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CCK08 Participants (Technorati search)

  • Do we need an ongoing virtual conference?

    Posted: January 4th, 2009, 10:28pm GMT
    (Flickr picture of a health care conference in Second Life, Daneel Ariantho, Creative Commons License) A non-stop conferencing stage. That is one of the predictions the new media specialist Robin Good makes for 2009 in his impressive overview (published in two parts): In 2009 an ongoing virtual conference venue will open and hundreds of speakers and topics will be explored both live and in a recorded format. This will be kind of a YouTube of live powerful presentations, and while anyone can

  • 2008 Retrospective

    Posted: December 31st, 2008, 1:12pm GMT
    I have to thank Shane Roberts for the suggestion to post a review of the last 12 months. With tonight being the end of 2008, it seems fitting to devote proper consideration to reflecting upon the learning experiences and activities I’ve been engaged with this year. While I hadn’t set out to do this when first starting this blog in 2007, it’s proven to be an exceptionally insightful experience that I hope to establish as a tradition in the coming years. To know where you’re going I think you ne

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CCK08 Participants (Technorati search)

  • Slow Blogging, Connections, and Readers

    Posted: December 26th, 2008, 12:56pm GMT
    Jenny Mackness posted an interested question on her blog earlier this week on the implications of slow blogging, saying: “I read an article in a daily paper…about slow blogging. The article said that slow blogging had been a very popular idea, but that the person who had originally raised the whole idea of slow blogging now no longer blogged, presumably (according to the article) because people got fed up of waiting for the next blog post. This is an interesting dilemma - don’t you think? On t

  • Save and Share Bookmarks, Blog and Only Then Use Twitter

    Posted: December 25th, 2008, 4:12pm GMT
    Great post from Steve Matthews, Law Firm Web Strategy : Not having a blog means you are not a player. If you lack that personal publishing presence, that means you don’t have a voice on the modern web. It’s a position of web marketing weakness. Twitter is not enough!!! Start by researching and saving online your bookmarks. Then create a blog where you can add your content and reflections. Only then you should start tweeting. When I am explaining a topic to someone in Twitter I always end refer

  • The networked student

    Posted: December 19th, 2008, 4:25am GMT
    The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler’s high school students:

  • My CCK08 Connectivism Online Course Workspace

    Posted: December 19th, 2008, 1:00am GMT
    This is a photo of my CCK08 Connectivism online course workspace. I work online, full time, from home. emapey's CCK08 Connectivism Workspace Louise Côté (Blanche Maynard) had the great idea of creating the Flickr CCK08 Workspaces Pool She wrote: Can the sharing of work environment help build trust and foster deeper connections? That’s the idea behind the formation of this group. Connecting visually will help us relate to each other on a more personal level, and make our network connections st

  • We have the ideas and the technologies - what changes in the system do we need for Open Education?

    Posted: December 17th, 2008, 4:04pm GMT
    The education system does not work Last week in a post entitled “If PLEs are Incompatible with the System, how do we Change the System?”, I argued that our present systems are unable to keep up with the requirements of society and of industry for learning and knowledge development.  Curricula cannot keep pace with the speed of technological and social innovation and the skills and knowledge required by today’s technology cannot be delivered through a rigidly sytematised, market led educational

  • MP3 of my presentation from the Open Ed Workshop

    Posted: December 17th, 2008, 11:50am GMT
    As mentioned several weeks ago, I gave a short somewhat informal presentation regarding the CCK08 student experience at the Open Education Workshop on November 21st. The event was held at Macquarie University and had a nice diverse turn-out of attendees from across many different levels of education - including primary, secondary, tertiary, and even government. I’ve just received word that the recordings of the event have been released and are now available for download via the Australian Serv

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  • Black Sheep Only

    Posted: December 16th, 2008, 12:45pm GMT by Barbara Dieu

    Could not resist this invite from Cazé (Espaço Gafanhoto) in my inbox - Black Sheep Only and confirmed my presence for Wednesday, 17th (the Results ON Day)  to hear what an intrepid group of web entrepreneurs has to say about innovation, entrepreneurship, how crisis is a synonym to opportunity, reflect on strategies and maybe start partnerships.

    A series of quick 30-minute talks has been scheduled, during which each entrepreneur will present their projects and plans. It is also the launch of the special edition of the ResultsON Startups highlighting the best 2008 startups and entrepreneurs, some of whom I have befriended during blogcamps and barcamps. Edney (Interney and Pólvora) invited me for a round table on educational blogs at the next Campus Party in January 2009 and promised to give this poor educator some tips on how to survive in this Brave New World.

