What's this?

Take a guided tour of the Dekita Orchard.

Courses

Below, you will be able to follow feeds from the Connectivism course, ELT participants and other sources of interest. Click on a folder to view individual feeds; click on a text link to read the most recent posts.

CCK08 CCK08
Dekita Kitchen Dekita Kitchen
Dekita Kitchen Chef Blogs Dekita Kitchen Chef Blogs

Metadata

The Orchard runs on Gregarius.

Subscribe

feed icon

Items by gsiemens

Connectivism & Connective Knowledge Blog

  • Who is still participating?

    Posted: November 24th, 2008, 9:43pm GMT by gsiemens

    Mike Bogle asked a question last week. Being somewhat chaotically organized these days, I failed to answer him in time for his presentation - sorry Mike :(. 

    His question - “I’m wondering if you have a guestimate on the current number of active participants” - is valuable as we move to wrap up mode in CCK08, so I’ll tackle it anyway.

    First, my time. I have spend a minimum of 12 hours per week on CCK08. Some weeks, especially at the start, were likely closer to about 30 hours. On average, my time breakdown weekly is as follows:

     

    • Contribute to The Daily: 3-5 hours a week (this includes reading posts and including with short commentary in The Daily
    • Reading moodle forum contributions: 5-7 hours a week. This includes reading and posting. Self-organization on the part of participants has minimized this over the last few weeks. I still read all of the posts and would like to respond to many, many more than I do. 
    • Recording/wrapup/intro for next week - this ranges from zero some weeks to ~2 hours others
    • Live sessions: 3+ hours. This includes elluminate and UStream sessions.
    • Responding to email (when I’m actually punctual): 2-5 hours a week
    • Marking papers: ~1 hour min per paper - reading, reflecting, and trying to write something coherent and hopefully of value to the participants. Total marking time for the course (this is still ongoing, so I’m guessing): ~75 hours

    I posted on my course prep time earlier - just can’t remember where. I should have kept slightly better notes, but my time spent in advance of the course in organization, pulling together readings, chats with Stephen, Dave, and others, planning interaction, creating the syllabus, setting up the site/blog/wiki are comfortably in the 60-80 hour range. 

    Total time I spent on CCK08: between 375-425 hours.

    Ok. On to Mike’s question: How many people are still active?

    Well, The Daily still has over 1800 people signed up. This means they, a) don’t know how to unsubscribe or b) are at least somewhat engaged. The moodle forum has fairly active discussion, though their are likely less than 50 participants that have been regular participants. The Second Life group has met numerous times, but I don’t know the stats or attendance numbers or their recent activity. Fleep Tuque has some thoughts on SL, but doesn’t really provide information on numbers attending and frequency of meetings. Blogs are fairly wide ranging. There is some overlap with moodle contributions, but many are only blogging. Numbers are hard to guess, but I would say we have about 35 people who are still blogging. Others have not created their own blog, but have participated through comments to those who were blogging. Delicious shows almost 1200 tags for CCK08, Google Blog Search shows just under 9000 references to CCK08, and the list of small, fragmented contributions goes on across the multiple forums and sites that comprise “being online” today.

    What has been the impact of CCK08?

    I don’t know. I have spoken to people at conferences who have said “I’m a student in your course”. But I often don’t recognize their name. Since CCK08 started, I’ve had the same experience at every conference I’ve presented: ALT-C in Leeds, COHERE in Torontoa, Web 2.0 in Portugal, NW Elearning Conference in Pasco, multiple presentations in Australia, Corporate Learning: Trends and Innovations online conference, and last week at E-Learn in Las Vegas. The numbers I cited above - less than 200 active participants across multiple spaces - seems small in light of the number of learners we had sign up (about 2400 at one stage, I believe). This doesn’t take account of individuals that will access the course resources after the course is officially done. If the online conferences we ran last year at University of Manitoba are any indication, access after the event exceeds during-event participation.

    By way of a final analysis, thousands came, less stayed, and even less contributed. Did we change the world? No. Not yet. But we (and I mean all course participants, not just Stephen and I) managed to explore what is possible online. People self-organized in their prefered spaces. They etched away at the hallowed plaque of “what it means to be an expert”. They learned in transparent environments, and in the process, became teachers to others. Those that observed (or lurked as is the more common term), hopefully found value in the course as well. Perhaps life circumstances, personal schedule, motivation for participating, confidence, familiarity with the online environment, or numerous other factors, impacted their ability to contribute. While we can’t “measure them” the way I’ve tried to do with blog and moodle participants, their continued subscription to The Daily and the comments encountered in F2F conferences suggest they also found some value in the course.

    All in all. It was fun. I’ll try and pull together more cohesive reflections over the next few weeks. As will Stephen and the numerous participants, I imagine.

     

  • Connections as Humanity

    Posted: November 18th, 2008, 6:56pm GMT by gsiemens

    CCK08 has been a wonderful learning experience for me. As we move to wrapping up the course formally, I’m starting to shift into reflection mode. Not surprisingly, my main focus is on connections.

    I’ve had an interesting three weeks where the importance of varying types of connections has been brought to the forefront.

    First, I’ve discovered that Australia has very poor internet connectivity. My travel schedule included stops in Sydney, Mooloolaba, Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Katoomba. Of the numerous hotels, only one in Sydney provided a sufficient quality internet connection for me to participate in weekly activities (Skype and Elluminate) in CCK08. For the bulk of the trip, I felt removed from the course activities. Fortunately, the course was in the very able hands of Stephen, Dave, and learners. Still, I found the inability to access discussions very isolating. Time is one barrier (Wed and Fri session happen at ~ 2 am in Australian time), but I was able to attend most of the sessions. The bigger barrier was the consistent inability to participate in the course at the level I would have liked. My habits and activities changed quickly as well – recording video, uploading large files, and posting podcasts were put aside. Access to technology determines how we are able to participate.

    Secondly, space and location mean very little. I was physically presenting at conferences and conducting workshops, yet I was involved in most of what I would have been doing if I had been at my office at U of Manitoba (with the exception of high-bandwidth activities, of course). I managed to keep somewhat current with email, collaborate with Dave Cormier as we finalized plans for our Introduction to Emerging Technologies course, work with Jay Cross and Tony Karrer to finalize our corporate trends conference, started blogging for E-LEARN 2008 (this week in Las Vegas), etc. I basically functioned as if I was “there” (namely, wherever there is).

    For example, I landed in Vancouver yesterday after at 15 hour flight from Sydney. After making my way through security, I delivered my presentation on adaptive strategy to the Corporate Trends conference and hosted a discussion with David Weinberger. And posted a few thoughts in the conference Ning site, replied to CCK08 discussions, followed up on discussions in a digital literacies course I’m teaching to Palestinian and Malaysian educators, and so on…

    I can function as if space and location are not issues. Which raises a bigger question: can I use the technology well? While it’s interesting to communicate and participate in online conferences and conversations around the world and in different time zones, the blurring of space requires a growth in prudence and self-awareness. We (ok, I) need to be aware of our limits. While technology changes, human nature and our need for self-care does not.

