This is just the start of Connectivism

Today was the last Friday of our CCK08 course, I went to the live session at Ustream to find a link to an Elluminate session where people were gathered.  For the first time I had something interesting to share with voice.  What is it?

Smak posted in the chat: "@Stephen, George and others: Like to learn from you how decisions (say to connect and interact) are made". (Dec 1sr edit:John or Smak came by to let me know that Smak is his ID at Elluminate, thanks John!).p>

His question got me thinking because I belong, as far as I know, to the only group formed to make the final project. The team had set earlier an Elluminate session using the Webheads vRoom to decide what to add, change, agree on, etc. We are four members: Dolores from Spain, Carlos in Germany, Viplav in India and me from Mexico.  Only Carlos and I managed to get there.  It was very interesting  to watch our struggles to get to decisions in a connective way, we had lots of fun!  We are so diverse that it was not an easy task. I kept Smak question in mind and when Dave asked for speakers I raised my hand and at the appropriate time I got the mic, voiced his question and told them about our reaching decisions adventure.

Here are some of the questions  and comments posted in the chat:

• smak: I think this is the most important question in connectivism
• Wendy Drexler: Does decision making equal control?
• Lisa M Lane: and yet, decisions must be made
• ctscho: Decisions are local, perhaps?
• smak: @George: How about learning decision, individually, the network
• Wendy Drexler: With all of this connectivist content created as a result of this course, I'm already thinking about how I can organize it...bring it all together.
• Me: To have groups at the end is a very interesting journey, thanks!
• Jo Ann Hammond-Meiers: What is consensus versus honing in on a focused point
• Lisa M Lane: see, I knew it would come back to individualism (I didn't create any of the wikis I was promoting. LOL)
• Me:@ Viplav you're here too!  How have you find our decision making process?
• ViplavBaxi: @Maru: I think along the lines Stephen is talking right now
  - in a very individual manner, yet connected and evolving
• ViplavBaxi: @Jo: many other factors also enable - eg. common language, protocol
• Stian: @ViplavBaxi: Good point, would be very interested in exploring the role of language further.
• Stephen Downes: The way we create mechanisms to connect ... matters.
• Stephen Downes:  deaf networks, that all the nodes become the same (audio comment)
• Moderator (George Siemens): @maru - connectivism or cck08 attributes from the stance of the education field (To continue tagging)

This is just the start!  I would like to know about the research that surely will be conducted, keep me posted!  LOL No one will post me, RSS will! 

Playing with  SplashCast to create a demo and a collaborative site for the team to work independently but collaboratively,  I came up with this slide show.  I hope you have as much fun as I had while creating it!  (Only the first slide is in Spanish)

Wendy's exquisite video came to the table.  Enjoy!

This video came to put in place more pieces of the puzzle.  I've been thinking for a while that I need to define my needs and focus to get them covered.  Obviously I don't have the right connections or I'm looking in the wrong directions or I'm not looking at all.  I know about events serendipitously and many times I don't join the adventures I would like to participate in because I learn about them too late. So I need to observe myself, think and find out what I'm doing wrong.  Else, I go to Hubs where owners start sending daily emails advertising things, pissing me off with "sales", "unique opportunities to make money" and stuff just like in FaceBook. 

If they knew! LOL  Money is not my engine at the moment... has it been in any given period of my life? Yes, when I was homeless in Manchester while writing my Master thesis; my solution was to get a bicycle to save the bus fare for lunch, spend the night at the Maths building punching cards to get the SSPSx program running on ROSCOW and to sleep during the day in parks or in the living room of a charitable friend for a few days.

I'm looking for collaborators for my on my BaeL crusade, people that gets no harm speaking and writing in Spanish, bilingual people interested on Digital Literacy and web 2.0 tools but... what do I have to offer in return?  Well... learners of Spanish, English, Basic Microsoft programs, e-tools and... plenty of data to do research.  Ning provides plenty of data, that I don't know how to obtain yet but it's there for the taking. Yahoo Groups also provides data but not in the same handy way.  I want to learn how to take advantage of the stats feature in Ning, the doors at Manchester University are open for me and a PhD sounds attractive but... that will take time.