    The event is being supported/sponsored by Sebrae, Senac and Nokia.

    Agenda

    14:30 Opening
    15:00 Fiore Mangona (Nokia) - Innovation and (R)evolution
    15:30 Alexandre Thomé (Endeavor) - Why venture out now?
    16:00 Luiz Colombo (Motiv) - Digital signage
    16:30 Emerson Calegaretti (MySpace) - Web business
    17:00 Edney Souza (Pólvora) - Social Media
    17:30 Intervalo
    18:00 Franco Lazzuri (Cietec) - Let’s invest
    18:30 Ariel e Mackeenzy (Videolog / TiVi) - Creating new businesses
    19:00 Daniel Heise (Customer First) - Innovating
    19:30 Manoel Fernandes (Bites) - The meeting of 2 worlds: blogs and businesses
    20:00 Alexandre Fugita (Startupi) - The art of starting up
    20:30 Johny Carvalho (PontoMobi) - Opening new markets
    21:00 Aleksandar Mandic (Mandic) - The entrepreneur: a black sheep?
    21:30 Launch ResultsON Startups
    21:45 Cocktails and night out

CCK08 Participants (Technorati search)

  • Connectivism, My Twitter Activity Stats

    Posted: December 15th, 2008, 3:03pm GMT
    Thanks to ggrosseck’s Bookmarks on Delicious I became aware of a tool that shows my Twitter activity stats and connections. TwitterFriends - emapey2 activity statsTwitterFriends - emapey activity stats This tool shows replies FROM my @emapey and @emapey2 and replies TO my @emapey and @emapey2 accounts. This is another very useful tool which provides data about your connections. You can read more information about this tool at Networks that matter on Twitter: the @-Crowd As you can see I’m usin

  • Media Literacy: Making Sense Of New Technologies And Media by George Siemens - Dec 13 08

    Posted: December 13th, 2008, 9:47am GMT
    Virtual worlds offer exciting opportunities in online learning. A virtual world is a fully customizable 3D environment on the Internet where people can meet, talk, and interact with each other as if they were in the real world. The big deal is that you're not just a screen name or a still picture, but a three-dimensional individual that you can personalize as you want. Photo credit: h-l-n If you have ever attended an online seminar or a virtual university lesson you may already know how this wo

  • Networked Learning

    Posted: December 13th, 2008, 5:52am GMT
    In a post expressing ideas similar to Wendy Drexler’s Networked Student video, ed4wb contrasts education as traditionally conceived and as it might develop in the future. Several useful diagrams emphasize the type of control shift occurring in how learners access content and participate in conversations. I’ve been a bit bothered lately by how networked learning is increasingly being conceived - i.e. a function of external and social networks. This is the most obvious way to explain learning. Fo

  • No future for the old school leaders

    Posted: December 11th, 2008, 11:15pm GMT
    I just return from LeWeb in Paris, an internet conference organized by Loic and Geraldine Le Meur. There were lots of complaints about the organization of the conference (no or instable wifi, not enough food, cold), but in my humble opinion it was a very inspiring conference. I twittered the conference (in Dutch) for the tech blog tzine of my newspaper, and I try now to organize for myself the many ideas which were presented during the conference. As a blogger and a resident of Second Life I

  • Moodle and Blogging for Learning

    Posted: December 10th, 2008, 7:01pm GMT
    This post is being written in the hopes of inspiring some discussion around the role of blogs in education - and specifically the focal point around which they are designed. Background At some point in the next 6 months we will be starting to investigate ways to capitalise on Blackboard’s capacity to support 3rd party plugins.  While I certainly have my views on LMS’s - and Blackboard and WebCT in particular - this is what has been handed down to us (and me) to investigate; and investigate I

  • CCK08: Final Thoughts

    Posted: December 9th, 2008, 4:54am GMT
    BLOG CCK08: Final Thoughts Social Fluency map, adapted from the work of Chris Lott. A brief explanation: The attributes in black depict those needed for social activity. Our social value to others is a function of (a) the extent of our knowledge, our thinking competency (critical, creative and imaginative), and our communication skills (conversation, presentation and demonstration), plus (b) our ability to integrate these three things. This integrate-ability gives rise to insight, idea

