Final CCK08 Project

Finally. After weeks of hard work, coordination, joint efforts, difficult time schedules, detailed work at our wiki, several live meetings, technical problems and many emails the final CCK08 video project can see the light.

My deepest thanks Stephen Downes and George Siemens for providing a great platform for Conncetivism and Connective Knlowledge and to all the participants that shared their experiences and made my jouney a memorable one.

Speciat Note: I had the honor of working with Vivpav Baxi (India) and Carlos Casares (Spaniard in Germany), thanks to both for their ideas, efforts, patience, creativity, support and trust. It was a wonderful experience!

You'll see evidence of openess, autonomy, diversity, connectedness and equity. We all pulled our share of work and got a high level of trust among us. It was amazing!



I invite you to see our process, please visit our wiki. It was an enriching experience to work in a team with Carlos and Viplav, although we are so different we came to respect our differences. I learned a lot during this last weeks from them and with them. This week was excruciatingly long; we were tied up with technical difficulties with SplashCast (btw, support has not answered), each of us displaying our skills with unsuccessful results until Viplav managed to convert it to a YouTube video.

Although our answers to the final questions are placed here, I'll post mine here to leave a complete account of my learning.

1. What is the quality of my learning networks: diversity, depth, how connected am I?
My learning networks are more deep and diverse now. Most of them are focused on online learning and have different subjects of study.
My earlier networks, all in English, have become stronger, diverse and deeper, it seems that placing myself in different forums and live events has also enriched them. I see the latter as proof that everything goes back to the network, the knowledge travels, gets modified and it's placed back for further additions, modifications, challenges, etc. The new contacts I made formed a new network that holds deep conversations, I have a few valuable connections there and I hope to acquire more with time. Although I gained a lot of knowledge, by reading the articles suggested, the threads at Moodle and the individual blogs, I perceive that network too advanced for me to contribute in a useful way. I need to keep learning to interact with more confidence there. Lack or confidence also kept me from posting more in Moodle.
Besides my family and friends I didn't have Hispanic nodes in my network before the course. My recent Spanish network needs further nutriment, lack of time during the course, to my regret, prevented me from interacting more with the Spanish community. After the final project is handed over I will pursue those connections.

2. How has this course influence my view of the process of learning (assuming, of course, that it has)?
Of course this course influenced my point of view about learning! The information I found was new for me in every sense. I must admit I had not heard about connectivism before and I had not given serious thought to online learning. To think that knowledge is on the network and that learning is the ability to navigate through the connections made no sense at all at the beginning. Now, after this connective experience, it all makes sense. The last live session added the cherry to my pie, thanks for answering my question, even if a George mentioned, it was off topic. I know, because I've tried, that to explain my experience with words leads me to terrible misunderstandings and endless discussions. You have to live it to understand it.
If I ever have the opportunity to give another online course I will plan it completely different.

3. What types of questions are still outstanding?
An issue is evaluation or assessment (which from my point of view it's always subjective), a valid evaluation would have to be reached by each adult participant or parent in case of youngsters. Would a course survey taken before and after a connectivist course help the learner to assess his performance? Something like this image maybe?

I see learner's dependency as a main drawback to a connectivist course, Would it be valid to run a course to foster autonomy prior to a connectivist course?


4. How can you incorporate connectivist principles in your design and delivery of learning?
I may be wrong but I perceive myself as acting in a connectivist way online and offline.
Offline, I work with nodes from different disciplines, mainly Psychiatrists, Neurologists, Language Therapists, Psychologists, Social Workers and Nurses. We are all emergent, depending on the context and the kind of issue we gather to reach a therapeutic path and a solution; in the end it's the patients' (family or individual) actions which tell us if the intervention was successful or not.
Online, I work with basic computer programs offered by LearnFree which let the learner's evaluate themselves, I created a Ning site that is chaotic per se to foster connections with other learners and widen their network and we have a Yahoo Group as mailing list. Every member has his/her own learning objectives, we add resources or comments when we invited to do so and every learner decides when and how ofter to engage in the discussion. I would like to design with more vision the framework of my courses in the future and invest time on modeling or teaching autonomy.

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?

Nancy at Learning Trends and Innovations 2008

Learn Trends Digital Habitats

From: Nancy White.

Nancy is one of the Jewells I found in CCK08. She shared this slide show with us this at her Learning Trends Elluminate session. I find it inspiring to say the least.

Learn Trends Digital Habitats

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: learning groups)

The slides I'm using in a webgathering on November 19th at the online LearnTrends 2008

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