    Thirdly, being human is still requires face-to-face time (in contrast to my point above). While in Australia, I received the unfortunate news that my Grandmother – still living my birth country, Mexico – had passed away. News arrived to my siblings in Manitoba. And I was informed via email, SMS, and Facebook. A touching and heartfelt posting in Facebook by my sister served as a eulogy to mourn, to hope, to reflect, and to honour my Grandmother’s transition. Yet, for this instance, space and geography loomed large as barriers. I appreciated the ability to be able to be in direct contact online, but would have preferred to mourn together with family in physical contact. Perhaps part of what I’m learning from the blurring of space/time through the web is that perfect opportunities (such as to mourn together with others in the physical world) can at least be partly replaced with online opportunities. In this instance, my choices were not: perfect, partial replacement, or not at all. My choices were between partial replacement and not at all. I appreciated the partial, but longed for the perfect.

  • Reflections half way through the course

    Posted: October 16th, 2008, 3:13am GMT by gsiemens

    I posted a 12 minute video today which includes some reflections on where we are at in the course…and where we go next. The video is here: mid-course reflections

  • Alec Couros Recording

    Posted: October 15th, 2008, 11:25pm GMT by gsiemens

    The recording from Alec Couros’ first session is now available in various formats:

    Elluminate file

    Blip recording

    mp3 file

  •  

    Posted: October 9th, 2008, 12:40am GMT by gsiemens

    We’re continuing to experiment with ways to improve access to presentations. Terry’s presentation is available via mp3…and on blip here. (having some issues getting podpress to work…)

     

  • Guest presenters…

    Posted: October 8th, 2008, 6:06am GMT by gsiemens

    Since you likely tire of hearing the viewpoints that Stephen and I present, we have arranged some excellent presenters to provide different perspectives. The list to date:

    Oct 8: Terry Anderson

    Oct 15: Alec Couros

    Oct 22: Grainne Conole

    Oct 29: David Wiley (tentative)

    Nov 5: Nancy White

    Nov 12: Howard Rheingold

    Nov 19: Women of Web 2.0

    /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

    All of the session can be accessed here (elluminate link). Some presenters can make both the morning and afternoon sessions (11 am and 7 pm CST). Please see the wiki for more info.

  • Concerns about, and arguments against, connectivism

    Posted: October 5th, 2008, 2:58pm GMT by gsiemens

    Thoughtful dialogue has been prominent around many aspects of CCK08. The topics have ranged widely, allowing participants to sample and indulge where ever their interests or concerns exist. The debate has ranged from highly theoretical (knowledge and language) to practical (implementation in a classroom). As a young theory, many aspects of connectivism have not been fully explored and defined. Many strong critiques have been provided, questioning aspects of the theory or calling for greater clarity.

    I’ve started a wiki page that captures some of the critiques and concerns expressed: Argument and concern catalogue. It’s not nearly complete. There are many additional threads that I haven’t captured…so consider this an invitation to contribute your outstanding questions to the page. My goal is to collect concerns/crtiques as the course progresses and then provide detailed responses toward the end of the course (though, I suspect, many responses will be offered by the larger group discussions, so it’s not something where Stephen and I will be the only contributors to clarification).

  • History of Open Content

    Posted: September 30th, 2008, 4:47pm GMT by gsiemens

    David Wiley reviews 10 years of open educational content. He concludes with an interesting comment (tongue-in-cheek I’m sure, but still worth thinking about):

    I wonder if, somehow, we’ve stumbled into part of the answer for open accreditation. Of course, WGU still charges tuition, but D’Arcy’s right. Let’s talk more about this… Maybe instead of hacking Wordpress, we should be hacking degrees. Anyone up for a completely informal, completely open, homemade certificate-style diploma? A handful of courses offered by all of us - take intro open ed from me, connectivism from George and Stephen, media studies from Brian (you know you’ve always wished he would teach it), and then complete three cumulative edupunk projects under the tutelage of the Reverend, D’Arcy, and Tony. Maybe D’Arcy will also offer an elective in mobile video production? ;) Why not? I want my homemade edupunk diploma!!!

    Accreditation is a value statement. It’s really someone saying “Yes, George has achieved the minimum in this field”. We trust the value statement because we have a process built in that assures it’s not just anyone making the statement. We trust University of Manitoba’s accreditation because it does so as part of a larger system of accreditation boards. Degrees aren’t simply manufactured randomly. They are developed as part of a process of analysis, review, and approval according to standards outside of the single institution. Accreditation has value because it is not only a university stating a learner is competent, but that it’s a whole system saying the university is competent to make such a judgment.

    Obviously, this wasn’t always the case. Universities had to start somewhere. Expertise was previously determined by the person one had studied under. That model doesn’t scale well. Scaling a good idea and turning it into a systemic model has drawbacks. In fact, it changes the initial evaluation process. Even now, we attach high value to someone who has studied under Minsky, worked with Vint Cerf, and so on. Universities do not provide the only value statement, but the do provide the broadest. For example, if I’m in the learning and technology field and someone comes up to me and says, “Jay Cross is an expert in informal learning”. Well, I know that. I know of Jay. I’ve read his work. I know Jay. Validation from other sources is not required. I have familiarity and have made my own value judgments. That is a focused statement of competence. It can be validated by others in the field. However, when I’m a manager in a large corporation, I don’t have that familiarity with a field. I need to rely on broad statements of competence. Universities broad statements of competence are less accurate (for example, Jay has an MBA…but what does that say about his knowledge of informal learning?). Broadly, the degree is accurate, specifically it is not.

    Well, that is very nice George. What are you trying to say?

    My main point is this: providing a statement of competence is only value when the provider of the statement is also trusted. I like Wiley`s concept of hacking degrees. But it is a concept that is only going to be valued by those who have familiarity with the people doing the hacking. Our little edutech world is still a bit too small…but as it grows, who nows…

  • Friday Discussion Recording

    Posted: September 26th, 2008, 10:03pm GMT by gsiemens

    We had what I think was a very useful discussion today. In the session, we explored different views Stephen and I have on networked learning. I focus on the learning at an individual level, while Stephen focuses on learning at a system (network) level. We also tackled concepts of centralization in communication. It’s nice to see a few ideas that were previously large blob-like entities starting to be discussed in greater detail. The recording of the session is available here.