  • Live: State of 21st Century Literacies

    Posted: December 9th, 2008, 2:56am GMT
    Angela Maiers is inviting (we do so) to join the EdTech Talk Live- It's Elementary, tonight at 9:PM ET. (right now). Maiers will be a guest tonight next to: Alice Mercer, Angela Maiers, Jose Rodriguez, Lisa Durff and Maria Knee In her post, the Maiers Educational Services' head, ask herself: "When I think about literacy, the ability to read, write, speak, listen, view, investigate, collaborate, and communicate, what contexts will our students be engaging in those practice in the twenty first ce

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  • OER at STOA

    Posted: December 8th, 2008, 7:57pm GMT by Barbara Dieu

    Ewout ter Haar (STOA) and Carolina Rossinni (Berkman Centre) organized an open informal meeting on Open Educational Resources at USP last Friday morning. Invited international speakers, Melissa Hagemann ( OSI ) and Joel Thierstein ( Associate Provost from Rice University and CEO from Connexions ) came together with a group of Brazilian academics  to give a brief outline of their projects and discuss issues like sustainability, federated architectures for OER implementation, Creative Commons Licenses, the impact of such projects on intellectual property and the implications for the publishing industry. It was interesting to participate in this event, get to know what is happening here and the issues faced. (presentations can be found here).

    After an explanation of the work conducted at the Open Society Institute and a brief outline of the history of the Open Education movement and initiatives,  Melissa pointed to The Cape Town Open Education Declaration, which is

    at once a statement of principle, a statement of strategy and a statement of commitment… meant to spark dialogue, to inspire action and to help the open education movement grow.

    1741 individuals (1742 now that I have added my name) and 177 organizations have signed the declaration. Pilot countries comprise Poland, Australia and Brazil.

    Some open repositories (which do not require a subscription fee) : Arxiv, DOAJ, Dspace, PubMedCentral, OpenDoar, Eprints Soton, Scielo Brazil, Hindawi, Public Library of Science, Springer Open Choice, Bioline International.

    While Connexions founder Richard Baraniuk was discussing OER at the Berlin Online Educa,  Joel Thierstein, Cnx’S executive director, showed us (here in São Paulo) how their open source platform allows professors and teachers to  “Create Globally, Educate Locally” by giving them the possibility to create, collaborate, build/share custom collections. Users and authors can find content on a page by page basis through an interconnected repository (400+ textbooks, 7000+ lego modules from students, teachers, professionals  worldwide) and remix it for their needs. Authors retain copyright and license it via open access licence to share, copy and transmit the content. Hard cover copies of personalised textbooks created by mashups of different content were passed around.

    Differently from the States and other developed countries, in Brazil, information and expertise are still scarce, which reinforces the educational gap between the haves and have-nots. Ironically, state funded  and  free higher-ed ( like the University of São Paulo) cater for the higher middle-class who paid for their studies in private secondary schools and preparatory courses to succeed in the university entrance exam. The federal campuses are usual far from the city centre and transport difficult for those without a car. As a result of this, the most needy have to pay high tuition for overcrowded “one size fits it all” night classes at private commercial institutions, many of which of doubtful standard. In formal or vocational education, there is no recognition of prior and experiential learning, which further restricts the entry of qualified people to help out as facilitators, guides or curators.

    OERs and open education should be more than “a blip on the educational radar”.  It is important to have access not only to broadband and resources but also peers and experts who help learners filter, discuss, re-mix, create and make this content personally and contextually meaningful.

    I hope these first steps will allow Brazilian educators from all extractions find a way to collaborate and partner in networks beyond their schools and universities - across the river in the city of knowledge as Gilson Schwartz  put it and share instead of just “planning to share” so that more people and initiatives follow to open access to meaningful and dynamic education in our country.

CCK08 Participants (Technorati search)

  • Tilted Taxonomy

    Posted: December 7th, 2008, 1:43pm GMT
    Tilted Taxonomy Trying to make meaning of George Siemens’ “Connectivist Taxonomy”, I ended up with a tilted structure resembling the Southwest German Cuesta landscape. Read more… 7 December 2008 | CCK08

  • Across My Desk (weekly)

    Posted: December 7th, 2008, 6:30am GMT
    Springwoods High School on TVFlat Classroom Project featured on USA TV with Springwoods High School, Houston, asking for financial help to come to the conference in Qatar.tags: flatclassroomproject, flatclassroomconference, acrossmydeskEducation | GlogsterGlogster is proud to present Glogster.com/edu, a NEW addition to the site for all your educational needs! This is just the first step in making education and technology more engaging for educators and students! tags: acrossmydesk, web2.0, educa

