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Vanessa Vaile

Coherent communities - 0 views

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    range of #rhizo14 ties ➜ ⬆diverse complexity HT @joseluisserrano: "Coherent communities" « @catherinecronin http://t.co/llAmCQoCOw
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    range of #rhizo14 ties ➜ ⬆diverse complexity HT @joseluisserrano: "Coherent communities" « @catherinecronin http://t.co/llAmCQoCOw
Vanessa Vaile

Reading Writing Responding: PLN, a Verb or a Noun? - 1 views

  • +Alec Couros' simple suggestion made during an interview with the +Ed Tech Crew that everything can be a resource online.
  • So often we limit ourselves by seeing PLN's as something made - contained and organised - rather than something continually evolving, changing growing and adapting.
  • s I have suggested previously,  PLN's often form themselves organically. PLN's are rhizomic. There is no central root system. There is only one connection leading to another.
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  • everyone in our lives has a point of knowledge to share, if recognised
  • Solutions for today can so often be found in adapting and extending ideas from the past.
  • A part of this is limiting ourselves by failing to recognise the connections in our lives and what they may have to offer.
  • One way in which we restrict these connections is by deciding what it is we want to know, before we have even asked the question.
  • Sometimes the best answers I get from my PLN are from those who I didn't expect.
  • everyone does have an opinion and something to add to the discussion. In my view, education is much better from incorporating wider range of voices and perspectives
  • post about mandated technology in schools. Guhlin calls for a infinite plurality
  • rather than collective uniformity, where everyone does this or uses that
  • a plurality of diversity that builds relationships among diverse partners to achieve common goals
  • plurality in regards to PLN, it is about capturing a range of perspectives
  • a PLN is that it is not something that we build, rather a PLN is something that we grow and nurture.
  • There are a number of ways in which a PLN can be nurtured. This includes engaging in dialogue, posting comments, as well as sharing ideas and resources.
  • the most important thing that we can do, whether it be in person or online, is to listen and simply be there
  • Connecting is a Mindset, not just a Thing Done
  • How are you sharing this with others?
  • In the end, you don't measure the success of a blog by the amount of hits it gets
  • Being connected is a mindset, a way of being and a way of doing, not something static, that is a thing done and complete
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    "everything can be a resource online. By approaching resources in this way, our understanding moves away from being an actual object, lets say a textbook, to a resource as being a way of seeing something. In this sense, a resource stops being a noun, something named, ordered and categorised, and instead becomes a verb, a way of approaching something, interpreting it, questioning it. In much the same way, PLNs can be thought of in much the same way. "
Jaap Bosman

PDF.js viewe - 1 views

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    Rhizomatic research cultures The current research climate in Australian universities is one in which projects are increasingly conceived as multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, extradisciplinary, even 'wicked' (Brown, Harris & Russell 2010). A recent lead article in Campus Review (Bennett 2012) takes this as a critical shift in the academy that urgently requires attention. One effect of this increasingly interdisciplinary focus is that the traditional boundaries between disciplines seem to be blurring. Within this, the people working on these projects are also increasingly diverse, coming together from non‐traditional pathways, from different disciplinary backgrounds, and from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, so that distinctions between local and global also seem to be blurring. One way to understand these conditions might be through the rhizomatic knowledge structures described by Deleuze & Guattari (Deleuze & Guattari 1988): perhaps it would be useful to think about this research climate as a kind of rhizomatic academic network that is characterised by connection, heterogeneity and multiplicity.
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    about research culture
Jaap Bosman

Be More Saga | teachnorthern - 0 views

  • Diversity has become a buzz word, an oversimplified ideal.  We should instead embrace heterogeneity—the fact that people in the population at large, and within our own movements and communities, will invariably differ with regards to every possible trait. Heterogeneity is messy and complicated, but we must come to expect it.”
  • As educators, our job as I see it is to facilitate the self-responsible expression of those opinions and provide a safe space to allow them to change.
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    about independence and self-responsibility.
Cris Crissman

Communications & Society: Practical View of the Rhizome for #rhizo14 - 1 views

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    Really helpful post about the rhizome metaphor with outstanding RSA talk by Manuel Lima on networked learning. Encourages a new look at rhizomes and what might lead to diversity (you know they are clones). Bacteria?
Cris Crissman

