iLearner on CCK08

A few weeks ago my friend and former colleague, Karen, connected my personal cellphone to make me help collecting money for children living as fugitives in Africa.

I am usually reluctant to participate in this kind of donation, but she persuaded me.

It was a great learning experience. I visited parts of the city that I thought familiar with. But I wasn’t. Behind the façades I rediscovered the diversity of lives lived very different from my everyday circles.

The way I was received when ringing bells and knocking on doors, mirrored my own thoughts and understanding of people walking from door to door to motivate giving and helping: religious, fanatic, lonely, ‘get a life’, pity.

That was my learning experience thanks to Karen, who moved me to take part.

I learn when my circles are disturbed, when I discover something I did not expect, when I’m surprised I’m motivated to the search for new experiences. When you get something you did not expect your brain will reward you with a kick of dopamine. Dopamine is the brains ‘pleasure drug’.  A crucial knowledge from neural science. (according to Tor Norretranders, ‘Glæd dig, p 68). You get the reward when you are not certain to get what you are going for. So you navigate after getting more than expected. When  your model of the world is challenged you feel joy, happiness. To be surprised you need to give in on control and be open. The mechanism of reward prediction error. (WikiPedia).

This theory explains why you can’t tickle yourself. When you try, you discover that it isn’t fun. You know what’s going to happen, so you’re not surprised=no joy

Learners have to face increasing complexty in the learning proces.  In complex environments you can not obtain control, so a relevant way of handling decisions in complexity and chaos is to act ( Kurz and Snowden) The first and main project for the teacher is to enable the  learner to act, and to sustain, to stay in action.

Digital literacy ( in a very broad sense) is is the primary focus for the teacher to help develop autonomous, selfdirected learners. A practical approach to this was presented by Nancy White on elluminate-talk:

Enable people to:

• discover & appropriate useful technology
• be in and use communities and networks (People)
• find and create content
• express their identity
• usefully participate

To keep learners motivated, joyfull, happily learning, the teachers must remain in the role of tickler for a longer period. It’s control with out controlling. I find good practical inspiration,  in keeping this project simple and manageable in the work with italien students that Andreas presents on his study and student-blog. He is keeping the conversation vivid .

He is a tickler.

Jorgen C

On twitter, I stumbled into a link, from Dave Cormier, to Pontydysgu blog, linking to an elluminate talk about MOOC, CCK08. Dave Cormier, is presenting some initial evaluation of the still ongoing course. For me it is very interesting to hear ’second’ opinions about whats going on with the cck08. Other sources on networked learning like  Dave Cormier on EdTechTalk and Graham Atwell on Pontydysgu and others pose questions from my question-repository. I don’t know their blogs well, yet, ( I use that 3 letter word often? ;-)), but they seem to be worth following. I heard Graham Atwell talk in Odense in february.

One  question they deal with is how to come up with a model for online teaching that support students with ‘weak digital literacy’ to stay on board while they learn the basics.

The discussion on elluminate ads to my understanding of the challenges of online networked learning.

/JorgenC

Twitter, Jaiku and other services are meant to enhance networking and connections.

I have signed up on a my Twitter and Jaiku. It seems to attract a lot of time spending. Occationally I’m luckey to fall over some nice thoughts, links and new people following.

What is your experience with microblogging, status updates i Facebook and others?

Does it help your learning, creation of connections, manageing complexity, …?

What does it  do to your ‘focusing’, athomising, concentration, ?

/Jorgen

Exformation is a very beautiful expression. You can sense the meaning of the word, when you know: ‘information’. It explains some aspects of what we are exploring about learning in a complex world. In the process of transforming data into information into knowledge, we throw away information. The thrown away context (exformation) give meaning to a more condensed information. Words and concepts are full of meaning, and they make sense for us if we share the same context.

Wikipedia has this example:

In 1862 the author Victor Hugo wrote to his publisher asking how his most recent book, Les Misérables, was getting on. Hugo just wrote “?” in his message, to which his publisher replied “!”, to indicate it was selling well. This exchange of messages would have no meaning to a third party because the shared context is unique to those taking part in it. The amount of information (a single character) was extremely small, and yet because of exformation a meaning is clearly conveyed.

I read ‘Developing Online from Simplicity toward Complexity: Going with the flow of Non-liear Learning‘ one of the papers for this week. I don’t think I find much new stuff. One point is, that complex learning can’t take place in linear ways. Learning complex matters is a complex process. But is the only way to learn to swim to jump into the deep water? You either sink or swim? Can/must we as teachers take away some of the complexity to ease the leaning process?  Or do you have to be in ‘complexity’ to make your own sense of matters? Is that what the network helping you through? Creating exformation in common?