  • Sinatra Style - Final CCK08 Project

    Posted: December 6th, 2008, 11:28pm GMT
    “And now the end is near And so I face the final curtain, I’ll state my case of which I’m certain. I’ve lived a life that’s full, I traveled each and ev’ry highway, And more, much more than this. I did it my way.” - Frank Sinatra Like Frank Sinatra, the initial Connectivism course “Is nearing its end The final curtain is drawing closed I will now state what I have learned The experience has been full and well traveled And many different people did it their way.” Now

  • The Networked Student… in plain English

    Posted: December 6th, 2008, 2:10pm GMT
    This CommonCraft inspired video does an excellent job of explaining what a truly networked student looks like. And more importantly, what the teachers role is for them. Consider it your weekend video break.

  • … assigment 5-bis

    Posted: December 5th, 2008, 2:59pm GMT
    In case someone did not follow the comments of the previous post: First we are going to write in this wiki page provided by Ilaria the social netwoorking tools we are using, therefore go to that page and add the tools you are using … Successively, Matteo will send a form to everybody to make a survey on how the students of these are on the net …

  • … assignment 5-bis

    Posted: December 5th, 2008, 2:59pm GMT
    (Translation in Italian) In case someone did not follow the comments of the previous post: First we are going to write in this wiki page provided by Ilaria the social networking tools we are using, therefore go to that page and add the tools you are using … Successively, Matteo will send a form to everybody to make a survey on how the students of these are on the net …

  • A Home-Grown Connection

    Posted: December 5th, 2008, 8:53am GMT
    Over the past few weeks of organizing and hosting K12Online LAN parties, reading about Seth Godin’s new book Tribes, and following the various blog posts from the Connectivism Connecting Knowledge course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes, I have made a bit of a realization: As much as I love working with students and teachers, and being at the center of 21st century learning at ISB, what would be most useful for our teachers is actually being connected to other teachers at sch

  • Assignment 5

    Posted: December 4th, 2008, 7:38am GMT
    (Translation in Italian) Facebook is invading Italy too. I do not like very much facebook because it is a closed environment. More precisely, I do not like the fact that it is an environment that offers a whole set of web 2.0 functionalities and at the same time it is run by a company. I have nothing against companies, in principle; most of the popular web 2.0 are run by companies. I don’t like the fact that a lot of activities take place in a space that is controlled by just one company. I pref

  • A Passionate Teacher?

    Posted: December 2nd, 2008, 12:42am GMT
    I have been thinking about next year, about my new position as Literacy and English Coordinator in a new P to 12 school (we will only be up to Year 9 next year and up to Year 12 in 2012) and what I have learned at my previous job so that I don’t have to make the same mistakes – it’s good to make new ones, I always think. I have been reading a book by Robert L Fried called The Passionate Teacher and it has really got me thinking. He talks about the Game of School and how many students and teacher

  • CCK08 More wrap-up

    Posted: December 1st, 2008, 11:39pm GMT
    CCK08 More wrap-up Before I put this unique course aside, I want to mention some workflow-related things, reflect about the proof of concept to crossbreed topic coverage and free-ranging methods, and marvel at the magic to model and demonstrate diversity all alone. 2 December 2008 | CCK08

  • CCK08: final project

    Posted: December 1st, 2008, 5:51pm GMT
    Hating scholiness and loving learning (to use Clay Burrel’s words), a strong yearning for changing what is related to school and learning, the necessity, perhaps, to discover other ways to take care of learning, the difficulty to share new paths with colleagues in my environment, were all powerful reasons to be irresistibly attracted by the idea to participate to the CCK08 course. At the same time, the simultaneity with the bulk of the activities in the semester, was an equally strong reason to

  • CCK08 Course Tools Survey

    Posted: December 1st, 2008, 2:48pm GMT
    The Connectivism and Connective Knowledge Online Course (CCK08) is over. First of all, thanks to the excellent facilitators: George Siemens and Stephen Downes! Even though I wasn’t an… exemplary student the course has been a good opportunity for my research. As part of my PhD work (that is focused on learning networks for Lifelong Learning) I’m now presenting a survey on the use of the wide range of technological tools proposed by the facilitators (and by some students, too) during the c