Questions about rhizomatic learning | Jenny Connected - 0 views

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    Stephen Downes's comment in OLDaily, Feb. 7 Questions about rhizomatic learning Jenny Mackness, February 6, 2014 At a certain point, perfectly good theories become nonsense. This may be that point. I am sympathetic with the list of questions Jenny Mackness poses to Keith Hamon about rhizomatic learning (a concept I'm increasingly questioning). For example: "I'm not sure that I would know how to distinguish a 'rhizomatic learner' from other learners." And "'A rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo.'" Strictly speaking, this is false of rhizomes (unless you're talking of the specific connection between plant and plant, in which case, one wonders how it is different from any other connection (and wonder why it can't have a middle)). I've commented to Dave Cormier (who seems to have a better handle on this) about this in the past: a rhizome network is a mesh, which is good, but there's no openness, no diversity, not really even any autonomy. And you mix that in with (quite frankly) silly statements from Deleuze and Guattari (like: "'State space is 'striated' or griddled") you get something that really begins to lack coherence. I've long complained of continental philosophers that when they don't understand something, they just make stuff up. There's too much of that in educational theory too.
Heli Nurmi

Wanna do a cMOOC? | doublemirror - 5 views

  • Matthias Melcher – he made it so easy to follow everyone’s blogs
    • wayupnorth
       
      That was a huge contribution Matthias made to help tie Rhizo14 together. Although later in the course, when it became impossible for me to keep up with all the blog posts, I opted for the narrower conversation on Facebook as my link - even that subset exceeded my capacity
  • power is not due to the technology or its design, but to the actual people involved
    • wayupnorth
       
      strongly agree - although the ds106 assignment bank is an outstanding design element
  • 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.
    • wayupnorth
       
      This helps understand the author's perspective. Not everyone in an open online course shares that life-setup. Many are trying to squeeze learning into the varying cracks between other overlapping committments.
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  • So, what was Rhizo14 setting out to create? A one of what? Stephen uses his own courses as an example
    • wayupnorth
       
      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.
    • Heli Nurmi
       
      I agree with you that Dave is defferent from S.D. and rhizo should be described with Dave's terms
  • If my need for inclusion had been high, then I think I would have felt excluded from what some called Rhizo14FB.
    • wayupnorth
       
      This again gives us insight into the writer's perspective. It is a valid attitude, but important to recognize. Consciously looking through the same lens will keep a reader who experienced Rhizo14 differently from too easily dismissing parts of the critique that do not resonate with herm.
  • 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;
  • batting the ideas back and forth in order to win the game.
  • 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.
    • wayupnorth
       
      After listening to Dave Cormier, I have to challenge this assumption. What I hear from him suggests that Dave is very much aware that he is still trying to find out what "works".
    • Heli Nurmi
       
      I thought that rhizo14 was Dave's first try to facilitate a MOOC his first own experiment
  • diversity was managed out through a group dynamic that excluded what the majority did not approve
    • Heli Nurmi
       
      I agree = saw this happen, all norms are not written, they can be strong without it
  • I did not see much by way of supporting the importance of diversity in action rather than theory.
    • Heli Nurmi
       
      very true in my eyes too
  • people left and may have been silenced by a vocal minority
  • gossiping about other participants
    • Heli Nurmi
       
      and this still praised as a good strategy - a year after the end of the studies
  • but Rhizo14 as an experiment on the future of higher education as a whole is not what the originators intend
    • wayupnorth
       
      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.
    • anonymous
       
      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 :)
    • Heli Nurmi
       
      Mariana speaks so well but why it is so challenging to hear, I am wondering after reading these notes
  • what he created with CCK08
  • own work in self-managed learning
  • I recognise this clearly from my
    • Heli Nurmi
       
      I recognise this too and this reminds the storming phase of group process. You must be strong as a facilitator to receive all the complaints. It is a normal phase as long as education is in movement
  • You were definitely the right kind of ‘one’ if you believed in emergence, non-linearity, poetry and art rather than theory and explanation.
    • Heli Nurmi
       
      you said that better than I could, thanks
  • to connect with ‘old MOOC friends’ no mention of rhizomes of the metaphorical or garden variety.
    • Heli Nurmi
       
