate education what we need in order to meet the social and economic challenges of the day? If we started our students off differently, could they succeed in a technology-rich environment wihtout the need for so much personal attention and hand-holding? A lot rides on the answer to this question. And the MOOC - even the xMOOC - is an attempt to look at some possible answers.

Stephen Downes' comments in OLDaily, Feb. 7 Is books making us stupid? behind the curtain of #rhizo14 Dave Cormier, Dave's Educational Blog, February 6, 2014 This post actually provides a good overview of the first few weeks of the Rhizomatic Learning course, exploring as it does a set of "challenges" posed by Dave Cormier: Cheating as learning Enforcing independence Embracing uncertainty Is books making us stupid I can certainly be frustrated by some of this sort of discussion - when people express concerns, for example, about "enforcing independence" my reaction is that they just don't know what those words mean. And in another post I've raised some questions about some of the more nebulous aspects of this approach to learning. But I see value in these discussions. And questioning the authority of the book is certainly something I support.

46:48 "It's funny: in our courses we say "There is no content." The content is the message that one person says to another. And that's not the important thing. The important thing is the totality of all the messages whether it's the official content or not. The content, we call it the McGuffin. And it's the thing that brings the people together, because they're interested in that subject. You know, they gather around you know like people stare at an accident where the accident is a thing not everybody wants to go to but it attracts. 47:35 The McGuffin is a concept that comes from Alfred Hitchcock. It's the thing in a movie that all the plot evolves around. And it can be anything at all. In the Maltese Falcon, the Mcguffin is the falcon, the statue of the falcon. In The Birds, it's birds. In The Treasure of the Sierra Madre it's the treasure. There's always a map with an X on it and, it's funny, it does not matter what it is because what's interesting about the movie isn't what everybody's chasing after. It's what they do during the chase. It's how they interact with each other, it's what we learn about their characters, about what motivates them. 48:22 So, the content of a course is just a plot device to get people together, to communicate, to interact, to take part in this common exercise. And in this common exercise our connection between each other and our connections inside ourselves will be exercised, will be increased, augmented, developed -- and we learn. "

Week 4 response to question about community and curriculum. I introduce the course as gift community idea after Hyde's 1983 Gift Community.

Second Edition (2012) available from Routledge Preface This book is about the learning theories that provide the foundation for the design and development of open-ended learning environments (defined in Chap. 1). During the 1990s, we have witnessed a convergence of learning theories never before encountered. These contemporary learning theories are based on substantively different ontologies and epistemologies than were traditional objectivist foundations for instructional design. This book is intended to provide an introduction to the theoretical foundations for these new learning environments for instructional designers, curriculum specialists, mathematics and science educators, learning psychologists, and anyone else interested in the theoretical state of the art. Edited April 8/14 by Scott J. Dropped the chapter list and replaced with a sample from the section on self-directed learners: Self-Directed Learning and Self-Regulation Theory Chapter 11 Learning Communities: Theoretical Foundations for Making Connections Janette R. Hill "As indicated throughout this chapter, learning is "strongly influenced by setting, social interaction, and individual beliefs, knowledge, and attitudes" (Dierking, 1991, p.4). This is particularly important to keep in mind while turning attention to the individual within the learning community. While there is often a focus on the collective that is the learning community, individuals are the foundation that enable the community to form. Two theories can help guide our understanding of how to support learners within the context of a learning community: self-regulated and self-directed learning. Self-regulation encompasses a variety of individual characteristics, including self-efficacy, motivation and metacognitive skills. Each characteristic has been studied to various extents (see, for example, Lim & Kim, 2003; Oliver & Shaw, 2003; Song & Hill, 2009), with the majority of the studies indicating that all

"A few weeks ago a friend, Renee, from NH emailed me to ask if I would mentor her for her individualized learning portion of her dissertation. She attends Antioch University and is in the process of earning her PhD in Leadership and Change. I was of course thrilled to be a part of this venture especially as she is thinking about rhizomatic leadership which I am keen to think about and theorize alongside Renee. We will work together for the next 4 to 6 months. Below is the start to some readings we may well do (we'll see what surfaces). Thought I would share this curated list."