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November 16, 2009
Week 10: Connectivism Research
Introduction to our "reading-less" 10th week in the connectivism course. The topics of discussion this week are:
1. What types of research is needed around connectivism? (Moodle forum)
2. Which methodologies should be employed to address these research areas? (Moode forum)
Highlighted Resources
Net Pedagogy Week
The elluminate recordings of the Net Pedagogy conference week are now available. I enjoyed the broad mix of topics - pedagogy of abundance, transparent teaching, literacy, OERs, differentiated instruction, and DE and networked learning.
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November 16, 2009 [Link] [Tags: none]
[Comment]
Recordings: PLE/N Conference
Thanks to Stephen, Rita Kop, and Hanan Sitlia for making the recordings of our PLE/N week available in various formats!! A great resource.
Now, if only I had time to do the same with our Net Pedagogy week recordings...
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November 16, 2009 [Link] [Tags: none]
[Comment]
Contributions
Here's what course members from around the world had to say. Want to join the conversation? Submit your feed. Then put this at the beginning of your post: CCK09
Re: Tomcats, LOLcats, body language or wordsby Frances Bell.
I love it. Suggestion that probably doesn't work as it's too quirky
Cn I jus txt coz I dn wann be herd
I think it came into my mind because I was thinking about something Mark Stiles once said that getting academics to use L Tech was like herding cats.
Here's my attempt from last month (in situ in my blog) http://francesbell.com/2009/10/31/cck09-power-and-authority/
I haven't heard all of Stephen's talk yet ( I was in session but missed most of it from phone call and other interruptions) but I think (from my own brief encounters with it) that one of the features of LOL Cats is the deliberate amibiguity of many of the creations - almost "make of it what you will". The funny links between image and text will work differently depending on the social contexts in which they are shared, layered by the puns and double entendre.
Re: Sensitive Mail
by roy williams.
Ken, a Keynesian demand-stimulus seems to be what this MOOC needs right now, the network eco-nomy of cck09 is really far too Bullish at the moment. Maybe some virtual food tasting (does haptic technololgy extend to taste yet - now there's a business opportunity for a recession, no?)
On the laissez-faire issues, see 'Built it and Leave' and other modes in week 5 disucsion about where all the people went.
November 16, 2009CCK09 Virtual Facilitation in Networks – a Rhetoric or Reality?
Wonderful post on Effective Virtual Facilitation by Ryan. I suppose these 5 stages are best practice of “teacher-centred structured session” and to some extent what has to be mastered by a competent online teacher or facilitator. This is obviously one of the most welcomed approach from both educational authority and learners as the learning outcomes are well defined, and [...]
November 16, 2009
LOLcats
One of yesterday's presentations was on LOLcats and how they are a form of language. Although it was hard to hear the audio on elive as it was fading in and out (sounded much like the mic was in a poor position) I think I mananged to keep up with most of the theory.Of course - there was a link in the moodle to a LOLcats site so some time had to be taken this morning to browse :-)Here is my November 16, 2009
How can virtual worlds contribute to the post-industrial eco-systems?
(This blog post has been prepared on Google Wave, the MixedRealities wave is public and you are free to add your take to the texts you find there – whether those texts are already published here or are just drafts) Jeff Jarvis on BuzzMachine says that the future of business is in ecosystems. It reminded me [...] November 16, 2009
Net pedagogy
We had a conference week about net pedagogy in CCK09 and I will gather my thoughts if I have any -actually I try to find my new thoughts by writing this post. We had six sessions in our program, I participated three and listened to others. I must be well up-to-date about global [...] November 16, 2009
CCK09 Open Education Resources: Projects & Potential
I enjoyed listening to an Elluminate recording of Stephen Downes’s presentation for the Connectivism & Connective Knowledge course’s Net Pedagogy Conference 2009. In this session Stephen provided an outline and description of Open Education Resources (OER) in addition to their associated licensing formats. Various OER funding models were also outlined. Examples of OER include: 1) [...] November 16, 2009
CCK09, Emotions in Social Networks
John Mak asks: Who am I? What is your identity in social networks? How would emotions impact on social networking? He also shows some videos in his post. I would like to discuss this topic with John. Since I am a reading/writing-preference learner, I searched for text references about Emotions in Social Networks. These are the references I [...]
November 16, 2009
Discussion Forum
These links are comments posted to the Moodle Discussion Forum, Week 8 and Week 9. If you want to participate in the discussion, but don't want to set up a blog, then you can post here.
Re: Tomcats, LOLcats, body language or wordsby Ulöp O'Taat.
Hi Gillian. I enjoyed talking with you too! It was fun in the chat room while that presentation was ongoing.