Several "connections" have questioned the way I see my computer literacy or my illiteracies.  They interpret that as lack of self esteem but I see that as a reality.  I don't have a natural inclination to electronic devices or cables or plugs or computer tools; I'm clumsy, I take hours to do what Stephen suggest to do in ten minutes.  It's the same with cooking, I'm not a natural chef; I spend hours cooking what my sister cooks in half an hour.  In both areas I'm satisfied with my end products, the sites work, the tools do what they're supposed to do and the food tastes quite nice.  Sometimes I receive compliments from both areas.  The difference lies in that I have F.U.N. with  the computer and I hate the kitchen.  I rather spend my time having F.U.N.!

After Elluminate I went to my SLexperiments weekly meeting, were I felt like in the Chilbo SL Cohort.  SL continues to behave very badly, voice was down and we had to text chat... what a waste!  Besides, I'm tired, very very tired of typing.  You'll find the summary here.

(Btw: I don't know who Smak and Stian are. If someone knows their blogs, please share them to add the proper links here.  Thanks).

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.

CCK08 Final Mind Map

I'm placing here the concepts I found more relevant and how I see them relating and influencing one another.  The map itself has changed little, what has changed is how I understand it now.  For example, over the past two weeks the issue of Openness has gained more weight.

The red lines show a one way influence or impact; I may be wrong, maybe there aren't one way impact relationships with the concepts I mention.  The rest of the colours show the impact of one item; for example, the purple lines show the interaction of the concepts with our "Mind", the blue lines show the interactions with the "Context" and so on.

I understand better now what has happened to me and my connections this year (2008).  My offline connections have a new topic to talk about, besides that, the changes have been those brought about by life itself.  My online connections have widened, I got now a lot of new weak connections and a few stronger new connections.  With Becoming a Webhead (BaW08), Becoming an e-Learner project (BaeL), Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (CCK08), Connecting Online(CO09), Electronic Village Online moderator training (EVOMods09) and Corporate Learning Trends and Innovations (CLTI08) I have learned a lot this year.  My mind view things in a different way.

I see clearly that to have people hanging around with me they have to gain something valuable.  I understand now why when I had worked and pulled my share of work with some people who asked me to participate in their projects I got little or nothing in return when I asked for participation in mine.  They considered me some sort of an asset during their projects, what I did provided something valuable them and I was learning.  Once the project was ended if my project didn't go with their line of work they didn't participate, they wouldn't gain anything of value.  Reciprocity does not have anything to do with it, it's just the way a network works. It's a description of a fact, not a complain.

I understand that Openness is a delicate issue for people and organizations.  Some people and institutions say they are open to new ideas, that they want collaboration but in the practical sense they want you to do things in a certain way and don't accept changes.  It's their organization, their project, their wiki, their site and they have the right to have it as they want it.  It's very difficult to let go of power and control, to set a common goal, elicit participation and receive it as such.  I don't see that happening soon.  I didn't see evidence in Stephen's predictions on the future but what a wonderful piece to read.

His words: "To learn is not to acquire or to accumulate, but rather, to develop or to grow. The process of learning is a process of becoming, a process of developing one’s own self".

I wonder how could I use iCall? Stephen mentions that this allows events and syndicated contents to circulate within the same network, creating an association between time and content that is dynamic, fluid, and distributed.

How could I enable my communities? "At most, the educator needs to ensure that the tools are there for students to use, and that the channels of communication, from student to student, from community to community, are open".

I'm puzzled.  Why didn't Stephen mention "Equity" in his recent SL Conference as a feature of Reliable Networks?  Is that so unreachable?

What's the role of a connectivist teacher?

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 found some of Stephen Downes comments evaluating somehow the CCK08 course at one of Graham Attwell's  posts.

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.

Community Management Presentation

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What's the role of the teacher?

The term I used to name de new role of the teacher, lurer, has a negative connotation in English; maybe in another languages too.  To  let me know about it Ariel, very gently, sent me the following twitts.