  • The Networked Student

    Posted: November 30th, 2008, 3:36pm GMT
    Via Lone Wolf Librarian: The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler’s high school students. The Networked Student concept map was inspired by Alec Couros’ Networked Teacher. I hope that teachers will use it to help their colleagues, parents, and students understand networked learning in the 21st century. Anyone is free to use this video for education

  • Community Connecting in order to Learn

    Posted: November 30th, 2008, 12:53pm GMT
    In the FOC08 meeting on August 5, 2008, Bronwyn Stuckey said, Community is a journey not a destination.George Siemens said during the Connectivism course that the learning is in the connections (or something rather similar).So a community is on a journey and that community is held together, however tenuously, by connections. Does it not follow that the community learns as it connects and further that the more connections equal more learnings?Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach is right! (I never doubted you

  • Useful Sites (weekly)

    Posted: November 30th, 2008, 7:30am GMT
    digiteen2008 » Virtual World Digital Citizenship for Middle Schoolers This documents students using Google lively to teach other students about digital citizenship. Unobtrusive Collaboration in Google Docs | ICT in my Classroom  Tom Barrett shares about using google docs in his classes and live marking Learning technology teacher development blog: Things You Can Do With Your WebCam 1 A great post about using webcams for learning/classroom activities. Blogging Rubric Blogging Rubric by Ryan

  • Networked student

    Posted: November 29th, 2008, 1:21am GMT
    I found this thanks to CogDog. It is a simple, really easy to understand video about “connectivism”. Use it to promote network learning in school. The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler’s high school students. The Networked Student concept map was inspired by Alec Couros’ Networked Teacher. I hope that teachers will use it to help their colleagues, pa

  • CCK08: before trying to outline a “final project” …

    Posted: November 28th, 2008, 11:38am GMT
    (Translation in italian, Translation booking) Before trying to outline a “final project” I would like to hear the voices of the students. Yes, because first of all, teachers must learn to hear the voices of their students, before applying methods, before thinking about theories, before outlining strategies. For me, it was not much about incorporating connectivist principles in my design and delivery of learning but the other way around, in a way. In eight years of activities, I went on through a

  • Reflections on Open Teaching

    Posted: November 28th, 2008, 7:05am GMT
    George Siemens, via elearnspace, deliberated on how open teaching is intertwined with open learning;  and the need to reconsider participation requirements in open teaching in light of challenges to ensure high level of participation by students. Excerpt: …openness may produce shared activity at some levels (students helping each other, taking on leadership roles, connecting to others outside of the course, etc). Open teaching is really best seen as open learning. When we learn in transparent

  • Networked Student - The Video

    Posted: November 28th, 2008, 5:54am GMT
    With a style borrowed from the Common Craft videos, Wendy Drexler has put together an excellent video depicting what she calls the networked student. This is a terrific description of how networked learning may look for an individual student. Thanks Wendy for your obvious hard work on this concept and video! More info: The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by We

  • Hopes & Dreams & Road Blocks OH MY… CCK08

    Posted: November 28th, 2008, 4:53am GMT
    I have been saving writing this post until this time in the course and until I had my first meeting with Alberta Ed, on the new CTS Curriculum for Middle Years and Junior High Focus Group. First off lets clarify my situation, this has been the first time I have been invited into these hallow halls, and see some of the inner workings of the Pillars of Education. Also the first time I have been back to Edmonton in nearly eight years, but I digress… I do not plan on mentioning anything t

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  • Same or different languages, cultures and practices?

    Posted: November 28th, 2008, 12:19am GMT by Barbara Dieu

    Last August, I was honoured to receive an invitation from Larry Johnson and Alan Levine to join the New Media Consortium (NMC)  2008-9 Horizon Project Advisory Board (pdf file), a multi-disciplinary and international team whose annual work informs the annual Horizon Report on Emerging Technologies for teaching, learning and creative expression. I was a bit taken by surprise as I am not American, do not represent any institution and am not a “regular” member of the organization. Alan assured me that my experience in using new technologies and wide network were of interest, though.  According to him, the NMC wants to reach out more internationally by inviting non Anglo-Saxon members to contribute with their perspectives and get more exposure in Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries. Some steps in this direction:

    It has been enlightening to contribute to and participate in this carefully constructed process (totally online and open). The experience , as Larry puts it,

    is like a crash course in emerging technology, with the class made up entirely of very knowledgeable experts and futurists.

