Heli on Connectivism

Now I have found the marking scheme for this CCK08 course. I am wondering how to consider the situation. I feel myself as a young Canadian university student Someone said in Moodle (was it Stephen after forcing us..) that this course is NOT ordinary and so we dare to say what we want and unsubscribe if we want. But after reading those markinf schemes – and knowing that Sia have recieved an assessment of paper 1 – I am just wondering.

Does it make sense to assess all participants in similar schemes? Why? I never do so in my online courses to adults, I write feedback individually. I have worked in different universities more than 30 years, how should I become assessed and by whom? I had my conversation with my boss last week (so called developmental discussion) and he accepted my own assessment about goals and achievements. This is how I see myself:

I want to be an online teacher of high quality and I see that I have to understand human learning deeply. I have to be able to work in networks because I cannot be an expert alone. I have to develop my online pedagogy all the time. How could I assess this all?

The only simple criteria for me is to use English; I am doing it. But it is not interesting at Canadian university which uses English all the time. The other area in which I see empowerment in myself is online pedagogy. i have listened both Stephen’s and George’s analyses about this course and I could have done the same myself (I mean it).

I have got an experience about networking and some good presentations of it. I must have learned something and I have become more conscious of the necessity of networking. And I know how difficult it is to network in this course when you come from Finland, this is an important experience. Who regulates the world clock, for instance?

But how about learning? I do not have any feeling of proceeding, not yet. I like Lisa Lane’s picture 18.9. where the new part is “web-based activity makes the most sense through the connectivist lens” . I could not write my position on connectivism in the way required, I gathered all possible associations about learning. I am asking about connections between them: this is my second beginning in this course.

I am not sure if I use concept maps or APA citations and I am not sure how I continue here but I will continue studying human learning – I am sure about it.

It is Friday evening and I am too tired to think, so I play with pictures. I just read what Jorgen told about his feelings and it was in Daily, too: Feelings go up and down. It is analogical to life in blogoshere. Here is a picture of visitors in this blog ( thanks to Google Analytics).

You can see the influence of Daily: when this blog was mentioned there, visitors came to see this. After second mention begun Edublogs maintenance problem and lasted one week, there is a day with zero visitor. I could not log in myself or even see the blog. Motivation disappeared. Now all is working again and here are some visitors in a day.

Post named “I need blog friends” has got most readers, 138 if I remember right. Anyway 166 visitors is a big number – never happened in my blog written in Finnish. Showing numbers are 361 and 722 (two pages/visit).

How about the map? We have discussed that there is nobody from Africa: but I have had one visitor from South Africa. After Finland, my country, comes USA 57, Canada 23, Italy 19, Australia 19, UK 18 and then less, Ireland 9 and so on. Number of different countries is 29. Here comes the map:

And so what? I don’t know, I am just playing. Jorgen is near, he lives in Denmark (I hope that I remember rightly).

France is quite empty, and Sweden. But Australia is green. Do we have more students from USA than from Canada?  or why is the number of visitors higher from USA – you are travelling around?  Perhaps I feel lonelyness and that’s why I have to put myself = my blog on the map. So I can be sure that I still exist.

Do you follow your blogs with google Analytics? Does it make sense?

Should I write something .. I am asking myself, my motivation isn’t clear just now. The theme of this week is instructional design and it is something I have been working last 20 years. Periods then or stages or what ever they are:

1988 I began in my current workplace and it was ‘time of process oriented’ curriculum – very few people understood the idea .. but now it is true. Ok then some said that we turned to project-oriented curriculum, it meant that students had authentic projects. All these years we have worked learner-centred, developed self assesment, portfolios and so on. Then it became time of big organisations in Finland ..and we are part of  byrocracy. We try to save our beautiful ideas inpite of all the rules. We are very tough, we stay optimistic.

Today I have studied in this course. I liked Grainne Conole articles ( Isuppose both were her or her teams). It is good to recognise that we have tools that align good pedagogy. It makes me happy. The only problem is that I cannot use those good tools, I have to use those that the big organisation gives me, I cannot bother my students to use open free tools, it is too difficult. Oh I sound cynical today, but I am not. Remember : I had a cloud in my first blog post

Earlier I had listened Georges’ 23 minutes lecture 2-3 times. It got me think about context, I didn’t tell that we have contextual curriculum, really we have.  And I offer space for students’ learning in all my courses. Pattening, wayfinding, sensemakig – that is the way. It is easy to agree with George.

I could’nt open Conole session (and Manitoba didn’t open yeaterday) , but I repeated Couros session which dealt with open teaching, too. Second listening means that I can follow better and slides help a lot. And it was interesting to listen last night’s Ellumination, it opened – I felt myself a spy from Europe when you talked Canadian jokes. Culturally rich course – but the pedagogical thought are all the same and it is nice.