  • Recording: Emerging Network

    Posted: September 24th, 2008, 11:29am GMT by gsiemens

    To compliment Stephen`s notes (see post below), we have a recording of Valdis Kreb`s presentation available: Emerging networks …and .pdf versions of his slides

  • Wednesday Presentation: Valdis Krebs

    Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 11:48am GMT by gsiemens

    Through out this course, we’ll bring in guest presenters to challenge and enlarge the concepts we are exploring. Dave Cormier joined us last week, Alec Couros will join us on Oct 15, and Howard Rheingold will join us at some as of yet undetermined date.

    This week, I’m pleased to announce that Valdis Krebs will join us to talk about social and business networks. I’ve followed Valdis for several years - most recently with his The Network Thinker blog and on Twitter. He lists various cases of network analysis on his main site, including an analysis of political books as an indication of divisiveness in the US political campaign.

    Valdis will present in Elluminate at 11:00 am CST. Link info and time conversations can be found here.

  • Starting to define networks

    Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 7:40am GMT by gsiemens

    As we happily move into week three, I`ve posted a short (well, 20 minutes :)) presentation on networks. Stephen`s presentation this week is focused on the use of different technologies for creating learning networks. As such, I think my presentation - Introduction to Networks - offers a complimentary discussion of attributes of networks. The presentation explores small worlds, weak ties, power laws, hubs, connectors, and scale free networks. Toward the end, I briefly revisit network structures that we apply to learning.

  • Recording #2: Connective Knowledge

    Posted: September 18th, 2008, 1:49am GMT by gsiemens

    The recording for our second discussion is now available. Both Dave Cormier and Stephen Downes were at this session as well. Conversation took a different path than the first session as we focused more on motivation, coping with complexity, and learning as secondary function to completing personally engaging tasks.

  • Recording from Session 1

    Posted: September 18th, 2008, 12:25am GMT by gsiemens

    This morning (our time) we had a  nice chat in our live session with Dave Cormier and Stephen Downes. The talk focused on differing views of knowledge, changing knowledge, objectivity and subjectivity and so on. The recording is available here.

  • Where does the learning occur??

    Posted: September 16th, 2008, 9:39pm GMT by gsiemens

    After the deluge of week one, it appears that things have slowed down slightly. At least in the moodle forum. Blog posts and comments are continuing at a hectic pace.

    One of the challenges faced by traditional education is found in the very goal of its existence (second only to its role as providing value statements through accreditation): to present bounded structures of knowledge in order for others to learn a discipline. Or put another way, schools and universities help students make sense of a discipline. It’s why we take courses and programs. Complete diplomas and degrees.

    There are two elements under consideration, however:

    1. The curriculum itself

    This includes the entire body of knowledge in a discipline. This is what learners must learrn. Curriculum/content is created and disseminated through research and publication. This content then forms the basis of instruction. Nothing new here, with the exception of the argument that the scholarly publication process is too slow.

    It’s this content that most people see as the important part of education. Somehow learners must make sense of, internalize, and learn this content. We make learners do all sorts of fun things to get this to happen: cases, problem-based learning, games/simulations, lectures, podcasts, tests, eportfolios, and so on. We’ve seen a fair bit of innovation at the curricular level. Open content as advocated by MIT’s OCW and others theoretically opens the door for new learning opportunities for individuals from around the world. Tools like blogs, podcasts, wikis, skype, and virtual worlds enable people to dialogue around the content.

    2. The framework of sensemaking.

    This secondary level of the learning process is what we’re experimenting with in this course. Should the educator provide a formed narrative of coherence? Or should learners be tasked with this? Should the educator create a fully bounded content structure? Or should the content interaction opportunities be more fluid? And what about interaction? Should it be under the control of educators? Or should learners self-organanize as they deem worthwhile? This is where education truly begins to change. Tweaking content creating and delivery models is perhaps a start. But it’s not transformative.

    Tweaking the very process and framework for sensemaking is more significant. It is, however, also more controversial as it causes us to ask hard questions about the role of experts. Or the financial model that would exist in education (we have several thousand people who have signed up, but accepted 23 learners for enrolment). These are tough questions that have already begun to play out in media and news fields. Is an editor needed for people to make sense of current events in the world? Admittedly, the concept does not translate fully into education. After all, education has always had greater levels of interaction than reading a newspaper. The question of expertise and the role of amateur content creation, however, is valid…even in education.

    The structure of this course - as mentioned at the beginning - is to have participants experience connectivism rather than to convince people of its value. What does that mean? Well, for starters, it means that participants have greater autonomy than would exist in a regular course. It means the conversation is more chaotic. It means that we’re always missing something. Everyone is. Some important conversation, somewhere, is being overlooked. Why is that so discomforting?

    It’s discomforting because it goes agains the very principles that we have come to expect form education. We expect the academy to be a place that provide clarity, a path forward. In fact, we view it as the obligation of the academy. When we then step into a course and discover the conversation is distributed and that the expected frameworks for telling us what to think don’t exist, we get disoriented.

    But isnt’ that life??

    Isn’t that how real learning occurs? In business? In our personal lives? Who actually possesses a framework fo sensemaking in advance of encountering novel problems? Or who can rely on the “narrative of coherence” provided in advance of becoming a parent? No, those experiences we must navigate without the value of someone’s pre-formed construct. Sure, we can rely on experts - such as the hundreds of parenting books read by new parents - but in the end, we navigate the complex environment using them as guides, not as drill sargents.

    I’ve read several blogs today that indicate - to me at least - indivduals taking ownership of their own sensemaking frameworks. For example, Sinikka states she’s going on an information diet. Why? In her words: “After the rather ill-advised gorging, this week I know better to resist the temptation and only savour what I enjoy the most. I don’t want to feel overwhelmed anymore. Last week was a strong reminder and a good learning experience of what the deluge of information means in practice.” Beautiful! We can’t manage it all. We must choose. As we move through this course, we’ll focus more on what it means to choose - i.e. what types of networks we want and need to build. For now, realizing that our ability to make sense is under our control. Others have created mindmaps…or created tutorials for fellow participants.

    Where is the learning in this? The learning exists in the process of forming and navigating networks. Some sources we filter. Some thinkers we value greatly. Others we ignore. On certain key areas of information within our range of understanding, we create tutorials, engage in conversations, or simply pause for reflection. Yes, The Daily, this blog, and the course wiki are all there as additional help. The learning exists in the process of sensemaking that educators are often expected to do for us. For each learner in this course that has decided to take a different approach to engaging with content or with fellow learners, the learning has been more effective than having someone create that framework for them. Consider reading a parenting book, caring for a “pretend baby” vs actually having a child and beginning to raise it as best you can. At least, that’s my opinion.

    What has been your experience? Has the intentional absense of a narrative of coherence completely overwhelmed you? Or have you begun to engage in processes to make sense of the complexity on your own terms?

  • How are things shaping up in CCK08?

    Posted: September 11th, 2008, 6:27pm GMT by gsiemens

    We’re almost through our first week of CCK08. And, how are things??