Is poetry exformated information? Do long blogposts need to go through the exformation-machine? See Andreas’ post on that subject.

/Jorgen C

Now another week passed, too fast. I have spent too little time creating connections and converting connections into valuable relations. I have had a few comments and reactions on my participation, but I still feel ‘alone’.

My new strategi will be

• to give more and take less
• write more read less
• follow up on connections
• follow up on cck08forcredit-group
• be brave

How are you doing with your connected learning? Are your connections growing into valuable relations? What did you do?

I have an assignment and some cMap postings to manage today. From the forcredit-group I heard that I’m not the only one doing a late job. But I think it’s positive to make assignments to keep things going, focusing on your own thoughts, although it’s difficult to fit it into my “NewDaily”

According to cMapping: It’s beginning to work for me, after some technical problems. It’s giving a lot to my learning proces, though it costs on timespending, an investment not so well scheduled on days  where  timeaccount is low. I think ROI is positive!

/Jørgen

Filter then publish? or Publish then filter!

I just finished reading “Here comes everybody”,  by Clay Shirky. About the impact on society of networked communication-tools. It’s easy, entertaining readings and  it’s presenting many examples and good stories from real, networked life.

One of his points related to my cck08-course has to do with publishing online. In the context from before internet-publishing it was a difficult, expensive task to publish your thoughts. Your material had to go through different reviews before it might end at a professional editors desk, and it was then up to him to edit, turn down or print. Your work was filtered before anyone would get access to it. Filter, then publish!

In the times with online-publishing tools for everybody, you don’t have to wait for others to approve your work before you publish. It’s the opposite way round: publish, - then filter.

I do too much filtering of my work ( at least I feel so, but this one went through. I have  many ideas and thoughts when I wake up in the morning, but they are caught by the filter before noon and never published. But who will point fingers at you if you write something half-finished inanities?

The logic of publish-then-filter means that new social systems have to tolerate enormous amounts of failure. The only way to uncover and promote the rare successes is to rely, yet again, on social structure supported by social tools.  Clay Shirky, Here comes everybody, p. 233

He says: “Failure for free”. How does that work in this online course?

Well, this is another meta-post, talking around the subject of the week. I have to get into it very soon! But remember: perfect is the enemy of getting things done.

/j

I spent some time reading on posts from in the General forum on Moodle. It was some job to go through all these postings and comments, and,- admitted, I didn’t finish the job. The overflow of debate, information,  concepts difficult to understand, stressed me a lot.

I recently read about Flow-theory in relation to learning, introduced by Hans Henrik Knoop. In his article: “The art of finding Flow in a world that hinders it” (my own translation), he points out some factors to promote the probability of encoutering ‘flow’:

• the possibility to take initiative, to govern your self with respect to the surroundings
• exact, precise and  energiseing objectives
• non-bureaucratic rules
• challenges must fit abilities
• distinct, non-humiliating feedback
• ability to remove distracting factors to lever concentration

If these factors are present you should find a better learning-environment.

I can see many aspects of a setup like this cck08-thing enabling good learning. But it is very important to create confidence and good relations in the network.

When I followed the discussions around Cathrins ‘the sceptic’ it didn’t work well for me. That chick did not send me high

How will a connectivist-approach deal with ‘the flow-problem’?

I am still working on my study-blog. It is going to be the place where I reflect on my learning in a connected setup.
In the first days I was confused and looking for some anchor, some of the right people with lots of insight, and opinions worth reviewing. I was looking, searching and forgot to work out my own thoughts.

I’m part of a network, many networks, on this course, if I create a relation. Yesterday on Twitter, someone wanted to follow my Twitter. I have an account on Twitter, but i have never found a purpose for it. So it was a surprise, when someone became a ‘follower’. I don’t know Blanche Maynard (yet), but to find out if we have some common interests, there has to be a connection which is established now.

I must learn to publish my thoughts without being limited by the audience. I’m the master in this forum, still wanting to interact establish conversations.

Do you have any advise conserning personal blogging? How did your take of on CCK08 go?

I just checked my mailbox looking for The Dayly
In the past week I have worked on getting ready to study on the on-line course: Connectivism and Connective Knowledge. Lots of information and instruction has helped me create the environment for my personal learning.

I’m very curious about the subject of the course, and‚ I think its very exciting to work the theories ‘live’‚ To learn something I feel that there is a lot I need to “unlearn” at first.

I thought that I could easily write posts in english, for an audience. But when I sit in front of my wordpress-dashboard, thinking of all potential readers, I get nerveous and can’t find the right words. I read a lot in english‚ but my active vocabulary has been schrinking. I need the practice I hopefully will get‚  from this reflexion -blog.

The Dayly, monday, dropped in the mailbox. I am starting out.