So: last 2o years I have lived in the middle of “world is changing very fast” talk, so what? Why all this talk? Is there somebody who doesn’t know it, yet, or to whom do we speak? Action is better that talking, so:

I should ask: How could I better collaborate with my students in order to …. what? I hope it is next week’s theme Teaching and learning culture has developed in described direction ( I mean CCK08) and it is good to change experiences of succesful pilots. You can see our curriculum for international group in English here

I have twice listened to Stephens skype presentation 12.10. (the link was in Daily) – he describes this course: openly planned, open content and open delivery. I am an online teacher myself and I am keen on these questions. Perhaps I learn here mostly about online teaching – facilitating.

This course illustrates connectivism: its principles have to live here, we should see them, enjoy them.

• Diversity is great and it is accepted and supported.
• Autonomy is supported or demanded: self direction have to practice again and again, it’s not easy.
• Openness is true
• Emergency of knowledge is happening. We live in it and try to grasp opportunities. Not easy, not at all.

Stephen told his listeners ( where they in Germany or.. it doesn’t matter) that we have settled down and found our places and we are not so worried anymore. But perhaps worrying goes deeper in this phase:

For instance I am asking myself that do I ever understand “network knowledge ” – distributed knowledge???

When I began this post I imagined to plan an open assessment to my own learning / development during this course, but now I seems too far – a dream… if I do not comprehend the basics, how could I assess any development?

Time will tell. And perhaps you?

My expectations about this theme were not high: I thought it is only ‘concept play’ to say network means all good and groups are ‘only groups’. Now I have been sitting 4-5 hours with my computer reading and listening the presentations of this week in CCK08. This resonates again, really. I met many thoughts of my one and learnt a lot new ones.

Stephen said: “People don’t follow, they don’t do what they’re told in a network. They interact. They make their own decisions, but not completely independently all on their own, not all by their lonesome. They interact with other people. But they make their own decisions.” That is what I love and what is necessary to me, feel free. And it happens in voluntary networks, for instance here.

Groups were defined as distributive: money, information, power, everything flows from the center, an authority, and it’s distributed through the members. OK: that the world were we must live everyday. I escape it to CCK08 course I used to say to my colleagues that computer (internet) includes all, the whole world and I am free when using it.

Very interesting was the discussion about reason and passion/ emotion. A copy from Stephen again: “To put it most simply, groups are based on passion while networks are based on reason. Groups meet our need to belong and to survive, while networks meet our need to connect and learn and to know. In a group, passion drowns out reason, in a network, reason drowns out passion.”

Now I agreed with George: it is not so simple. There are not different people participating in groups and networks. They are the same, people do not change quickly or are not only reason-led or emotion-led, they are using both. In worklife I often hope that people were more reason-led and behave like adults, but: if you want to create something new, use must find your passion.

Stephen: “But in a network, the knowledge is emergent. The knowledge is not in any given individual, but it’s a property of the network as a whole. Consequently, it’s a knowledge that cannot, does not, exist in any individual, but only in the network as a whole. It’s emergent. It’s more complex in the sense that it is able to capture and describe phenomena that are not simple like cause and effect, but complex like the nature of societies or the nature of the weather.” Ownerhip of learning or knowledge is something I have to consider further.

How can we balance the emotional need for the group and the reason for the individual. Is it enough to simply be aware of the potential tyranny in groups? I guess that’s all we can achieve - awareness. – Someone asked this wise question in a comment and I agree with him: this is network knowledge.

 I try to import my memories from last weekend: some fragmented thoughts  – this is not worth reading to others but important for myself:

 my-position-on-connectivism

I couldn’t log in or even see edublogs during this week – perhaps it was a good break, I am very busy at work. Next week gives me time, we have so called ‘autumn holiday’ …

I was too tired yesterday to participate the Ellumination session about “this course, what is happening”, but I tried to listen to it a day after: voice is going around and I couldn’t follow but I saw the chat writings. I am very Interested in the topic because Iam an online teacher myself. It is easy to me to follow what is happening (and I know that I can’t follow everything, no need to it).

I suppose that the Elluminate discussion was dealing with the great change in teaching culture (learning is not changing as much as teaching). Some people still wait for rules and guidance and more moderators or facilitators. They don’t like chaos feelings. Some say that “this is not chaos, I am learning (Sia) and forwards: learnings is chaos, learning is making order to chaos. The forums are self-moderating by a group of learners controlling their learning. This is an exciting adventure.

Do we have assessment methods for our learning? – that was asked.  I have to think about it, because I am working in Adult Teacher Education and we have developed a lot of self assessment inquiries. How to become conscious about your thinking and acting: that is the question. It is not only cognitions or social behavior, it goes deeper in human mind.  I take the challenge to find self assessment methods (not scales ..?)

I agree with people who wanted “three more hours per day “or “six hours” or more. “I definetly feel like a fish” – but I want to analyse the water around. “Serendipity is good!” Let’s go on enjoying this course. Good night, Europe!