Connectivism & Connective Knowledge

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September 23, 2008

The Development of Concept Maps...

Concept maps are not for everyone. I've stated this before. Some aspects of CMAPs seem to resonate with certain learners...and cause stress for others! Based on current research, concept maps offer learners the opportunity to make explicit relationships between concepts. It's like being asked to explain a view point to someone. We may have it neatly packaged in our own minds, but when we begin to articular the concepts, we find connections exist that we hadn't considered before. Or perhaps we are questioned by others and it forces us to reconsider some fundamental aspect of our own views. Several participants have started concept maps. Here are a few you might want to review:
Lisa Lane
Ariel
Bradley Shoebottom

Highlighted Resources

Guest Presentation: Valdis Krebs
What is a network? What are the attributes exhibited by networks? How are networks reflected in social and business environments? This week, we're pleased to have Valdis Krebs join us (Wed, 11:00 AM, CST here in elluminate) to discuss business and social networks. The session will be recorded for those that are not able to attend. It'll be a useful presentation/discussion on considering the prominence of networks and their impact in our daily lives. Valdis Krebs, Website, September 23, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

CCK08 - Looking for Patterns
Sinikka makes this comment: "it seems that as far as education is concerned, the movement is always top-down - researchers formulate their theories first (up there somewhere in their ivory towers), and if ministries, local authorities and other vested interest groups buy into it, they will start putting pressure on practicing teachers to implement them." Fair enough, but I (Stephen) would like to emphasize that Connectivism, as I understand it, isn't a theory that can be (or should be) 'implemented' at a high level. At heart, it's a theory about how each of us, as individuals, can learn best. Whether you accept of reject this approach, it's all the same to me. The success of the theory will be seen in whether it works in practice for people using it to manage their own learning (it's not a theory of teahing, it's a theory of learning). Sinikka, lost in translation, September 23, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

CCK08 Free and Reliable Open Source Software for YOU and All of Us
Longish list of "free and reliable open source software" members of this course might find useful. I (Stephen) have used and enjoy many of these, including especially Audacity (for audio recording and editing), Firefox (web browser), Thunderbird (email) and OpenOffice (word processor and presentation tools). Inge de Waard, Ignatia, September 23, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Creative Networking

(from Burak Arikan his course titled Creative Networking.)
Raymon picks up this diagram from an entire course on networking. The course contains some readings you may want to explore, such as Valdis Krebs, It's the conversation, stupid! and David Reed, Group formation networks. Raymon, cck08, September 23, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

CCK08 Week Two: Expectations of a Course On Learning, and Thoughts About How We Learn
Dave Pollard offers a reflection on week 2 of CCK08: "So here I am among 2000 participants from around the world, all focused on knowledge and learning and how we can improve them. There is a lot of content being shared, but there is a clear struggle to make meaning of it, to put it into context that is useful. To do that, what is needed is conversation and connection. The conversations I have witnessed so far are mostly those among somewhat bewildered students of the course trying to figure out what to do." The struggle to make sense (or to create a narrative of coherence) has always been foundational to teaching/learning. In a regular class, we read text books, listen to lectures, and participate in group discussions. The experience is bewildering at the start. After some familiarity with concepts has been established, connections begin to emerge. With our course, we have less pre-formed connections than many participants likely expect. We're trying to make explicit the process of sensemaking (connecting and conversing in Pollard's terminology) that goes on in regular classrooms. The networks that are beginning to form (and will accelerate in formation over the next few weeks) are precisely what learning is all about. Who do we connect to? Why? How does concept 'a' relate to concept 'b'? Who do I trust? Whose ideas resonate with me? And, in this chaotic milieu, we begin to form networks based on trust, resonance, and experience. Dave Pollard, , September 22, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Thoughts From Second Life
Various groups have formed to discuss CCK08 in their own context. Some are focused on language, others on developing countries, and some, as with the above link, on virtual worlds such as Second Life. Mariis Mills reflects on her experience in meeting with the SL cohort: "You may think that I'm more of an asynchronous learner, but I don't think that's the case. RL [real life] I just love intense discussions, and I can easily handle complex diversity and people interrupting each other. Online it s a different story though. When engaged in synchronous online discussions with many participants I do prefer a more structured organization than usual. RL we're used to looking at non-verbal signs to decode wither someone is finished, about to say something etc. When non-verbal signs are not possible, I think we may have to compensate in other ways e.g. by structuring the turn-taking." Mariis Mills, , September 22, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Week 3: Introduction to Network Attributes
This presentation explores common network attributes. Many of the terms considered are likely familiar to most readers: small worlds, hubs, weak ties, and so on. Our discussion this week builds on weeks 1 & 2 and sets the stage for our consideration of network history (as applied to learning in week 4). George Siemens, , September 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

At the End of Week Two
My reflections on the course at the end of two weeks. I discuss the idea of connective knowledge and talk a bit about the different way conversation has played out in the moodle forums and in the blogs. As a postscript to that: I have coded an RSS autodiscovery function that fixes almost all of the blog feed errors we've been having. If you've registered your blog, check it out on the feeds page. If not, register your blog using the form. Stephen Downes, CCK08, September 21, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Contributions

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