      I belong to this group
Terry Elliott

Ego and The Swarm | teachnorthern - 1 views

  • I’m finding it impossible to escape the thread of ‘ego’ running through the last ten days.  
    • Terry Elliott
       
      I am having trouble, too. In fact I find myself moving from ego to eco, from tree to root, from node to network in a kind of leap of faith.
  • Independent learning is tough.  Independent thinking even tougher.
    • Terry Elliott
       
      I agree and I want to add that the task of interdependent learning and thinking is even harder. It is so hard for me that I am not sure I am even doing it. I trust that this share annotation is one simple way of doing interdependence. The hard part is figuring out what is happening in the mix that rises above the mix. What is the reintegration that happens as we bake our variety into the cake? What is the final baked product?
  • I’ve thought about Tragic Life Stories (actually the name of a department in WH Smith) and the way in which they dominate not only TV and popular news media, but stories about adult learning too.
    • Terry Elliott
       
      I file this under 'everybody's a critic'. Each of us has a set of personal and professional filters for the buzzing profusion of life that pushed into us every day. The tabloid filter is quite simple; it bleeds, it leads. There are lots of schema (some might call them assumptions or presumptions). Diversity is good--a presumption. Dependency is bad--a presumption. The problem with all of these presumptions is that they are habitualized into near-instinct quick filters. Hence, the birth and perpetuation of the blindspot. Dammit.
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  •  I want a dialogue that begins, “I can’t do this thing you asked me to do, in this timeframe,” and continues with, “What are you assuming, that is stopping you meeting the deadline?” – designed to search only for a strategy to get past whatever barrier has set itself in the way.
    • Terry Elliott
       
      This is heavy pull here. The filter/value of keeping deadlines is self-referential. You make the filter because that cog is needed to fit into the larger machinery of the institution. You must have deadlines in order to have order within the term or semester. We wouldn't want to treat others unfairly, unequally (even more filters). Thus the system creates the circular logic that justifies the values of the system. The heavy pull is to dump the trash can that holds the whole mess together and say, "Well...it's a mess. Let's try something else." What you are asking for is the right to be messy. The system struggles against such illegibility. Mightily. So mightily that subversion (one of the tools of messification) is inevitable and iconoclasm becomes a way of life in that system. Or we become 'silent runners'. Does this analysis seem true to what you are saying? I ask in the spirit of interdependence.
  • Bernard Williams ‘fetish of assertion’
    • Terry Elliott
       
      "Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
  • So, released from time to time from the imperative to obey my ego, I walk happily into the swarm.
    • Terry Elliott
       
      Fro ego to eco--how else can it be with 7 billion people on the planet. This is not just a stance, it is an imperative.
Scott Johnson

A Guide to the Building Blocks of Online Learning for Faculty - 0 views

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    Deals with the reality of distributing quality education to most of the people in the world. "DRIVERS OF CHANGE IN THE WAY WE TEACH AND LEARN The increasing recognition the world over of the central role that post- secondary education plays in social and economic success has resulted in many drivers for change, including the following which have been identified by Bates: 1) An increasing demand for college and university places 2) Changing demographics (more older and part-time students) and more learner diversity (broader intellectual, language and cultural ranges) 3) Growing numbers of students at ease with new technologies and social media who are demanding the same sort of flexibility and access from post-secondary education that they already enjoy in their daily business and social interactions. 4) Pressures on institutions to be more open and accountable 5) Recognition of society's needs for skilled knowledge-based workers and the associated focus on learning outcomes indicating the extent to which graduates have such requisite skills as critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, independent learning, and the ability to work in a variety of contexts, to work in teams and to navigate cultural differences. 6) Research evidence of the effectiveness of more interactive approaches to learning that engage students more intensively 7) The continuing evolution of Web-based technologies which make knowledge much more accessible and bring learners together without the constraint of time or place..."
Scott Johnson

Toward Reflective Conversations: An Advising Approach that Promotes Self-Authorship - 1 views

