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October 13, 2008
Readings
Developing Online From Simplicity toward Complexity: Going with the Flow of Non-Linear Learning
Video Lecture: Complexity Science
Complexity and Information Overload in Society .pdf
Activities:
Mon: Recorded presentations and readings will be posted to the email list
Wed: Two Elluminate discussions (both sessions can be accessed via this link): 11 am CST: See time zone conversions7 pm CST: See time zone conversions. Alec Couros will be presenting during both times, followed by informal conversation.
Friday: Discussion via USTREAM 11 am CST: See time zone conversion
Assignments:
1. Continue regular weekly activities - blogging, developing your concept map, and follow the distributed conversation through various sites (pageflakes, delicious, Google Alerts).
2. Begin work on your second short paper.
Additional Readings:
The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-making in a complex and complicated world (.pdf)
CCK08: Reflection for Week 5
Today I (Stephen) would like to highlight a series of four posts from Adrian Hill that clearly demonstrate how to best work with the material being presented in this course.
Nonline Learning
In this first part Adrian Hill looks at the idea of being connected all the time as outlined in my habits of highly connected people and contrasts it with remarks about being disconnected - from the internet, that is. Being connected is still important, even when you're offline; it becomes a way of being aware of your environment. "To point to the interconnectedness and interrelatedness of all creation is to emphasize that sacredness," writes Hill, pointing to Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv.
Notes on Taking down the walls:
Hill summarizes Celia Haig-Brown's Taking down the walls: Communities and educational research in Canada's 21st Century. There are numerous points of contact with last week's 'groups and networks' discussion. Haig-Brown writes, "Confining ourselves to particular and familiar theoretical or material contexts leads to impoverished and/or obscure theory based too often in work we do primarily with and for people just like us." This is a great find, new to me, that sheds new light, and new perspective, on the distinction.
A year without reading?
This post resonated wth me because it explores aspects of the idea of 'practice and reflection'. Hill looks at some thoughts from Susan Sontag and Charlotte Joko Beck to consider whether separating ourselves from reading and writing promotes practice and even reflection. Beck: "read them once and that's enough. Books are useful. But some people read for fifty years, you know. And they haven't begun their practice."
The virtual self
Hill takes some remarks from George Siemens and extends them though Franciso Varela's Ethical Know-How: Action, Wisdom and Cognition. According to Varela, "Ethical know-how is the progressive, firsthand acquaintance with the virtuality of the self - If we do not practice transformation, we will never attain the highest degree of ethical expertise." Hill writes, "Varela remarks that ethical conduct arises and deepens through the cultivation of a "more open-ended and nonegocentric compassion (71)." Coincidental to this, I released my own paper, My Digital Identity, on Friday, in which i explore similar themes.
What these four posts demonstrate is connective learning in action. It is not simply about saying you agree or disagree with the authors and leaving it at that. It is about relating your present experience with your past experience, looking at what you are seeing and reading now from the perspective of things you have learned in the past. Because this part learning is unique, you bring a perspective to the discussion no one else can, and hence, add to the learning of everyone else.
Adrian Hill,
Memeospheric Pressure,
October 13, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none]
[Comment]
Here's what course members from around the world had to say. Want to join the conversation? Login and submit your feed. Then put this at the beginning of your post: CCK08
On groups and emerging networks October 13, 2008
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Copyright 2008 Connectivism & Connective Knowledge
Contact: stephen@downes.ca
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