Connectivism & Connective Knowledge

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The Daily

October 31, 2008

Friday Chat

Friday: Discussion via USTREAM 11 am CST: See time zone conversion.

Highlighted Resources

Thinking Aloud About Power, Authority and Control
From my perspective, the power I (Stephen) wielded this week in forcing a 'subscribe' to the Moodle forums was actually an illusion of power. One student got it: "If Stephen hadn't turned off the function as quickly as he did, I wonder if we would have taken power into our own hands, by simply not posting to the Moodle forums?" The power to do womething else, to communicate iusing alternate means, to simply not use the Moodle forums, was always in the hands of the students - if they cooperated with each other. Jenny Mackness, Jenny Connected, October 31, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

CCK08 Power To The People
Skidmore's principles of network leadership:
# Lead from outside in
# Mobilize disparate supplies of energy
# Foster trust and empower others to act
# Help people grow out of their comfort zone (my personal favorite)
# Lead learners, not all-knowers
# Nurture other leaders
Wendy DG, Teach Web 2.0, October 31, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Full Text - Twine
If 'knowledge is power' then what do we say of those who create the knowledge? This Twine post links to a list of open educational repositories - collections of free learning materials that can be used in learning. How does openness relate to power? Giorgio Bertini, Twine, October 31, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Connectivism in Wikipedia?
Here's a fun project for the whole family: the connectivism wikipedia article is lacking. Consider this an open invitation to experience the joys of wikipedia editing (hmm...for future courses, perhaps we should make updating the wikipedia article a part of the learning process). , , October 31, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Two Types of Authority
A short comment from Dolores Capdet, citing Bochenski: all authority has two parts: the ethical, and the epistemological. Dolores Capdet, CCK08 Moodle Forum, October 31, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Instructional Design
In the spirit of repetition and encountering ideas from different and multiple perspectives, this site links to various presentations on instructional design... Donald Clark, , October 31, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

The Alchemy of Give and Take
When Stephen and I first started designing this course, we tried to make our process public through blog posts on the main site and conversations with EdTechTalk. A key skill for, or expectation of, learners has been sensemaking and wayfinding. In a traditional course, the educator plays a disproportionate role in this by assigning readings and crafting additional activities around the reading. While those elements are included in CCK08, the scale of conversations and amount of reading and weekly activities are intended to be of such a volume as to make it impossible for one person to do it all. While this was/is frustrating at the start of a new learning experience, the hope is that learners will realize the futility of trying to follow everything (or relying on the educator to provide the path through). As a result of the overwhelming complexity, learners turn more to wayfinding and sensemaking on their own...rather than acquiring the patterns and views held by instructors. Keith Lyons provides a quick glimpse of some of the readings and resources he found valuable this week (not sure how many people attempted to read the entire 230 page document in one of our readings this week. Personal choices - knowing what we want to know, what is valuable information, what we can actually digest - become vital). Keith Lyons, , October 30, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Telling Tales
When we state something explicitly we state it broadly. Lecturing, for example, explicitly shares information itself. When we use narratives, we communicate not only information, but a certain degree of context and of ourselves. When learners have control over tools of communication and information creation, they have the ability to control narratives (see Alan Levine's 50 Web 2.0 ways to tell a story (stories are different from narratives, but in this instance, the distinction isn't critical)). Or, as the author of this post states: "As a primary user of this technique in relation to the connectivism course, I spent some time ruminating on the context for personal context narratives. I would suspect that the open course format, with its numerous venues for response and dialogue, lends itself to a more personal approach for learning reflections." , , October 30, 2008 [Link] [Tags: none] [Comment]

Contributions

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

Wk 8 Power, Control and Authority October 31, 2008
CCK08 Failing? October 30, 2008
CCK08 Power to the People October 30, 2008
CCK08 Recovering from a writer’s block October 30, 2008
Social Networking Tools to Develop Strong, Weak and Potential Connections, Connectivism CCK08 October 30, 2008
The Third Rail and the Fifth Estate October 30, 2008
About assessment criteria October 30, 2008
Response to Stephen: rights and power October 30, 2008
Social Networking Tools to Connect to Strong, Weak and Potential Connections, Connectivism CCK08 October 30, 2008
Power in class and networks - implications of connectivism on k-12 October 30, 2008

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