I am still having some difficulty wrapping my head around the theory that Stephen was espousing and will no doubt listen to the presentation again when I get some time. It appeared that Stephen sees LOLcats as a new language, but I see a parallel between it and children's picture books, where a picture is shown accompanied by brief text, appealing to the visual/emotional through the pic while conditioning to the use of language. Granted the LOLcats pics are higher definition (but with poorer spelling - is that desirable if these are used as a teaching tool?)
While reflecting about this, I was thinking that children's picture books are a means by which to implant text language into the child's neural network, providing a textual interface for communication purposes. (what are LOLcats for? I originally thought they were just for humour).
The human textual interface is a primary mode of communication, akin to the computer interface where I type text, read text, recognize patterns as pictures. All of these are representations of phenomena including conceptual phenomena. And when I am thinking, I think via words and pictures: I see and hear words/pics in my mind. While the underlying mechanism that supports this may be neural connections, it is the words and pictures that act as the interface or conscious level in my head, permitting me to bring them to light and communicate about. The statement 'knowledge is in the connections' means that knowledge exists in the text/pics that are my conscious interface provided by my neural connections. As well as existing in books, storage media etc.
When Stephen presents about fish innards and LOLcats and suggests a new language etc. I can't help but wonder if he is discovering anything new, or just highlighting something that others may take for granted.
Usually I don't write so much, but I wanted to get these morning thoughts down before I lose them. I will review the recording and see what else I think after.
Re: Tomcats, LOLcats, body language or words
by Ulöp O'Taat.
Hi Ailsa. I like your lolcat. I wonder why you feel the need to put it in your dissertation?
November 16, 2009Re: help with some clarification please
by roy williams.
Hi All, that's it. Connectivism is a closet cousin of behaviourism.
I dont mind the idea that I am a replicator host, I just require the replicator to shut up, sit down, and behave, while I do the other stuff, which is marriages of true minds, etc, etc.
And reverting to digital tools/digital learning ecologies to supplment the analogue and material interaction is fine too. But its crucial to 'me' that I can pull the plug on that too.
November 16, 2009Re: Tomcats, LOLcats, body language or words
by Ulöp O'Taat.
Listened to the presentation again, from the slides, three propositions:
1. New Media is a language. The artifacts are words.
2. We can understand these languages within a logical/semiotic framework.
3. Fluency in these languages constitutes 21st century learning.
My comments:
1. Sentence one seems evident. Not so much sentence two.
2. Why would we want to, if logic/semiotics is not so important?
3. Bit of a stretch.
I still think LOLcats are for fun, not requisite for 21st century learning...
Was Doonesbury/Marvel comics requisite for 20th century learning?
Re: help with some clarification please
by A One.
Re: Tomcats, LOLcats, body language or words
by ailsa haxell.
good question
And a multilayered answer
First to do with content
1.The dissertation/thesis is on texting reconfiguring what happens when telephone counselling shifts from an audio to visual channel.
There are issues to do with being invisible and inaudible that have made the medium more attractive
2. The invisibile/inaudible also creates so many unknowns
(so its funny)
Provides an opening for discussing identity formation
Then around the process
3. There's a significant difference in changing channels of communication from audio to visual, there's also a difference when the medium of a thesis shifts from
i. formal to informal and
ii. from prose to visual.
And around the audience
4. I am wanting to provoke experiences for the reader/marker that engage on more levels than a logic argument, that other realities are at play (as it were). This thesis doesnt just talk of performances of multiple reality, but is a performance in its own right.
5. The site of my study involves a typically young group , late teenage years, early 20's. I want to write this for them, make the reading of it approachable for them.
Thanks for the question, I need practice at justifying this 
Re: help with some clarification please
by Sui Fai John Mak.
Hi all,
@ Ailsa Here is my view on learning principles. We are humans, not "non-human", so I would like to see more than just firing of neurons, in the connections, but the establishment of human relationship in networks, in the history of learning. At the end, I like to learn with humans, though often technology is part of that mediation (is it part of ANT??). Agents, actors mean differently to different people. At the other end of the network, it is more than a node, it has feelings, "it" is breathing air and taking water (knowledge), and it lives..and is engaging, interacting. That makes human more than just human, beyond behaviorism.
I remember that when I conducted my last class with my learners, especially in my early years of teaching, I always have an emotional response. We have once upon met here together as a learning group or network, and our identities are inscribed in the history of learning. Ten years later, we might still be able to remember each other, as once upon we have been with the same network and learn together. Would networks be forever? Like diamonds are forever, when it comes to collaboration in the networks.