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    List of reflective questions about the educational experience to help students find themselves in the conscious role of student / partner in their education. >"Jane Pizzolato writes that "if students were self-authored, they would be more likely to choose majors that were appropriate and interesting to them, engage in critical thinking about their choices, and develop healthy relationships with diverse others" (2008, 19). Becoming self-authored requires transformational learning that helps students "learn to negotiate and act on [their] own purposes, values, feelings, and meanings rather than those [they] have uncritically assimilated from others" (Mezirow 2000, 8)."< Additional information http://www.liberalarts.wabash.edu/ And here: http://www.changemag.org/Archives/Back%20Issues/2013/March-April%202013/wabash_full.html
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    There has been a model for this in Empire State College for 40 years. Individuals design their own degree programs with a mentor and are able to apply for credit for life experience. It has worked extremely well for the majority of the people who have obtained their bachelor's degrees in this manner The model was initially developed by Ernest Boyer: http://iwansyahril.blogspot.com/2010/12/reflection-on-ernest-l-boyers-article.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_State_College the scholarship of the educator and the integration of knowledge and practice are important: http://www.esc.edu/media/ocgr/publications-presentations/Boyer-Revisited-3-21-2011.pdf note the section on Mentoring and Uneasy Scholarliness in the previous document
Vanessa Vaile

The literature on CAE (Collaborative Autoethnography) Reflecting Allowed | Reflecting A... - 0 views

