Stephen Downes very kindly agreed to guest a conference about Networks within organizations in Second Spain. The SIM was unstable, the participants that arrived on time had no problems with sound but some of the latecomers could not hear him or my translation. His talk ended and the round of questions was held on the text chat expecting to reach everyone in the room. People were eager to ask and get answers so they put up with the unexpected heavy text chat while Stephen very patiently waited until I typed the translation to continue.
The content of his conference is available in the following videos that he gently provided before hand.
Talking to educators, he told them he wasn't going to talk about how to teach their students, he would rather talk about how could they manage their own learning because that was the important point.
His views of a Networked organization sound like a dream from the point of view of the members of an organization, to be able to choose which product to sell by pursuing your interests and talents would be fantastic. Can you imagine?
From the point of view of the organization itself, this view requires them to let go, to leave their mission behind, to foster openness, diversity, autonomy and connectedness. I guess the feeling there would be fear, you'll have to trust others, to believe they'll do their best in their field. Stephen mentioned that to manage a company in a traditional way is not efficient, people work for their own interest not for the interest of the company owners.
If we own an organization, what we have to think about is how to set activities that mean, quoting Stephen, "A mutually beneficial exchange of value". As Jorge Cuevas says: "Give others the chance to win too", this is, make others gain something valuable working with you, while you get something valuable also for yourself.
It was a pity that the SIM behaved so badly. There were people who could not hear a word of all that was said, the richness of Stephen's voice was lost for them; it's certainly not easy to translate to and from a text chat but it was a different experience. I had never translated online with no body language clues!
Today at 21:00 GMT, Stephen Downes will be at Connectivitas in Second Spain guesting a round of questions about Network Learning within Organization. Check your local time here.
This event comes about thanks to the diligent work of Esperanza Román and Dolores Capdet who are doing wonders in Second Spain.
Esperanza kindly placed the two videos send by Stephen Downes in her blog, please feel free to visit.
I think that the main reason lies on the self image that the teachers held about themselves and in the way in which the students perceive education. I wish I knew about a practical way to shift those positions.
The teacher's traditional position.
In a traditional way a teacher stands out of the crowd, in a way that medical practitioners did some years back as pictured by Quino in his famous cartoon (Quino cartoon, page 5, Mafalda, book 9;1977). In that view teachers are considered vessels of knowledge, leaders of the future generations. In rural places they are treated with awe and respect, the community is grateful to have them; it usually implies less comfort to go and teach sometimes in a hut. In the cities they are held also with respect, parents try to get along with them for the sake of their kids' well being. The teacher that requires his students to send their homework to his/her email sometimes is viewed as a nuisance; most of the students don't have computers at home and parents have to cope with the expense of paying extra to cyber places.
Being a teacher gives you status, power over your learners, a position in life supported by your credentials and years of experience in the field. It's not easy to let go of that position, of the privileges perceived and of the underlying assumptions. Stephen Downes talks about this, among other things, in his post about Reusable Media, Social Software and Openness in Education.
Students point of view on education.
On the other hand, most the students regard school and homework as an imposed obligation that they don't enjoy.
Qino cartoon. #895, Mafalda 4 (1968)
Felipe (thinking): "Well, I better go do my homework."... Felipe (thinking): "Damn!"
They act as Felipe, they wish that something would come along to get them of the hook. I have acted like that myself. Students come to the cyber place to do their homework and what they do is copy and paste from pages they Google, they don't reflect on what they put together. They try to do it fast to have time to add a picture to their photo blog (MetroFlog is their favourite), chat or visit their Hi5 spaces. If they happen to find a teacher that invites they to learn in an engaging way they respond eagerly but they expect leadership. If you leave them to choose what to learn and how to go about their learning they freeze. Talking to teenagers I've found they are confused, they know that even if they do well in their studies that doesn't warranty them a job or a better life in the future.
Matthias has a different point of view on this issues and looks into resistance in a broader way than me. Worth reading.
S. Downs puts forward an answer: "The idea that all of us, acting independently, but ensemble, en masse, can come up with something better than any individual in the group could by themselves. This is not a case of marching toward mediocrity, this is a case of the group simple being able to take into account more factors, more variables, than any given individual. The group being able to absorb more information than any individual. But for this to work, we have to have the open communication and access. We have to have the distributed non-centralized non-hierarchical model".
To teach in a non traditional way means to accept, claim, demonstrate and model that you don't have all the answers, that you are not better or worst than others, that you are only a bit different. It also means that you are open to share what you know and have, that you are open to persuasion.
I don't have a practical path to bring this change about. All I see is that maybe if we take responsibility of our own learning, model the behaviour we expect, provide examples, establish outcomes, set the table with what we see as goodies and invite others to share the meal we may shift the status quo a bit.
I found the following video at Tom White's blog. We are against inertia.