Kristina Hoeppner went farther, looked up the term and shared in the comment area: "A lot of times, at least in my understanding of the term, luring is used to make people do something they would never do on their own. I don't have a great idea for a possibly better word to use. All seem to have a somewhat negative implication attached to them."

About the teacher's role she says:  "I think we do not only have one role but many, maybe sometimes packaged all together, sometimes only one or a dominant one."

Nancy White, with her bright mind and warm spirit came by to share that "In the facilitation world, an alternative term is "invitation." It has been long recognized in that domain that it is often more successful to invite people in rather than to require them. And that the quality of the invitation matters -- how do we make it irresistible?"

As I mentioned in my previous post, the name given to the teacher is the less important part.  What matters is what you do and how you do it, if you engage with learning honestly you'll set an example for your learners.  Your words may be taken away by the wind but your actions remain to drag others along the wonderful learning path.

Jenny explains the above much better in her post called "A Good Teacher".  I totally agree with her: "She (Nancy) is recognised world-wide, but her humility and obvious desire to be one of the learning group and not apart from it, is the mark of a good teacher." Nancy made a deep impression in my soul, she's always present

In another venue, Allison Miller states that "Teachers already have e-moderating skills.  They just need to analyse what you currently do face to face–and then convert it to online".

What do you think?.  According to your views, what's the role of the teacher?.   If you are a good f2f teacher, does that qualify you be be a good online teacher too?.  If not, what else do you need to develop to become one?

CCK08 G. Siemens conference's notes

I made two presentations to share my notes. One in Spanish and one in English.
Enjoy them! I hope to find answers.
Hice dos presentaciones para compartir mis notas. Una en Español y otra en Inglés.
¡Disfrutenlas! Espero encontrar respuestas.

G.Siemens Notes 24sep08 S Lconference

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Notas G Siemens Sl 24 Sep 08

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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?"

Views about CCK08

Why did I joined and I am willing to pay for it? My first life friends do not get it.
Because I learn more when I have feedback from experts and my work is evaluated. As a plus I will get a diploma, if I succeed, from the University of Manitoba, Canada. I know it may be beyond my league, I am not savvy but I am eager to learn.

On the other hand, to build credentials for online teaching is important for me. I feel more secure and I can provide better service if I study formally.

I toyed with the idea of creating another blog just for the course. At the end I decided to place my mind maps, findings, ideas, difficulties and so on here. I do not write to be read, I opened this blog to collect my experiences as e-Learner and to have a place to rely on to find answers and tools.
I know I won't be comfortable during the course with so many new tools and information; therefore, the idea of having a known blog platform, a known site with my links, the tools I have used and the posts with answers to difficulties will minimize the uncertainty I feel. After I take Blogging4Educators course, at 2009 EVO sessions, I will attempt WorldPress.

The course has not started and I already found two new tools and struggled with a known one. PageFlakes and CMap are new for me. I had seen PageFlakes at the Baw08 course but I did not use it and there was not a PageFlakes page for it, as far as I could understand. I struggled with Google Maps, I did not find where to change the color of the marker!

I have downloaded the readings, I got a no-break and I will find a way to have a printer and a Web Cam soon. I will borrow them :-)

I have taken just one course using Moodle, my Diploma course in Teaching Elglish for First graders. This will be my second one. I want to learn to use Moodle not only as student, I know Andy's Computer Literacy Program uses it. I would like BaeL project to use it too; I know it is not a free platform... the way to get it will show itself.

I found the following presentation, it really widened my views about e-learning and connecting with students. Stephen Downes web page got me thinking seriously. The tools he exposes, his point of view and experience made my imagination fly. My BaeL project will benefit a lot by reading him. He is one of the co-moderators of the course. George Siemens is the other one, in his featured page at The Daily I found a great site to learn about e-Learning, it gives structure to the concept and guidelines. I will explore it further.
If BaeL project gets strength I will need to learn the knowledge foundation that they expose and the tools the suggest.

Applications of Social and Collaborative Technologies in Education

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