  • collaborative autoethnography
  • Mainly this article (Geist-Martin et al) and this book (Chang&nbsp;et al)
  • plans to read this open access book on (non-collaborative) autoethnography
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  • open access article by Ellis et al on autoethnography&nbsp;(only skimmed it)
  • Disclaimer: I’m not a methodological purist, I’m an omnivore &amp; a quilt-maker. I don’t even think ethnography believes in methodological purity; the researcher is the instrument even more so if it’s auto
  • So what was MY question?
  • how are people experiencing rhizo14?
  • I am interested in sub-topics of making connections and building community]
  • Why am I interested?
  • I would like to understand how other experienced this MOOC
  • it’s important to note the diverse ways in which the course was perceived by different people
  • I’m interested in what didn’t work. But I am also interested in what&nbsp;did work, and for&nbsp;whom.
  • this knowledge to help influence future designers of connected courses by highlighting the participant experience
  • it will always be partial
  • Geist-Martin et al cite Ellis (2004, p. 30) on autoethnography, and it captures how I feel about this approach
  • “The goal is to practice an artful, poetic, and empathic social science in which readers can keep in their minds and feel in their bodies the complexities of concrete moments of lived experience”
  • collaborative autoethnography rejects the traditional approach of disembodied academic research
  • came out of Chang et al is that there are three broad types of autoethnography
  • the type that emphasizes&nbsp;the auto (closer to autobiography, more narrative)
  • OR&nbsp;a type&nbsp;that focuses on the ethnography part (more analytical, relating one’s own experiences to the wider culture)
  • but any AE contains elements of both
  • I *think* in #rhizo14 we’re attempting something closer to the latter, but what we have at the moment is closer to the former.
  • the practice needs to move beyond mere storytelling in order to be research
  • Autoethnography needs to “use personal stories as windows to the world, through which we interpret how their selves are connected to their sociocultural contexts and how the contexts give meanings to their experiences and perspectives” (Chang et al, p. 18-19).
  • Geist-Martin et al’s &amp; Chang et al’s critiques of their own process – here are some parts I wanted to highlight:
  • They looked for themes across their stories
  • They helped each other clarify certain aspects of each other’s stories
  • They critiqued and recognized ways in which their stories reproduced cultural stereotypes
  • They struggled with how to “cut” parts of their stories in order to make this paper
  • They mention how social activities they participated in, in each other’s lives, influenced how they wrote together
  • They talk about community-building that occurs&nbsp;because of the collaboration on the autoethnography itself
  • They raise ethical issues about how personal narratives actually refer to people outside the narrative itself and the ethics of such story-telling that will get published and scrutinized
  • Clearly, doing autoethnography collaboratively is meant to diversify the viewpoints on a topic, making the interpretation richer and more complex than just one person’s autoethnography. It also, of course, makes it more complicated to do. Easier to start than to finish
  • Chang et al mention 4 key dimensions of CAE:
  • Self-focused
  • Context-conscious
  • Researcher-visible
  • Critically dialogic
  • the more “critically dialogic” &nbsp;work is, the more it tends towards an analytic/ethnographic rather than evocative/biographical type of research
  • it makes sense to &nbsp;do evocative research on emotionally sensitive topics, where over-analyzing it might actually lose the essence of what is being researched
  • for tales of abuse, illness, etc., but not for #rhizo14 which is less of an emotionally taxing thing to talk about
  • Some more stuff about CAE:
  • Alternation between solo and group work
  • This part in Chang et al made me laugh because of its vagueness:
  • Chang et al call it an “iterative process”), there’s data collection at the beginning (which can keep happening as gaps are found via group negotiation); there’s data analysis and interpretation (where we seem to be at – and I think that might raise areas of gaps to go find data about or to re-write our narratives about – will explain later); and of course writing.
  • what matters is that I can basically do whatever I want, call it CAE, and set my own criteria for rigor I’m only half-kidding.
  • CAE as an emerging research practice should not be limited to a particular approach or style of representation
  • The authors suggest the following benefits of CAE &nbsp;(p. 25):
  • collective exploration of researcher subjectivity
  • power-sharing among researcher-participants
  • efficiency an enrichment in the research process
  • deeper learning about self and other
  • community-building
  • this quote (p. 26):
  • “CAE offers us a scholarly space to hold up mirrors to each other in communal self-interrogation and to explore our subjectivity in the company of one another”
  • this quote (p. 28):
  • “This kind of collaborative meaning-making requires that each team members be willing to be vulnerable and open with co-researchers in order to enable the deeper analysis and interrogation that enriches the final product”
  • the challenges of CAE:
  • Risk of incomplete trust to lead to premature consensus-building that compromises the data
  • Apparently quite difficult to do at a distance because of degree of closeness needed
  • Interdependency of research efforts
  • Mutlivocality can make each researcher influenced by the voices of others
  • Team effort
  • Ethics &amp; confidentiality (this prob deserves a post on its own, but I’ll just give it a section here for now)
  • Ethics
  • Authors ask if CAE needs to go through IRB? Ours went through IRB. Not sure if they really understood the extent of what we were doing, but they approved it.
  • The biggest ethical issue I see is that when only indirectly reference others, we may be broaching on their confidentiality
  • We also need to be clear on who gets &nbsp;access to the data after we write our “report”, and how they can use it
  • We as individual autoethnographers also need to recognize the need to protect ourselves – how much are we revealing about ourselves and is it OK that all of that becomes open to public scrutiny as we publish it?
  • The incident over the use of our data during #et4online by Jen Ross and Amy Collier was a case in point – it is not that simple.
  • Ch 5 of that book about the data analysis side of things
  • emerging coding approach
  • I’ll just come back to one MAIN point that’s running through my mind (well, points, plural, but they are all related):
  • Can we get multiple autoethnogs out of this
  • How do we incorporate &nbsp;the views of people who wrote narratives in the autoethnog but who are not part of the team currently analyzing the data?
  • CAE implies that only the authors’ stories are told. Now the authors could react to stuff that happened by and with other people, but there are ethical issues in getting to deep with that
  • Can we use some of the other data in the narratives DIFFERENTLY? So not as autoethnog, but as narratives
  • The inherent “connectdness” of it all makes it almost paralyzing to imagine how we can tell our own stories (6-7 of us) without either implicating others, or needing to reference others
  • I usually do ethnography by using any and all data I can; this would mean referencing public blogs, etc.
  • I keep circling back to the same thing, right? There&nbsp;power&nbsp;questions, there are questions of who can tell whose story? There are multiple “others” in the “we” of autoethnography, and what do we do by telling&nbsp;our story and leaving out&nbsp;theirs?
  • What about the people who didn’t even blog visibly or at all, and so have no easy “trace” to find even if we wanted to incorporate their views?
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