    I also echo Scott Leslie’s words in his post “The Value of Openness - creating the Horizon Project, out in the open.

    while I hope you do find the report useful when it comes out in late January 2009, you too can derive much the same benefit as I simply because the process to advise on the Report takes place ‘out in the open’ on this wiki. Indeed, I honestly find the raw materials gathered in the Research Questions (as well as the ongoing hz09 tag in delicious) to be ultimately the most valuable part of the process; inevitably, in order to create a ‘unified’ picture that can be summed up in a printed report certain details are lost, smushed together, improved upon, etc. But all of the raw materials are there for anyone who cares to dig.

    Since my exposure to the Future of Learning in a Networked World series of unconferences and during this sabbatical year, I have taken advantage to open myself up to different local communities, participate in various national educational and cultural initiatives and meet the actors. This roaming exposure  (one is usually confined to a professional track, idea or a classroom) and free (but expensive) time has allowed me to observe, compare and reflect on the mores and cultural traits of the different groups locally and internationally.

    Participating in the Brazilian Práxis community this year has been one of many such instructive insights. It introduced me to fellow colleagues in different institutions in São Paulo, who are in some way or another involved in the use of new technologies. Like the NMC,  Práxis aims at convening people around ideas and practice, catalyze dialogue, discussion and contributions to the field in the form of cases, papers, demonstrations and other related projects.

    However, differently from NMC, an NGO which relies on paid membership and whose open initiative projects happen mostly online to include perspectives, discussions and research from organizations all over the US and abroad, the Práxis community activities are basically local and presential (São Paulo city) and supported/directed by the Bradesco Institute of Technology, which is in turn funded by the Bradesco Foundation.

    In 2004,  a small group of K12 ICT coordinators and CIOs from the private school sector in São Paulo gathered at the occasion of an e-learning event to exchange ideas, practice and better get to know each other. In 2008, although most community members still represent these elite institutions, membership has opened up to encompass a variety of new people (who are selected through personal nomination), including technical schools, colleges, universities, edtech, e-learning businesses and big corporations. Membership is renewed annually by a public acceptance to follow at least 70% of the face to face  monthly meetings, during which practice/experience or products (100% proprietary until now) are demonstrated. The Moodle environment serves as a communication distributor, information archive and occasional discussion forum.

    I have noticed there is a striking difference between the way innovation is envisaged and practiced. Is it this a result of a national or an organizational culture? Is it local, global or both?

    Last night, during our last meeting of the year, Alexandre Zapparoli, from Gartner (Brasil) and Yang Sik Pak, from Daul Soft Brasil made their presentations.

    Gartner Hype Cycle 2008

    Gartner Hype Cycle 2008

    Now, although Gartner partners and networks with institutions and consultants to track breakthrough ideas and how they become established and part of general practice, it targets basically the corporate world business leaders in th etechnology/communications industry.  Its research process and methods are totally closed and the advice reports are delivered for a high fee.

    I noticed that the data collected and the trends openly suggested by educators for the 2009 Horizon Report did not differ significantly from the ones presented in the graphic above. The focus and objective are a bit different, though.

    Gartner recommends an open and free form adaptive structure, open to participation and modification, visible work in progress and create_organize_find_interact flow instead of rigid schemes, access rights, templates and costly infrequent change. Organization should reflect current use and needs and natural group formation should be based on activities and interests. Links, tags, ratings and usage are to determine importance and quality. One should find content through people links and people through content links. Interaction records reinforce personal and group identity, reputation and memory.

    As for Daul’s authoring tool combo (TeachingMate and LectureMaker) , although it evidences progress over the ready-made one-size-fits-all software, it still operates in the closed environment model, centred on  transmission mode, which does not help transform the educational practice but perpetuates the sage on the stage, closed silos and expensive walled gardens.

    Education, IMHO,  is much more complex than a linear series of events, a politician’s discourse /short-term policy or a measurable and defined pre-packaged product. Learning is a process of reactions and layers which lasts a life-time.

    The age of information and knowledge has led education into the media and big business spotlight and  schools/colleges and universities have fallen into the vicious circle of student /teacher bashing. Will educational institutions and businesses ever understand that transplanting a foreign model, installing an LMS system, revamping a classroom with a whiteboard, or submitting and enforcing the use of new technologies will not automatically lead to change?  Focus on people rather than technology, enable and support processes and weave in connections and possibilities for empowerment.

    In spite of the innovative discourse and good intentions of many, I still feel that in the country of Paulo Freire and the government’s innovative initiative to support OSS, banking education and delivery practices are still a strong reality. Too many have no or very restricted access to information and social connections and many are paying too high a price for it.

