#Rhizo15

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. "

Bonnie Stewart response to Week 4 question: Do books make us stupid.

I'd say Dave made himself dispensable ;-) See Comments, too.

Beautiful example of community learning with many-to-many creating together!

"Good ideas will also look like bad ideas because they go against social norms." We need more "bad ideas" in education!

Impressive words to visuals

Cool tool for "turning quotes into masterpieces.". @Mdvfunes recommends.

Rhonda waxes poetic about rhizomes and time to learn.

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

"Digital Labor calls on the reader to examine the shifting sites of labor markets to the Internet through the lens of their political, technological, and historical making. Internet users currently create most of the content that makes up the web: they search, link, tweet, and post updates-leaving their "deep" data exposed. Meanwhile, governments listen in, and big corporations track, analyze, and predict users' interests and habits. A collection of essays offering a wide-ranging account of the dark side of the Internet. "

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.

Interesting infographic. Note books in wisdom category. Some will argue, heh?

Dynamic critical reflection on #rhizo14 specifically and MOOCs in general. "Postman's Third Law: "At any given time, the chief source of bullshit with which you have to contend is yourself."

Fascinating conversation on higher ed and how it may or may not be changing . . .

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.

Mooc research, antrhopology study on a mooc as a tribe: new roles in the tribe; communication patterns; language used, neologisms; subgroups in the tribe; central and peripheral places; roles, rules and what ever. Might be the first anthro research on moocs and online communities ever. Participatory research, living among the natives is a accepted qualitative research method.

"Anyone interested in doing research about the different forms of community interaction and its effects on learning in ‪#‎rhizo14‬? How would we go about that? (I assume it has been done for other cMOOCs but this could take a rhizomatic angle)."