    I’ll speak a bit from how I’ve seen things unfold. I’m overwhelmed. Email, Moodle, Google alerts, and live conversations have been abundant. But it has been most interesting to observe how different participants are engaging around content: Second Life communities, language translations, different aggregations, meetups, and more.

    Part of the challenge this week has been to actually get into the discussion about connectivism. As can be expected in the first week of the course, we’re all trying to get oriented. In a sense, the question we’re asking this week - What is connectivism? - is what the course is hoping to have answered by the end. Many of the questions being asked now - how does connectivism differ from constructivism? In what sense is learning networked? What about power issues? Does connectivism have a suffiicent research base to even be seriously considered for implementation? - are not going to be resolved quickly. Many of these themes are the focus future weeks.

    Some of the statements expressed in moodle forums and on blog comments will be addressed and hopefully balanced through discussion. For example, while we talk about the value of connections, we can’t do so without addressing two critical elements: content and context. Yet, we are also seeing some larger themes emerging already. The discussion of data/facts to support assertions of connectivism. Or the view that perhaps a learning theory is best evaluated by pragmatics of implementation. We’re seeing a developing clash (is that too strong a word?) of world views, much like we see in traditional sciences and social sciences. We’re also seeing power issues between learner and educator as well as a clash between the traditional notion of universities and emerging concept of distributed learning. As I noted on my elearnspace blog today, Sayre’s Law is important to consider: “In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue—that is why academic politics are so bitter.”

    All in all, it’s been an exciting, and chaotic, start to the course. I’m looking forward to continuing our exploration and encourage reasonable expectations for what can be accomplished within only a few days. Let’s see if we individually have more complex and nuanced answers by December!

  • Recording #2

    Posted: September 11th, 2008, 1:21am GMT by gsiemens

    We just finished our second informal discussion session…and the recording is now available. Interesting to see how the two conversations were different. In this session we chatted about learner experiences in the course to date, personal agency, differences in constructivism and connectivism, feelings of isolation, and so on.

  • Recording of first session…

    Posted: September 10th, 2008, 6:03pm GMT by gsiemens

    The recording of our informal discussion earlier today (second session is later today - see the wiki) is now available. Discussion sort of roamed - from obligations of instructors online, ethics, multiple identities, frustrations wiht overwhelming content, etc.

  • eFest Presentation

    Posted: September 10th, 2008, 7:45am GMT by gsiemens

    Yesterday, I presented to eFest in New Zealand on The Unique Idea of Connectivism. The recorded session runs about 45 minutes and is available here (in elluminate).

  • Comparing Connectivism

    Posted: September 8th, 2008, 10:59am GMT by gsiemens

    I’ve posted a comparison between different theories of learning. It’s not a final word summary, but hopefully it can provide a bit of a starting point for discussing the attributes of different concepts. While exploring distinctions between theories can be a mind-numbing task on par with watching grass grow, it does create an important starting point for ongoing discussion. If our discussions occur along the lines of Wittgenstein’s beetles - where we each speak of a subject from our own, rather than shared understandings - we quickly end up talking in circles without even a prospect of consensus or even the main points of debate.

  • Managing your Moodle Forums

    Posted: September 8th, 2008, 8:29am GMT by gsiemens

    Most of the conversation to date has occurred in Moodle. If you would like to manage your moodle forums, you can do so here (you’ll need to login to change settings). This will allow you to subscribe to new forums (you’ll receive emails of all commetns to the forum) and gain a quick overview of posts/comments to date.

  • Week 1: What is connectivism

    Posted: September 8th, 2008, 7:18am GMT by gsiemens

    Welcome to week 1 of CCK08!!

    We’ve had a fair bit of discussion in the introduction forum in Moodle. Great to start a course off with several hundred postings and some passionate discussion.

    I’ve put together a 14 minute presentation: What is connectivism (audio only version) Feel free to comment in Moodle, on your blog, or here. Do you agree? Does connectivism add something not covered by existing theories of learning?

    Stephen will be posting a similar resource presenting his views.

    Additional Week 1 activities are listed on the course wiki…

  • So, Where are you from?

    Posted: September 4th, 2008, 9:36pm GMT by gsiemens

    Rodd Lucier - from The Clever Sheep - has created a Google map for people to add their location. We did something similar last year with attendr, but that service seems to be down. Rodd has been kind enough to record a simple/short video on how to add your location. Great to see the global image of the course coming together…

  • Introduction to the course…

    Posted: September 4th, 2008, 2:58am GMT by gsiemens

    I’ve posted an introductory presentation to the online connectivism course. The presentation covers information on participating in the course, following the conversation, weekly events, and such.

  • Draft Course Outline

    Posted: September 2nd, 2008, 9:37pm GMT by gsiemens

    I’ve posted a draft version of the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge course outline. We have a fair bit of reading assigned during the course. Would like to balance that with short videos podcasts. Any suggestions? Or, for that matter, any suggestions on additional important readings?

    Finally, any comments on the assignments, planned interaction, etc. are much appreciated.

  • Beware: The MOOC Cometh

    Posted: September 2nd, 2008, 3:12pm GMT by gsiemens

    After months of planning, talking, and a bit of  hyping, we are now less than a week away from getting started with our Massive Open Online Course.

    A quick status update and what you can expect this week.

    1. We’ll post the course outline about mid-week with details of assignments, reading lists, and general course information.

    2. We’ll run a series of “tests” this week with elluminate (Wednesday) and UStream (Friday). I’ll post more today and send out an email with times/links as well.

    3. I’ll provide you with a link to the Moodle forum later today for introductions. You can obviously do an introduction on your own blog/site as well. Just use the CCK08 tag.

    4. On Sunday you’ll receive an official content email for the upcoming week. This email will include all the information you need to access course material and your assignments for the week.

    5. I will post a short presentation tomorrow that will provide better orientation to how this course will work and where you need to go for information, links, etc.

    hmm…am I missing anything? Is something still completely confusing?

  • Discussion on EdTechTalk - #2

    Posted: August 22nd, 2008, 7:50pm GMT by gsiemens

    This last Sunday, EdTechTalk was kind enough to host the second conversation on how we’re developing the connectivism course. Our first session was more theoretical/conceptual in nature. The second session focused on more practical elements - tools, approaches, assignments, and so on. Thanks to EdTechTalk for hosting the discussion…and for Alec and Leigh for joining in.

  • Registering for the course - for credit

    Posted: August 20th, 2008, 8:21pm GMT by gsiemens

    As previously mentioned, this course is available for free (all content and conversations will be open and online) and this course is also available for credit. Those participants who are seeking credit for the course (which is now for credit in U of Manitoba’s Certificate in Adult and Continuing Education…but will also count as a course in our Certificate in Emerging Technologies for Learning - more info on that soon) are required to enroll and pay the usual course fee.

    What’s different between taking the course for free vs. enrolling?

