An Illiterate in the CCK08 course

Tonight, after the last  Elluminate CCK08 session, I went to Dave Cormier's blog and found his post about Literacy.  It was like if a veil was taken from my eyes, many of my discomforts found its place.

My reply there was:

Hi Dave!

Thanks for giving a name to how I felt during the CCk08 course, the word “inadequate” didn’t quite explain things for me. Illiterate is the perfect fit. In many aspects I was illiterate, in many others I remain so. I have a looong road ahead but now I see some paths.

I’m glad you explained to me some subtleties in the Korean language and culture, one of my best friends is Korean and I understand him a bit more now.

Thanks also for moderating the live online sessions. It’s been a pleasure hearing you.

Maru :X

Then I went to the Intro Emerging Tech 09 course wiki and found this video.  What caught my attention was that I had seen it before, finding little sense; today, I found more sense. Maybe, if I watch it again in the future I will see more patterns.

 

This morning's events are also clearer now after reading Dave's post.  I went to the  International Forum on Digital Contents (Ficod08 for his Spanish initials) in Second Spain.  Although it was in Spanish, it was about social networks and how are they used for business, I didn't understood some of the terms.  I saw that I had learned the technical words in English during the CCK08 course and I did not have the words in Spanish.  A side of my illiteracy showed up.

An hour later we had our weekly SLexperiments meeting in  Spanish, Dolores and I agreed on solving two things: my urgent problem to get rid of my cat paws and her required visit to Muvenation site.  Steve joined us and he helped me to select a new avatar, his Spanish is very good. The first new avatar remained with paws and I had to strip to sort out the problem, Steve's avatar respectfully turned his back to give my avatar some kind of privacy. I was so embarrassed!

With my new avatar  we went to Muvenation and met Daf there. Daf took us to where Dolores could join the Muvenation student's group that suited her needs and then we tested Daf's orientation site: 

http://slurl.com/secondlife/MUVEnation/212/194/100

Having satisfied our needs we rested by the fire.  It was a wonderful afternoon!

With my deepest gratitude to Dave, Stephen, George, Dolores, Steve and Daf.

Design. Following my heart.

I understand that many people don’t agree with the way I do things, online and offline. I learn by doing. I saw a learning opportunity that could be shared and beneficial... I followed my heart. In this post I will describe the background story behind the creation of BaeL project and the instructional design issues that, with my interactions on the CCK08 course, I see now.

My contact with Andy Pincon from Digital Workforce Education Society or Digibridge was triggered by a final comment I posted at BaW07. He contacted me by email, I told him that it was an incredible coincidence that he saw me because I had been learning with Mercedes (the voice in the video) about his long distance Chicago project with immigrants . As part of Mercedes’ workshop I trained for free a digitally illiterate adult to learn basic computer skills like turning on the PC, use of mouse, use of keyboard, etc., using Alado as virtual classroom. The student was in another place of town with a moderator by his side listening to me and following tutorials. By the way, the Mexican organization linked to Digibridge is Innovative Soft.

The following year, at BaW08, I mentioned in the mailing list that I wanted to practice what I had learned, I did not want to spend another year away from online teaching and that I would get a group of students to do so. Sharon Betts suggested me to connect my students to hers at TLG, Andy Pincon suggested me to contact Unete and to consider LearnFree programs. Bernice La Lucerne, Jose Antonio Da Silva, Ronaldo Lima, Nergiz Kern and Dennis Oliver’s generous ideas and questions about the issues I was considering, helped me to decide how to go about it.

For me the process described above shows that, as George Siemens mentions again in this Instructional Design week, all learning starts with a connection and that attributes of connections influence knowledge. By talking, visiting sites, exploring web 2.0 platforms, asking questions, interacting with them and their experiences I decided to leave BaeL at 21^st Classes inactive, to create BaeL at Ning as virtual support community and designed a short four weeks online workshop using AprendeLibre computer tutorials as content material, Yahoo Messenger as live sessions site and BaeL-PC Yahoo Group as forum and mailing list. The workshop was launched the 24th of March 2008.

According to Renata Phelps’ paper, I designed a complex non linear learning environment. If I had read George’s Learning Development Cycle or watched his presentation on Instructional Design and Connectivism maybe I would have done things differently. I say “maybe” because the Context, Readiness, Tools, Equipment Available and Resources were the Impacting Factors to plan the design of the workshop.

It was a free activity, not related to school in any way. My students and I were working from Cyber Places which created difficulties due to the “strange” sites I required access to. The target group age range was 14 to 18 years old, some of them worked and studied, some went to school in the morning while others went in the afternoon, non of them spoke English, the older ones used the computer to chat, the e-mail to send PPP presentations and had Metroflogs to post images. Some of us did not know how to use a computer properly. The sites are still active, the last member is a young single mum who wants to learn to use computer programs to get a job as a secretary or receptionist. I am glad to help and continue learning with her participation.