Despite the fact that this short article is a free roaming thought piece, I find myself with an acute feeling of the responsibility for what I write. It's hard to explain. This doesn't mean that I didn't feel responsible before, it means that I'm more aware of that responsibility as a part of a learning community. I see this as a beneficial outcome. I blame this to all the readings, interactions, talks and wonderful people I have met during the CCK08 course. Thanks to all of you.
My answer to this questions can be found in this CCK08 Moodle thread, I'll post it here:
"As far as I see and as far as I have understood the connectivism model the role of the "teacher" is to sit back and let the students take control.
I mean sit back not with a bad connotation, of course SD and GS are not scratching their bellies! They are very busy keeping this three or four ring "circus" going. They invested many hours beforehand setting up the design, the layout, the Daily, pageflakes, Wiki, Elluminate, syllabus, inviting guest speakers, getting Dave to moderate, etc.
The most difficult part of online and offline teaching, is to get the learners flying on their own. Connectivism strives towards learners independence, to decentralize the learning process, to avoid hierarchies. To get that going you need to kind of disappear at the background. If you jump in, the learners will tend to ask YOU to take the lead. Because they recognize you as an authority figure, you'll mark and evaluate them.
I think a connectivism course doesn't have to be "cold" or "detached" to avoid learners dependency. Webheads, for example, don't promote dependency and their sessions are full of generosity and kind encouraging comments. They set tutorial's mechanisms at the side and point learners to go, click away, find out and sort things for themselves. They also, as a rule, set aside a week for informal networking along with a Nettiquete code. That time is used to make sure that all participants know how to handle their email accounts to avoid the overload feeling, to free participants from the technology issues to be able to focus in the content."
I was very impressed by the way Dave Cormier handled the evaluation of the CCK08 in his Elluminate session: with honesty. The picture is a screen shot of that session.
As Dave Cormier mentions, Webheads are kings on teaching online a knowledge moving target without losing people along the way.
I also found Cristina Costa's reflections about a course she gave, she is on of my admired Webheads, I don't know if her course had a connectivist approach but I definitely like the way they encouraged and aided the learners to participate; from backstage.
Preparing this post I ran across an open eye slide presentation that touches responsibility, enabling and community creation in an open source platform. By David Eaves.
This is not the third paper. I want to place my thoughts here to let them go, to reflect on them and leave my morning's non practical thoughts behind.
When I signed up for the CCK08 course I knew it was beyond my league, now I see that to participate in an online course feeling so detached from the "teachers" or moderators and participants doesn't work well for me. I had fun as Sia Vogel mentions, but not during the entire journey as I'm used to have at the EVO sessions.
As participant, the Webheads provided me with readings that helped me to understand my role as participant and to succeed in online courses. Issues like "Personal Learning Environments" (PLE), Online Courses Design, Learning Theories from the Online point of view, Properties of Networks, Instructional Design, Complexity and Chaos, Power and Control, Epistemology, History of Networked Learning, Collectives, Roles of the Teacher, Openness, etc. were all new concepts to me. Unfortunately, before this course I have never heard of Stephen Downs, George Siemens and connectivism.
The fact that I plunged into a totally new conceptual environment did not help me either to have fun, the people I'm learning from/with are more savvy, experienced and better conceptually placed than me. Most of them are recognized figures in their fields, busy people, with little time and low inclination to waste time explaining the obvious to me. This is not a complain, it's a description of a fact, I understand their position.
When I opened my own online course, BaeL, I did not have access to all the readings I have given access now that I'm part of the moderators EVO team. I have access now to tutorials to set up groups, readings to help me select which venue suits best my courses targeted outcomes, readings about online learning, emails with information about the "back stage", the set up, the management of the courses, the facilitation role, etc. I set BaeL course on my own, selected the venues and tools with my instincts as guide and once armed I invited the Webheads to join. Of course I asked thousand of questions, some were answered and some were not.
Some Webheads joined and have not interacted, some were active during the online course and then backed away, some are still participating with me in that learning journey. I'm thankful to all. The remaining Webheads at BaeL are having fun while learning, we are learning all sorts of things, we became a caring tight knitted group with no teacher appointed, we learn from each other, we encourage each other, we learn practicing together and sharing experiences, we are open to our feelings and respect our cultural differences.
When I joined FaceBook, I had so many friends already there that I started feeling concerned by my slow answer rate. Rita Zeinsteger, one of my most admired Webheads, told me then: "If it's not fun, it's not worth". It's one of the best advice I have received.
To work online you need discipline, to set times to be in front of the computer and respect them, otherwise the overload may threat your life and well being. The new term I learned is: Burn out. Today at Ustream, in our weekly live session, Stephen Downes shared that "We have to focus, to know what we are looking for" If we surf the net with something in particular in mind we can handle overload better by narrowing our choices.
How do you handle the feeling of overload?, How do you manage your weak ties?, Do you feel comfortable in an environment where most of your ties are weak? This network environment is kind of new for me, your insights will be welcomed and very helpful.
ined FaceBook, I had so many friends already there that I started feeling concerned by my slow answer rate.