    Participants who enroll in the course will be expected to complete a series of assignments, will receive personal feedback on those assignments, and will then be recognized as having completed the course through University of Manitoba.

    If you would like to enroll, you can find more information here. Or you can go straight to the registration/payment page.

  • Connectivism and Second Life

    Posted: August 20th, 2008, 6:49pm GMT by gsiemens

    Openness = innovation. It’s really a simple equation, but one that is the heart of what Stephen and I are attempting to promote in this course. Due to the openness of both course content and interaction, we’re hoping for many opportunities for multi-perspective interactions. We’re seeing this already with course translations and meetups.

    Another valuable community is developing in SecondLife. Chilbo, under the activities of Chris Collins - or Fleep in SL - has organized a Second Life Cohort. It’s a great opportunity to extend the conversation. From the site: “Participants will meet weekly for synchronous discussion in Second Life and will have the opportunity to create a home or office in the Chilbo community for the duration of the course. Due to space limitations, this cohort will be limited to approximately 50 participants.”

    Thanks Fleep!

  • Assignments

    Posted: August 12th, 2008, 6:11pm GMT by gsiemens

    I’ve been thinking about assignments for this course.

    We have two groups: those who are interested in enrolling and paying for credit (~30 - we’re technically full, but if you’re still interested, we could likely add one or two more) and those who are interested in taking the course for free.

    Assignments for enrolled learners will include:

    1. Weekly reflections via blogs and/or podcasts.
    2. Several short opinion papers (~2 pages/500 words, can be produced as a blog post)
    3. Weekly personal concept maps of how ideas/concept relate (using CMAP - free download)
    4. Group work concept map summarizing distributed conversation (groups of 2 and 3 will each be assigned one week where they are responsible for maintaining/developing the concept map).
    5. Final presentation - using any tool. I’d recommend Articulate if you’re using PowerPoint(free trial download). This presentation will address the following: What is the quality of my learning networks: diversity, depth, how connected am I? How has this course influence your view of the process of learning (assuming, of course, that it has)? What types of questions are still outstanding? This presentation will be approx 15-20 minutes in length.

    For other participants

    Participants who are taking the course for personal interest, not enrolled, obviously don’t have formal assignment requirements. However, I’d encourage participants to provide comments through blogs tagged with the course tag (CCK08), contribute to the Moodle forum, create and share concept maps, and so on. I’m hoping that the availability of an open course will result in a higher level of dialogue for all learners - both enrolled and otherwise.

    Is it a fair request to ask all participants to reflect/contribute to the conversation? Or how would you provide an assignment/assessment structure?

  • Narratives of coherence

    Posted: August 6th, 2008, 4:00pm GMT by gsiemens

    Grand narratives - such as provide us with a large umbrella that we can use to make sense of the world - have been besieged over the last several decades. Grand narratives in the form of newspapers, newscasts, and books are now augmented by blogs and YouTube videos. As discussed in a previous post, one of our key challenges in this course is to find a way to bring together the numerous ideas and viewpoints in a way that makes sense for participants.

    Self-selection is one model (i.e. follow certain threads in Moodle and blogs). Centralization is another - bring the conversation to one central spot - as we’re doing with Moodle. Aggregation - in this case, with PageFlakes - is a third. Each of these approaches is an attempt to provide or create some type of a narrative - namely, a narrative of coherence. But coherence in this context is created by each learner. In a traditional course, the educator hacks the trails to complex information landscapes. The educator’s bias influences what is included and excluded. What we’re talking about here is the ability for each learner to create their own narrative of coherence.

    While it is obvious that information shaping approaches such as we find in newspapers and books are fading in prominence, we still need some type of framework to make sense of it all. For example, while I don’t read newspapers (except when traveling and they magically appear on my doorstep each morning), even people who are avid newspaper readers find other ways to augment their interpretation. The comments on the online newspaper site, for example. Or blogs. Or a Google Alert. Or a Technorati search.

    In a recent bizzare murder in Manitoba, I found information through traditional news channels online. But of greater interest were the extensive comments, Facebook group, etc. All of us are actively engaged in trying to bring together multiple voices in some type of coherent structure. Sometimes the coherence we seek is around a particular event. Other times it is more broad, such as when we are trying to make sense of what’s happening in society. Or politics.

    We repeatedly hear how intelligence failures result in catastrophe. The information that was needed to find out what was happening - with terrorist attacts, for example - is later found to have been present. People viewing the information were simply not able to put the pieces together into some kind of a coherent whole. In a sense, the information wasn’t being connected in a meaningful manner.

    I’m personally quite interested to see how the concept of a narrative of coherence will unfold in this course. We all face information abundance. We all face the reality that we will always be missing some key pieces of information. In our previous online conferences, we had large numbers enrolled, but I would say less that 5% were active contributors. A common concern voiced by many of the active participants: how do we assimilate/makesense of this information?!? There’s just too much of it.

    Part of the solution is to rely on one’s learning network to filter out nonsense and to draw attention to key ideas. This is particularly effective when we can “plug in” to a network with high levels of diversity and with people we quickly begin to trust. Technological patterning is another - and in the long run, very promising - approach. ManyEyes, tag clouds, social interaction, word frequency and occurence analysis, and other ways of surfacing connections and interaction trails offer great opportunity. But these approaches are not yet commonly available. Or intuitive. For example, ManyEyes is great for visualizing word occurence. But, it’s not intuitive. I have to cut and paste text into the site. I’d like more of my sensemaking tools to function automatically. That is, I don’t want to explicitly add text to a site. I want the site to continually evaluate what’s happening and to provide information to the user. A learning management system often provides very useful analytics to faculty. Why not turn that around and make interaction information available to learners?

    If you have ideas on how to increase the ability for individuals to form personal, coherent narratives, let us know…

  • MOOC or Mega-Connectivism Course

    Posted: July 28th, 2008, 5:19pm GMT by gsiemens

    Two separate individuals - Dave Cormier and Bryan Alexander - have named our upcoming course as a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). As far as names go, it works for me. We currently have 1200 signed up. As a side note - I post numbers of enrollment to obviously provide a sense of how many have expressed interest, but also to document progress for subsequent publications. This blog will serve as field notes.

    Last night, in my time zone at least, a group of us got together and discussed the challenges and dynamics of running an large open course (the recording is now available). Our conversation was largely focused on the theoretical aspect of the course: the motivation for offering it, logistics of interaction, challenges expected, what we hope the course will achieve, etc. Even though our meeting ran 70+minutes, we only scratched the surface of what needed to be addressed. We decided to have another online discussion sometime in mid-August.