The trip to my hometown was… different! I lost the 10 AM bus, took the next at 2:00 PM, trying to fix SLExperiments wiki. The movie I saw on the bus was “The Count of Montecristo” I ate my lunch and drank my soda… different. The last scene of the movie shows the hero’s core network; in my mind I saw a picture of my core network and started crying softly. This course is having deep emotional impact on me.  But that’s another story.

CCK08. My plans for BaeL and CCK08

My plans are to open the site, I may connect with teachers and future friends from CCK08. ;-)

I will create more groups. A Spanish one is required but I have not found a nice widget to assess Spanish level as the one I placed at the English Club. Spanish WiZiQ Club, English WiZiQ Club, Voicethread Clubs in Spanish and English are already a target.

The idea is to help those who need assistance to learn Spanish, English, WiZiQ, SL, Voice, etc. while at the same time promote the teachers activities and sites. In that way everybody wins!

I know about teachers that currently have free Language groups in different levels and are using different venues.
For example: I will create an English WiZiQ Club to direct them towards Nellie who teaches pronunciation in English and a Spanish WiZiQ Club to send stds towards Nancy Sánches who teaches Spanish. I need to talk to those teachers. They are already putting the effort so I won´t add workload to them. Does this gives you the idea?

I am having difficulties finding tutorials to WiZiQ, SL, PbWiki, and VoiceThread in Spanish. I cannot do them all on my own, besides my mic recording volume is terribly low and neither Gonzalo or I have been able to find a solution. At CCK08 conference I will be in touch with Spanish speaker teachers so I may find that they have tutorials in Spanish and they may be willing to share.

You see? So far my online contacts have been Webheads English teachers so I need to find support from bilingual teachers that teach their subjects in Spanish. I am so selfish! I am planning to connect with a purpose!

A new adventure CCK08

I joined Connectivism and Connective Knowledge Online Course, it starts on September 8, 2008 and ends on November 30, 2008.

Gonzalo and I, after checking our finances, decided that it was better to pay for it. After all, I will invest time and effort while we will shorten the little time we have to hang together. So to do all that for free without a Certificate from the University of Manitoba, Canada... did not feel right.

I am very excited, I know I will learn a lot though it may be out of my league.
The course has not started and I already have installed CMaps and got PageFlakes which are new for me.
I would like to add a Twemes account to follow the Twitter Course Site in this page, I will attempt to add it.

This will be my second course using Moodle, the first one was my Diploma Course on Teaching English to First Graders. I want to learn how to use Moodle, not only as participant but as facilitator. Andy's Computer Literacy Programs are in Moodle so I would like BaeL project to use Moodle too. I know it is not a free platform, the way to get access to it will show itself.

The outline of the course as stated at the Wiki is:

Course Description: Connectivism and Connective Knowledge is a twelve week course that will explore the concepts of connectivism and connective knowledge and explore their application as a framework for theories of teaching and learning. It will outline a connectivist understanding of educational systems of the future. This course will help participants make sense of the transformative impact of technology in teaching and learning over the last decade. The voices calling for reform do so from many perspectives, with some suggesting 'new learners' require different learning models, others suggesting reform is needed due to globalization and increased competition, and still others suggesting technology is the salvation for the shortfalls evident in the system today. While each of these views tell us about the need for change, they overlook the primary reasons why change is required.

Programs: For credit in Certificate in Adult and Continuing Education and Certificate in Emerging Technologies for Learning (certificate will be available January, 2009.

Technologies Used: Through out this "course" participants will use a variety of technologies. For example, participants will use blogs, Second Life, Page Flakes, attend UStream sessions, attend Elluminate sessions, participate in discussions in Moodle forums, and so on. Additional technologies will be introduced as is required to attend to concerns or opportunities arising over the next 12 weeks.

Facilitators: George Siemens and Stephen Downes will co-facilitate this innovative and timely course.

We have a Moodle Forum, a Course Blog, the above mentioned Course Wiki and a Course Mailing List.

We will have Wednesday Sessions at Elluminate and Friday Sessions held in UStream.

Learners will be asked to complete the following activities during the course (students enrolled for credit through University of Manitoba will receive feedback from facilitators.

The Learners Assignments and Evaluation is as follows:
Weekly reflections on blogs
Participation in moodle forums and commenting on blogs by peer learners in the course
Three short reflective papers (500-750 words)
Concept map (using a tool like CMAP)
Final presentation - video, podcast, presentation addressing "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?"