Roy: Replicator, host, and everyone of us will become history, but the learning stays forever.
November 16, 2009Re: Tomcats, LOLcats, body language or words
by Frances Bell.
I love it. Suggestion that probably doesn't work as it's too quirky
Cn I jus txt coz I dn wann be herd
I think it came into my mind because I was thinking about something Mark Stiles once said that getting academics to use L Tech was like herding cats.
Here's my attempt from last month (in situ in my blog) http://francesbell.com/2009/10/31/cck09-power-and-authority/
I haven't heard all of Stephen's talk yet ( I was in session but missed most of it from phone call and other interruptions) but I think (from my own brief encounters with it) that one of the features of LOL Cats is the deliberate amibiguity of many of the creations - almost "make of it what you will". The funny links between image and text will work differently depending on the social contexts in which they are shared, layered by the puns and double entendre.
Re: Tomcats, LOLcats, body language or words
by Frances Bell.
I love the idea of one of your imagined audiences being the young people themselves. Perhaps they could play around with some cat images and the topic and come up with their own LOL cats.
November 16, 2009Re: Net Pedagogy Conferences
by Frances Bell.
I just heard Martin Weller's recording. Sound was poor but it seemed like a great session and I am sorry to have missed it.
I appreciate your participation in my session and have posted the links (including an update slide show with participant contributions ) on my blog.
Re: Tomcats, LOLcats, body language or words
by Gillian Watson.
If learning is about conversation then learning the languages of the internet must be important. Or am I oversimplifying?
Re: Tomcats, LOLcats, body language or words
by ailsa haxell.
from an Ant sensibility, thats an important point, embraces performativity, reality is multiple... thanks for that 
thought of teh herd but jus dinna wanna cr8 a fence
And as I wrote on your blog:
lol
This is just so funny on so many levels
Whose power are (you) stealing Frances?
Or alter ego being?
Is it possible to steal power in a network?
Meantime you are concurrently spending time playing dress ups with a cat. Have you already lost any credibility in having power?
What has this network done to you?
Re: Tomcats, LOLcats, body language or words
by ailsa haxell.
i think you are spot on, the 'tools' we use, make a difference, we are shaped in conjunction with them...
November 16, 2009Re: Tomcats, LOLcats, body language or words
by Maijann Ruby.
RE: Literacy in the Digital Era: Did anyone else have trouble hearing the Elluminate audio recording for this session - I had trouble hearing it from the beginning and then lost the audio altogether - I think it was about half way through - that I couldn't hear it anymore. Maybe there are some slides for this session?
November 16, 2009Re: Tomcats, LOLcats, body language or words
by Maijann Ruby.
Thanks - I've just seen this post! After writing one - re couldn't hear it.
November 16, 2009Re: Tomcats, LOLcats, body language or words
by Ken Anderson.
Miss Hadley-Finch (my english teacher) is very upset with this!
November 16, 2009Re: Sensitive Mail
by roy williams.
Ken and Gillian, I yearn for the days of more authoritarian learning events, because I really would like to ask for a ban on talk about food anywhere between 12h00 GMT and 14h00 GMT, as my lunch has yet to be conceptualised, let alone eaten (muesli and joghurt for breakfast, with black Lady Grey tea - the best), and the more I read about moose and asparagus, the more hungry I get.
November 16, 2009Re: Sensitive Mail
by roy williams.
Ken, a Keynesian demand-stimulus seems to be what this MOOC needs right now, the network eco-nomy of cck09 is really far too Bullish at the moment. Maybe some virtual food tasting (does haptic technololgy extend to taste yet - now there's a business opportunity for a recession, no?)
On the laissez-faire issues, see 'Built it and Leave' and other modes in week 5 disucsion about where all the people went.
November 16, 2009Re: Sensitive Mail
by roy williams.
... although that said, you do know that Nancy White, as well as being a really mean online presence, also does serious chocolate stuff?
November 16, 2009Sensitive Mail
by Sui Fai John Mak.
Roy said "I yearn for the days of more authoritarian learning events," I (John) do find many learners (including mine) like them, despite the new diet of "networked learning" under connectivism which could provide more choices, and much more healthier food for them compared to the traditional ones. Why?
Here is the learning metaphor: digestive system and a response to learning metaphor. So, muesli and yoghurt for breakfast (Roy), a healthy lunch (with more fruits and vegetables?) plus a balanced dinner really appeal to me, with the half-baked ideas.
This lunch talk makes me hungry too!
November 16, 2009
Re: Sensitive Mail
by Ulöp O'Taat.
What about soup? I had a chicken soup (homemade) for supper last night. And we talk about wired soup here. Is there a connection, between what we eat and what we express?