    A few thoughts stayed with me:

    • Many people have at least a partial interest in observing how this course turns out. I associate innovation and creativity with edubloggers. Ideas we were talking about 5+ years ago are only now being explored by the academy. Alec Couros’ course in spring was a great proof of concept. As was David Wiley’s course last fall. And the LTC online conferences in winter and summer of ‘07. As a group, we all share in the success (and failure) of MOOCs.
    • We have to walk a line between innovating teaching and learning while still keeping things at a level that permits the ideas we’re presenting to translate into the realities of educators and administrators
    • We’ve largely hit the growth curve or impact of edubloggers on changing the system from the outside. Bridges with educators in the more traditional sense are critical if we want to continue to influence the shape of education.
    • While Stephen and I are facilitating this course, I think it’s critical that the larger community identifies with it and takes ownership of it. Our course isn’t happening in a vacuum - we’re building on our own previous work and the work of others. And once our course is done here, others will hopefully learn from our experience and build on it. Spiralling innovation. But I’m hoping we won’t only see people building on our work. I hope we’ll see others building with us.
    • We’re already seeing the early effects of multiple  contributors shaping and enlarging the course beyond what we could personally conceive. Numerous translations, meetups planned, SecondLife component in the works, Facebook groups, etc.
    • Research opportunities are enormous. MOOCs are uncharted, largely undocumented, territory. This course will produce a significant amount of data - both quantitative and qualitative. Short version: this’ll be a lot of fun. I’m not sure if the model we are working with is the future of education. If not, at least we’ve found one more model that it isn’t. I’ll confidently state that some view of learning as networked - whether conceived as connectivism or an alternative theory - is the future of education. It’s getting those details right that’s the problem…

    As a group, we’re having important conversations about the course, moving to some sense of shared awareness of what we are trying to achieve and the different roles indivduals will want to take. This is critical. We don’t have a shared sense of how to learn more formally in this environment. Leigh asked a good question during our talk: how is this different from the internet as a whole? What will this course offer that the edublog space doesn’t? I answered by stating it will serve as a stake-in-the-ground or proof of concept, sustained focus for deeper exploration (we do have a rather fickle blogspace), and the ability to bridge our informal ideas into the formal aspects of education. We’ll see…

  • Going through the motions of planning…

    Posted: July 25th, 2008, 1:57pm GMT by gsiemens

    Stephen Downes and I had a chance to sit down and chat about this course while we were both in Memphis earlier this week (isn’t that where all Canadians go to chat? Really, what could be more enjoyable than Elvis, BBQ, blues, and smokin’ hot weather?). Needless to say, we’re both impressed with the interest in this course to date and excited about the opportunity to apply some of the key concepts of connectivism in a very practical manner. In a very real sense, this course is what this course is about.

    We expect this course will introduce, explain, and enlarge on our views on connectivism. Of partial necessity, we will provide critical evaluation of existing theories of learning and build a case for why a different model of learning is required. I certainly don’t expect we’ll come to a consensus of the validity of connectivism, or even the failings of constructivism or other theories of learning. Such aspirations are too noble! I do hope, however, that the course will give participants an opportunity to think deeply about how our interactions with information are changing, the role of technology in society, and the role of education as an agent of service to society.

    If you’re following along on our wiki, you’ll notice information on dates and draft weekly schedule: [ltc.umanitoba.ca]. Weekly activities will consist of: readings, 2-page summary overview of weekly topics, podcast/recording on the topic, discussions held in Moodle (or on your own blogs), and live class sessions. Stephen and I talked about doing a debate/discussion format where we each build our case, challenge each other (in the most civil way possible, of course), and extend our perspectives. The other option is to prepare individual lectures as recordings. Not sure about best approaches. Travel schedules will likely play a key role in determining approach.

    We’re a bit unsure about how we’ll handle the live sessions. The current group size may make live sessions a bit chaotic if we’re taking questions/comments from attendees. Should we take questions in the discussion forum in Moodle and answer them in the live session? Seems a bit presumptive. I think it would give the feel of “radio talk show host” reading off email questions.

    As you can tell, we’re still working our way through the best approach. Our goal in documenting decisions we’re making and questions we’re asking as we move through the process is to provide a record for what will eventually become a series of publications. We similarly expect weekly lectures will provide publication opportunities (i.e. in a journal or as a book) as well.

    Dave Cormier and the fine folks at EdTechTalk Weekly have agreed to host a discussion for planning details on July 27, 2008, 8 PM Eastern time. Feel free to join in here. The planning page is also available.

  • On splitting worlds

    Posted: July 15th, 2008, 4:59pm GMT by gsiemens

    One aspect of this course that I haven’t fully wrapped my head around is how we’ll manage the small group that registers for credit (and thereby receives recognition and feedback from instructors) and those who are taking the course for personal interest.

    Universities have an obligation to protect the privacy of learners. We can’t force individuals to participate in an open forum. And we don’t fully understand how learners interact when they have a sense of existing in a fishbowl. Transparency and openness are very personal affairs.

    We have a challenge. How do we foster effective learning and interaction at two levels: 1) open for all, 2) those enrolled for credit. How do we foster interaction between the two groups? We obviously don’t want to create a class-structure (no pun) in the course. Much of the interaction in C&CK will be distributed. People will post on their blog, wikis, etc. We have a few masters level courses that will be directing students to participate at certain stages. While we have a significant amount of interest, I suspect most will observe activities in stages (legitimate peripheral participation) and a smaller portion will actively participate. But even if that smaller portion is about 150 people, it still produces an almost overwhelming amount of dialogue.

    My typical approach would be to say: “here’s the content, here’s the space of interaction”. My obligation is to make things as open and transparent as possible in order to allow as many opportunities for participant use of content and interaction as possible. That’s my role as an educator, right? Well, it is if you’re posting things online for free. Things change when people are charged a fee. It’s no longer about only providing content and spaces of interaction. The obligation becomes one of ensuring certain targets and expectations are achieved.

    Any ideas on how to manage two groups, while not making them appear as two groups? We’ll be hosting an open forum in Moodle for interaction with those who don’t have a blog. We’ve considered also adding a closed forum for those who are enrolled in the course. Not sure of the impact that would have. The enrolled students then only receive feedback from instructors, which partly defeats the purpose of breaking down classroom walls..

  • Certificate in Emerging Technologies for Learning

    Posted: July 13th, 2008, 8:58pm GMT by gsiemens

    As previously stated, Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (C&CK) will run for 12 weeks starting September ‘08 (the wiki now has an updated schedule).

    For those participants who wish to take the course for credit, the course can be taken as an elective in the CACE program. C&CK will also count as a core course in a proposed Certificate in Emering Technologies for Learning (CETL). The certificate program is slated for delivery starting January ‘09.

    Courses in CETL include:

    Core Courses:

    • Introduction to Emerging Technologies
    • Instructional Design and Networked Learning
    • Digital Literacy
    • Connectivism and Connective Knowledge

    Electives:

    • Making Sense in Abundance: information visualization
    • Mobile Learning
    • Immersive Worlds, Avatars, and Second Lives
    • Open Educational Resources
    • Future Directions and Trends

    UPDATE: I’ve had a few questions about the medium of delivery for the certificate program. All of the courses will be offered fully online.