CCK08 Participants (Technorati search)

  • CCK08 Week 12: Research, Evaluation

    Posted: November 27th, 2008, 10:43pm GMT
    CCK08 Week 12: Research, Evaluation I think the most urgent research need in Connectivism is not to gain still more insights but to develop a conceptual arsenal, or toolbox, for expressing and proving these findings. Read more… 27 November 2008 | CCK08

  • Castles in the Cloud

    Posted: November 27th, 2008, 8:50pm GMT
    This video is just brilliant. It uses the format made famous by the Common Craft Show (think “Wikis in Plain English“) to discuss networked learning and Connectivism. It’s 5 minutes long but really easy viewing. URL: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=e7oFzmr9_M4 Description: “The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler’s high school students. The Networke

  • Connected students: a resource

    Posted: November 27th, 2008, 7:25am GMT
    I have been following the Connectivism 08 online course on the fringes (not registered or anything) but catching up with the Friday chats when I can and have enjoyed them very much. Really good and thoughtful work going on there. The course is put together by George Siemens and Stephen Downes and lots of people are doing the course. And then today I found a video on YouTube via twitter, which I wanted to share as a great resource and example. Thanks Wendy The Networked Student was inspired by

  • Social Computing

    Posted: November 26th, 2008, 9:31pm GMT
    Dave Snowden is well-known in the knowledge management field. He has been kind enough in the past to present to online conferences that we have hosted at University of Manitoba (most recently, our Future of Education conference). Over the last few years, his writings/presentations have taken a turn that very much fits in with concepts presented in this forum and in CCK08. Dave started blogging about two years ago, but I’ve been following his work through his publications and contributions to AC

  • Systems for Supportive Open Teaching

    Posted: November 26th, 2008, 8:10pm GMT
    We’ve experienced this in CCK08: Systems for Supportive Open Teaching: “I think it more valuable to think about how openness changes the basic praxis of teaching from an essentially individual activity to a shared activity.” But, as we’ve discovered, openness may produced shared activity at some levels (students helping each other, taking on leadership roles, connecting to others outside of the course, etc). Open teaching is really best seen as open learning. When we learn in transparent ways,

  • CCK08: Course Evaluation and Feedback

    Posted: November 24th, 2008, 9:59pm GMT
    My experience with Connectivism and Connective Knowledge 2008 has been tantamount to climbing Mount Everest. The amount of sustained energy required to maintain an upward assent has been extraordinary - with many colleagues turning back or stopping along the way - but in this lay one of the key sources of its engagement, and one that tied students together into a unique, shared experience. It’s been absolutely incredible. Every week yielded a fascinating new topic to be explored, and with it

Connectivism & Connective Knowledge Blog

  • Who is still participating?

    Posted: November 24th, 2008, 9:43pm GMT by gsiemens

    Mike Bogle asked a question last week. Being somewhat chaotically organized these days, I failed to answer him in time for his presentation - sorry Mike :(. 

    His question - “I’m wondering if you have a guestimate on the current number of active participants” - is valuable as we move to wrap up mode in CCK08, so I’ll tackle it anyway.

    First, my time. I have spend a minimum of 12 hours per week on CCK08. Some weeks, especially at the start, were likely closer to about 30 hours. On average, my time breakdown weekly is as follows:

     

    • Contribute to The Daily: 3-5 hours a week (this includes reading posts and including with short commentary in The Daily
    • Reading moodle forum contributions: 5-7 hours a week. This includes reading and posting. Self-organization on the part of participants has minimized this over the last few weeks. I still read all of the posts and would like to respond to many, many more than I do. 
    • Recording/wrapup/intro for next week - this ranges from zero some weeks to ~2 hours others
    • Live sessions: 3+ hours. This includes elluminate and UStream sessions.
    • Responding to email (when I’m actually punctual): 2-5 hours a week
    • Marking papers: ~1 hour min per paper - reading, reflecting, and trying to write something coherent and hopefully of value to the participants. Total marking time for the course (this is still ongoing, so I’m guessing): ~75 hours

    I posted on my course prep time earlier - just can’t remember where. I should have kept slightly better notes, but my time spent in advance of the course in organization, pulling together readings, chats with Stephen, Dave, and others, planning interaction, creating the syllabus, setting up the site/blog/wiki are comfortably in the 60-80 hour range. 

    Total time I spent on CCK08: between 375-425 hours.