November 16, 2009Re: Openness
by roy williams.
Gus: "Jim Groom ... makes the point that these technologies allow us to 'imbue our work with a sense of personality'"
... interesting.
"I am, therefore I think?" Ontology trumps epistemology?
mmmm.
November 16, 2009Re: Openness
by Ulöp O'Taat.
"The argument of this book is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes".
(Dawkins, The Selfish Gene)
November 16, 2009Education Re: Significance of teaching and learning
by Sui Fai John Mak.
In this We are the people we've been waiting for and here is another trailer
It concludes that, while there are signs of spring, a transformation of the education system is vital if the UK is to continue to compete effectively in an era of globalization the world has changed enormously but our education system has not kept pace. We need to recognise that there are many paths to success for young people and provide the right support and opportunities for them to develop their individual talents.
What are your comments?
November 16, 2009Re: Education Re: Significance of teaching and learning
by Sui Fai John Mak.
This A Nation in Crisis? and Where We Stand: American Schools in the 21st Century Part 1 and Where We Stand: American Schools in the 21st Century Part 2 may be a wake up call on education.
November 16, 2009Post in Twitter and use the hashtag #cck09 to be listed here. (These should be fresh. Still working on improving the Twitter display.)
Check this video out -- Stupid in America http://bit.ly/S6zWs Learning should be fun #CCK09Check this video out -- "Weird Al" Yankovic Helps Explain Auto Tune (Know Your Meme) http://bit.ly/J3gp8 #CCK09
RT @suifaijohnmak: Check this video out -- "Weird Al" Yankovic Helps Explain Auto Tune (Know Your Meme) http://bit.ly/J3gp8 #CCK09
@suifaijohnmak did you look at the wefeelfine project in cck08 last year http://www.wefeelfine.org/movements.html ? #cck09
RT@NicolaAvery @suifaijohnmak did you look at the wefeelfine project in cck08 last year http://www.wefeelfine.org/movements.html ? #cck09
@NicolaAvery wefeelfine project in cck08 last year http://www.wefeelfine.org/movements.html sounds interesting. Was it used in CCK? #CCK09
Funny video with Auto-Tune News #1: march madness. economic woes. pentagon budget cuts. http://bit.ly/o7wTr #CCK09
Check this video out -- Auto-Tune the News #7: texting. rhyming. pat buchanan fail. http://bit.ly/3b3St #CCK09
don't turn an LOL into a grt big OMG! RT @suifaijohnmak: Auto-Tune the News http://bit.ly/3b3St #CCK09
@suifaijohnmak I haven't looked at how wefeelfine works but looks interesting idea? #cck09
Week 10: Two simple topics for connectivism and research: http://bit.ly/26jEHc #CCK09
Connectivism & Connective Knowledge (CCK09) – Week 10: Research in Connectivism -- http://bit.ly/19mbjR
The week I've been waiting for RT @gsiemens: Week 10: Two simple topics for connectivism and research: http://bit.ly/26jEHc #CCK09
RT @gsiemens: Week 10: Two simple topics for connectivism and research: http://bit.ly/26jEHc #CCK09
RT @gsiemens: Week 10: Two simple topics for connectivism and research: http://bit.ly/26jEHc #CCK09
RT @mweller: @gsiemens - my slidecast from last night is here: http://u.nu/6rau3 #cck09 (thanks!)
RT @gsiemens: RT @mweller: @gsiemens - my slidecast from last night is here: http://u.nu/6rau3 #cck09 : pedagogy of abundance, cool !
really? RT @luzpearson Went to virtualeduca on BA - new ways of learning+formal education. No one has even mentioned connectivism!! #cck09
Listening to Stephen Downes on "Speaking in Lolcats: What Literacy Means in teh Digital Era" #CCK09
@luzpearson @leilanachawati:there is an english version here, Connectivism, #CCK09 in #virtualeduca http://tinyurl.com/ydvkk5q
@luzpearson @leilanachawati: Connectivism #CCK09 in #virtualeduca, video included: http://tinyurl.com/ykrbwl4
Listening to Martin Weller's Pedagogy of Abundance (week 9 of cck09) http://bit.ly/3HYBX7
@coolcatteacher presenting here in 2 minutes for Net Pedagogy week in #CCK09 http://bit.ly/3ib0jB
About to start #cck09 in elluminate - join us with @gsiemens - would love some company - http://bit.ly/3ib0jB
RT @coolcatteacher: Preso Flat Classroom/ Differentiation w/ @gsiemens #CCK09 7pm EST - http://bit.ly/3ib0jB [Elluminate]
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