  • A few thoughts about design

    Posted: July 10th, 2008, 7:44pm GMT by gsiemens

    As stated in my previous post, the arrangement of this course will be less structured than many instructional design processes dictate. This is largely due to our discussion topic lacking clear definition - i.e. there is much talk about different technologies, learning theories and related subjects, but the concepts have not solidified to the point where we can definitively say “these are the boundaries of this idea” or “this idea is different from that one based on these variances”. At the conclusion of this course, I hope those understandings will have been achieved collectively. At this stage, things are too unsettled in the conversation to boldly make those claims.

    You might be thinking, “oh, that’s lovely, what you’re saying is you don’t know what you’re talking about”. While that is up for debate, the real value in taking a fluid design approach stems from the need to explore the nature of change we are seeing without first putting it into existing containers of what we know. Categorization is valuable after observing, discussing, and analyzing phenomena. Not in advance. If we approach an emerging field with too many existing assumptions, we run the risk of failing to see what, if anything, is unique.

    What does an average week look like?

    Here is what I currently envision the weekly activity to be:

    1. Each week will have a clearly defined topic
    2. The topic will be introduced by a short article or introduction (in this case, a two page description or opinion piece) or podcast, or whatever. Some weeks both Stephen and I will post an introductory piece, other weeks only one of us will.
    3. Links to external resources for additional reading/viewing will be provided weekly as well.
    4. Short podcasts and opinion pieces will be presented - i.e. “Stephen’s views” “George’s views”. Stephen and I share many overlapping views of knowledge and learning. But a few core disagreements exist. We’ll try and provide a diversity of thought - complimentary and at times in conflict - for you to consider.
    5. Discussions will be held in asynchronous forums like blogs, moodle, and wikis. Use of the course code - CCK08 for tagging posts or sharing del.icio.us resources will be helpful.
    6. Assignments and activities for participants who have enrolled “for-credit” will be required for completion/reflection on a weekly basis as well. Full assignment details will be provided to all enrolled learners.
    7. Weekly live lectures and presentations will be held as well. These lectures will likely be delivered in elluminate. They will be recorded for participants who are in different time zones and prefer not to get up in the middle of the night to listen to two Canadians presenting :). We will likely have a series of guest presenters through out the course…more information soon.
    8. Mind maps of key discussion topics will be co-created with participants at the conclusion of each week.

    Time required by learners: minimum 5 hours per week (reading, assignments, etc). Max 10-15 hours (depending on their expertise with online environments and familiarity with subject matter.

    At this point, I would appreciate feedback on:

    How can we make this more effective? How can we make it more engaging? What types of tools and procedures can we adopt to increase opportunities for learners to participate and contribute? What challenges to you foresee in a large open course (we currently have over 1,000 signed up)? How can we make it personal, yet effective in capturing varied discussions?

  • Calvinball and instructional design

    Posted: June 25th, 2008, 9:35pm GMT by gsiemens

    My all time favorite comic is Calvin and Hobbes. No one has to date been able to provide a suitable replacement to Watterson’s ability to brilliantly mix humour, social commentary, blending of idealism/reality, personality of children, and the nuances of life. Calvin and Hobbes served as a wonderful lens, reflecting back a mirror image of ourselves, through which to view the sometimes absurd, but always philosophical, antics of a 6 year old. Many significant themes were addressed - religion, destiny of humanity, role of bugs in diets, GROSS secret organization, and friendship and betrayal. Most significant for me, was the constant thread of the role of order vs. disorder, authority and power vs. autonomy and creativity.

    No where was this distinction more evident than in Calvinball. In one encounter with Calvinball, Calvin refuses to sign up for baseball until mocked by Susie as the “only boy” who didn’t. While he has no interest in signing up, he does so to appease social norms (leading him to draw the rather wry conclusion of “who’s a wimp” - the person who stands firm or bends to certain perceptions of social organization or gender roles). His baseball career is a disaster. He is happily daydreaming when a ball is hit in his direction. To his, and the readers, shock, Calvin catches it. With suitable pride he approaches the bench and informs the team he caught the ball. He is then, not entirely politely, informed that he caught his own team’s hit. Calvin, it seems, forgot to come in during the batting change. With numerous insults, including his coach calling him a “quitter”, he leaves the game.

    In the next scene, Calvin is happily playing Calvinball with Hobbes (his stuffed tiger). Calvinball is a game without rules. Well, that’s not entirely true. It’s a game with changing rules. It is never the same game twice. The game, in contrast with baseball, is about autonomy, creativity, and plain old fun.

    While not obvious, I think a parallel can be drawn between Calvinball and instructional design - at least for the purposes of this course.

    For all the instructional designers out there, I would like to start by declaring my affection for the discipline and the intent the discipline advocates. I like learning outcomes (though, in all honesty, I’m not aware of well regarded research that says having clear learning outcomes results in better learner performance…if you’re aware of this research, please post in the comments section). I also like the rigour that ID contributes to the somewhat messy space of learning designed by higher education faculty. Messy, in this instance, refers to having a bunch of resources that don’t consider the experience of the learner or that don’t demonstrate some type of connection and integration to teaching and assessment. I personally wouldn’t dream of starting a large program revision without including instructional designers are critical team members.

    But…ID is often rigid. Structured. Rule based. It’s like baseball. It appeals to people who like order and coherence and content that is amenable to categorization and organization. For those of you taking this course, I’ll state up front that our instructional design approach will be much closer to Calvinball than to baseball. Our goal is to foster conversation with people, not only conversation around content. Will everyone “get the same thing” out of the course? No. Those who have enrolled for credit will be expected to complete activities and will be marked (according to something that will vaguely resemble outcomes :)).

    Learning has a dual reality of art and science. We can structure, chunk, plan, organize, and design materials in a very coherent manner. Many academics would likely argue this is particularly important at the undergraduate level where learners have not yet formed some type of framework of the field as a whole. At a masters level greater autonomy exists, and at the PhD level, autonomy is yet again extended. Learning also has the art dimension. I absolutely love listening to people who are informed and passionate expound their world views. I love the sloppy serendipity of a conversation that the educator didn’t plan. Or the contributions of learners taking the course in new directions because they are excited about what and how they are learning. Sure, some structure is needed. Fun, however, has a way of organizing itself.

    If it’s baseball rules you seek, you’ll likely not enjoy this course. If your game is Calvinball, welcome!

  • More is different…

    Posted: June 25th, 2008, 7:54pm GMT by gsiemens

    In 1972, P.W. Anderson published an article titled More is Different (.pdf), arguing that: “the behavior of large and complex aggregations of elementary particles…is not to be understood in terms of a simple extraplation…instead, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear”. While Anderson was specifically addressing phenomenon in the field of physics, his insight is valid, I believe, in education.

