iLearner on CCK08

The grumpy old man’s position! When I meta-think of my learning I see that my position has changed over the last 6 weeks of study. I am learning.

I use to be the devoted user of new technologies in teaching. In my former job as a teacher I tried to convince my colleagues about the exiting possibilities in new technologies in edu.  When discussing these topics with sceptic friends and co-workers I have been the defender of new prosperous paths to follow. Arguing against their rather obsolete thinking. I see options in stead of limitations.

In recent weeks my thinking has been turned around. My participation on the cck08 is very interesting, I read interesting papers, blogs, elluminate-sessions and more, most of them matching my opinions and convictions, and enhancing my argumentation.

But I fail in the core element of connectivism: creating connections and turning them into valuable relations. I think that’s why my focus changes to the pessimistic and negative. Now I spot instances of fluffing and less successful stories. I joined the forcreditgroups synchronous meeting,- 1 connection and a nice chat, later no activity and , following people from cck08 on twitter, little content, had few reactions on blogposts, but very ‘friendly’,  started ning.group for students on ITU, no reaction, declining activity-curve on moodle,  Is the concept of any good  at all? Yes! Of course it’s my problem to overcome the difficulties. Stop whining!

But when a shift in my focus can change promising cases into ‘hot air’, is it then the case of ” The emperor’s new clothes”? We do a lot of ‘weaving’  and wishful thinking. Are we a self-sufficient, besserwisser ‘group’ externalised from reality? Is it just a question of patience, and to be persistant?

My activity on the cck08course has gone down a bit, that is, my readings and my lurking are minor compared to the first weeks. But I do a lot of thinking. The difficult part is externalising my thoughts. And that is an explanation to lacking connections, of course. I know. So?

How is the general level of activities on cck08! Is there some fatigue in the network?  Where is the activity of the 2000 students? Distributed! Moodle? Blogs? NingGroups? Twitter?

How is your role as a teacher in cases of despondency spreading? Can the network manage it? Which implications does it have on the ‘design’ of courses? Can you design courses to minimise dropout? Facilitator roles, feedback, mixing online-offline activity?

I’m searching a new role. From devoted to sceptic to … ‘realistic dreamer’? dreaming realist?..?

Take a walk in the woods.

/Jorgen C

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

Emanuela Zibordi posts practical tasks in teaching/handling/integrating ‘groups’ in networked learning.

Interesting debate relating the roles of teachers in a practical set up. Again its related to Valdis Krebs’ talk about network. A question here is how to ‘manage networks’. Or non-manage = let the market rule. As we see these days there is a certain ‘waste’ in market economy,  equal in classroom, complex learning set ups.

Teachers need good skills in guiding the learners to be responsible for their own learning. And get away from this scenery!

The teacher is active, at least.

Which are these skills?

/Jorgen

I have had an account on Twitter, for about a year. But I have never seen the idea, why? A cck08 twitterer, encouraged me to add all cck08 student as followers. Something happened, but it was also a mess to read. Some ‘connections’ were made, and it could be a beginning of getting to know somebody.

That’s what I’m missing on the course. I’m not a fast ‘truster’. I need some more different, diverse information to connect and to create valuable connections. I’m surprised that it’s so difficult for me, but I have to deal with it. I know.

Blanche Maynard/Louise Cote connected and commented on my blog about Twitter.  I see her often on Twitter ( she’s easy to find), and read her twits. Do I know her? A bit, more than many others. She posted  link to Thriving too.  About creating trust in online communication. Nice post referring to Jay Cross’s blog

How do you create connective confidence, trust?

Is trust important for you to act and learn online?

It’s an subject on the webex talk this sunday evening

/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

The good: I managed to attend the session on Elluminate today. The bad: A flue forced me to stay away from ITU-course in Copenhagen.

I have heard the name Valdis Krebs in connection to network. But I have never read or seen anything that he made. A couple of weeks ago I tryed to learn to use program for analysing  network, especially Social Network. Pajek and UCINET  were the tools we used. It very interesting, and difficult, but I’m still turned on. It’s very fascinating to draw the diagrams and discover some sort of meaning out of very simple data.

I think the point that Valdis Krebs presented near the end of his talk: the drawings are very good as an introduction to conversations about networks. What can we understand about our business, costumers, schoolclass by viewing the network maps? It’s not “the truth” about a network!

George Siemens asked Valdis about a special picture that he thought might be a picture of cck08-course-network. The one with a dense center with many paticipants and connections, 60% of participant very spread.  And he was a little concerned about the value of this kind of network.

And that’s a central subject of SNA, to evaluate the value of networks, connections. And how do you do hat properly? I think that its important to ad more information about the network, than what the networkdiagram tells.

How do we evaluate the value of a network?

Is it a problem that many participants only have  loose connections? I am working on getting ‘more connected’, and its an ongoing proces, but more difficult than expected.

/j