    Ok. On to Mike’s question: How many people are still active?

    Well, The Daily still has over 1800 people signed up. This means they, a) don’t know how to unsubscribe or b) are at least somewhat engaged. The moodle forum has fairly active discussion, though their are likely less than 50 participants that have been regular participants. The Second Life group has met numerous times, but I don’t know the stats or attendance numbers or their recent activity. Fleep Tuque has some thoughts on SL, but doesn’t really provide information on numbers attending and frequency of meetings. Blogs are fairly wide ranging. There is some overlap with moodle contributions, but many are only blogging. Numbers are hard to guess, but I would say we have about 35 people who are still blogging. Others have not created their own blog, but have participated through comments to those who were blogging. Delicious shows almost 1200 tags for CCK08, Google Blog Search shows just under 9000 references to CCK08, and the list of small, fragmented contributions goes on across the multiple forums and sites that comprise “being online” today.

    What has been the impact of CCK08?

    I don’t know. I have spoken to people at conferences who have said “I’m a student in your course”. But I often don’t recognize their name. Since CCK08 started, I’ve had the same experience at every conference I’ve presented: ALT-C in Leeds, COHERE in Torontoa, Web 2.0 in Portugal, NW Elearning Conference in Pasco, multiple presentations in Australia, Corporate Learning: Trends and Innovations online conference, and last week at E-Learn in Las Vegas. The numbers I cited above - less than 200 active participants across multiple spaces - seems small in light of the number of learners we had sign up (about 2400 at one stage, I believe). This doesn’t take account of individuals that will access the course resources after the course is officially done. If the online conferences we ran last year at University of Manitoba are any indication, access after the event exceeds during-event participation.

    By way of a final analysis, thousands came, less stayed, and even less contributed. Did we change the world? No. Not yet. But we (and I mean all course participants, not just Stephen and I) managed to explore what is possible online. People self-organized in their prefered spaces. They etched away at the hallowed plaque of “what it means to be an expert”. They learned in transparent environments, and in the process, became teachers to others. Those that observed (or lurked as is the more common term), hopefully found value in the course as well. Perhaps life circumstances, personal schedule, motivation for participating, confidence, familiarity with the online environment, or numerous other factors, impacted their ability to contribute. While we can’t “measure them” the way I’ve tried to do with blog and moodle participants, their continued subscription to The Daily and the comments encountered in F2F conferences suggest they also found some value in the course.

    All in all. It was fun. I’ll try and pull together more cohesive reflections over the next few weeks. As will Stephen and the numerous participants, I imagine.

     

CCK08 Participants (Technorati search)

  • The Future of the Educational Marketplace

    Posted: November 24th, 2008, 1:11pm GMT
    I was reading Stephen Downes‘ article on the Future of Online Learning, and ran into a paragraph that hit home more than the rest, about the marketplace for course content. Today, much of the value derived from the learning marketplace is based on an artificially imposed scarcity – a scarcity of seats in classrooms, a scarcity of credentialing agencies, and a scarcity of educational publications, for example. These scarcities will disappear as governments prefer to fund education directly, and

  • An Illichian Rant

    Posted: November 24th, 2008, 12:42pm GMT
    Editor’s Note: At one stage this post had a point, but somewhere along the line it seems to have derailed into a rant against the establishment. Criticism The challenges and obstacles facing the evolution and revolution of education can be traced back to a few key ideas – those of stratification, hierarchies, institutionalisation, power, and control. Essentially, characteristics that have nothing to do with education and learning, but everything to do with how it is controlled, dictated and m

  • CCK08 Final presentation

    Posted: November 24th, 2008, 7:08am GMT
    CCK08 Final presentation As my final presentation, I uploaded a 2 minute Flash file (no audio, 4.5 MB). It answers the question “How has this course influenced my view of the process of learning” and is a reduced, visually enhanced version of my yesterday’s posting about the relationship between conceptual and social/ external connections. 24 November 2008 | CCK08

  • Mind Map + 11 Weeks = Done CCK08 Style

    Posted: November 24th, 2008, 2:44am GMT
    The second to last project is done, but is it. This is the type of project that could continually be retooled from time to time. Like a students grades, this only represents a snap shot in time. Will my picture be clear and show my thoughts, or fuzzy and make little sense even after hours of study. I let you be the judge: I realize this image is to small to see clearly, because of that I give two options: ubiquitous.posterous.com (Go here to see a large image) download the zip