    More is different. Online classrooms, large open courses, ease of access, and abundance of information all suggest that something is different when scale and complexity change. A course with 250 learners is not simply a course with 10 x’s the learners of one with 25. It is something entirely different. I’m reflecting on this reality as we gear up for this connectivism course. I have no idea where we will end up in terms of participants; we are approaching 800 who have signed up for updates, but that certainly doesn’t mean they’ll all be active participants. As we are still about two months away from course start, I imagine numbers will continue to increase.

    What is different in an open online course with lots of “more”? More opinions. More media. More devices. More languages. More people. More locations. A few areas of differences that readily come to mind:

    1. Less control on the part of the instructor
    2. More need for learners to define and forage for needed content and relationships/learning connections
    3. More noise, chaos, confusion
    4. Greater flow of information, leading to individuals with high “network literacy” feeling more at ease in the course.
    5. Greater involvement of learners in assisting each other
    6. For some learners, increased need for centralized spaces that serve as “jumping off” points.
    7. Reduced sense of singular expertise (i.e. facilitators) and greater reliance on ideas and expertise shaped through collaborative/collective discourse
    8. Greater segmentation - learners will find others with similar interests and they will form small sub-groups as a means to cope with complexity and to individualize their learning

    What else changes as scale and complexity change? How are courses different? Would love to hear your thoughts…

    A few early indications of how people might cope with large numbers:

    • On the connectivism mailing list, several groups are starting to organize meetups in their communities, unconferences, F2F learning groups, etc.
    • As detailed in a previous post, some individuals have started translating the course into different languages.
    • Dave and other fine EdTechTalk folks have agreed to assist in managing/directing/leading the conversation
    • Chatted with one masters-level prof who wants to integrate his students with this course
    • Centralized pages (or spaces where individuals make sense of the larger flow) have been set up to capture resources and blog posts that have been tagged with CCK08…see LTC’s PageFlakes site

    All in all, shaping up to be a different type of course.

  • On finding inspiration

    Posted: June 19th, 2008, 3:14am GMT by gsiemens

    Spiraling innovation is one of the most valuable aspects of participating in an open online spaces. When someone experiments and innovates in a transparent manner, we are able to learn more than simply the content. Observers learn the process and method of innovation in design and delivery of learning materials. In putting together this online course, we are fortunate to draw from the work of passionate educators.

    Over the last year, the LTC has offered several open online conferences - Online Connectivism and Future of Education…as well as Corporate Learning Trends and Innovations offered with Techempower, Complexive, Duke Corporate Ed and others. These conferences really opened my eyes to the value of transparency in learning. Individuals organized Second Life tours, informal live discussions, blogged reactions to presentations, contributed to conference proceedings through tags (which we aggregated into Pageflakes), attendr maps, summarized presentations in wikis, etc. In organizing these conferences, I found the work of K-12 Online and Webheads in Action inspirational for guidance. It’s much easier to innovate and add new ideas to the work of others than to start from scratch. I’d actually go a bit further and say that most ideas these days are aggregations of others, with each new individual/organization adding a small twist to the innovation spiral. Nothing is wholly new anymore. Openness equals innovation.

    Additional inspiration for a large scale open online course came from observing David Wiley’s Intro to Open Education last fall. While I’m sure other initiatives of this sort existed before David’s course, his was the first I observed and paid attention to. The work of this course has popped up in other open education courses and contributed to a general raised awareness of the key concepts of the movement. Openness equals impact.

    Alec Couros’ EC&I 831 course delivered earlier this year was another important source of insight. Alec modeled and fostered “hyper experimentation”. He had (what appeared to me) high expectations of his learners and their ability to use and apply technology. Blogs, wikis, twitter, voicethread, and numerous other tools were used during the course. He also brought in numerous guest speakers to enlarge and extend the subject matter theme. I peripherally observed learner comments through course blogs. Most educators only dream of providing as motivating and eye-opening experience as Alec provided to his learners. The course was also available online where non-course participants could attend lectures (via ustream) and contribute to the conversation. Openness equals engagement and experimentation.

    As we begin planning our fall course, I’d like to begin by saying thanks to the many innovators - K-12 online, Webheads, David Wiley, and Alec Couros and others - that have started foraging new paths of teaching and learning. With this course, and many others that will follow by other educators, I hope to extend and build on their work!

  • Getting started…

    Posted: June 17th, 2008, 3:18pm GMT by gsiemens

    The course - Connectivism and Connective Knowledge - (the wiki is here) will be delivered fully online with a combination of synchronous and asynchronous interaction. Participants who have enrolled in the course will receive feedback on assignments and course work and will receive credit for their work. We are in the planning stages of what will become a Certificate in Emerging Learning Technologies (slated for delivery in January, 2009). Connectivism and Connective Knowledge will count as credit in that program. More information will be posted to the email list.

    We have a few unique opportunities with developing this course. In particular, we hope to be able to address some significant questions about the shifting value points within education. For example:

    1. If learning materials are freely available, what are learners paying for when they take courses? Are they paying for credit? For direct interaction with faculty? Will learners even be willing to pay when content is free? Conventional wisdom around MIT’s OpenCourseWare initiative suggests learners want the recognition of MIT and the interaction with faculty. But what about courses taken for personal interest? Or for career advancement?
    2. What is the nature of large scale learning experiences? What is the value created? For example, we current have over 450 people who have expressed interest in this course by signing up for the email list. How do large scale open courses differ from more traditionally bounded learning experiences (such as a classroom or LMS)? Can the course be designed with enough flexibility to allow each learner of the diverse learner population to “see themselves in the content and interaction”?
    3. What kinds of technologies should we use? To what degree are we fully distributed? To what degree are learners prepared to function in fragmented conversations? What is the obligation of faculty in pulling those pieces together? Is the world of Twitter, blogs, wikis, NetVibes, Facebook, and other information/interaction tools translatable into a broad open-ended course with varying technical and information skill sets?
    4. How can we involve participants before and after the course? For example some have suggested creating learning cells around the course. Others have offered to translate the course (so far, Chinese and Spanish). Obviously, the more options available to participants to create information and to connect with each other, the more innovation can potentially occur.

    We’re hoping that this course will serve at least three purposes:

    1. To address the questions about value points in education and the role of learners and faculty in large scale open courses
    2. To model alternatives to existing course design and delivery models. These alternatives are defined by openness, innovation, active participation, connectedness, and learner autonomy.
    3. To expound connectivism as a learning theory and provide a forum for critical thought, debate, and consideration of future steps in research and implementation.

    As we move forward, we’d love to hear from you. What can we do to enlarge opportunities for you to participate? What can we do to foster conversations and innovation (not just about connectivism and connective knowledge, but with the process of developing/delivering the course).