Heli on Connectivism

Here is a copy of what is asked to write at the end of CCK08:

“Your final presentation can be handled in a variety of formats: podcast, slidecast, Articulate presentation, video recording, Second Life presentation, or, if your feeling creative, an approach of your choosing. The final project should answer questions such as: What is the quality of my learning networks: diversity, depth, how connected am I? How has this course influence my view of the process of learning? What types of questions are still outstanding? How can you incorporate connectivist principles in your design and delivery of learning?”

Do I agree with this assigment? Perhaps. My first thought was to follow some of my cources (is there any connectivism) but I believe it’s more useful to follow myself, it is harder to change myself and my networks.

Quality of my networks: diversity, depth, how connected I am? Excellent question, can I see any development ? A  year ago I began a blog which aimed to network online teachers in Finland. Now I have a community around it, most with weak ties. Anyway, I have seen that network matters, it is necessary. We can support and motivate each other.. development is so slow that if you are alone you can’t always believe in it.

During CCK08 I have seen all this happen in a global level and I have enjoyed it. Affordances have been open but often neglected when I have been very busy in my work, I couldn’t change the situtation. And I am shy, I am not a talkative person even in using my mother tongue and this is my first blog in English. I know i cannot network globally in Finnish All happenings have taught me. I have enjoyed following this large open online course, social expectations and reactions. Very much depends on expectations: if you come to compete and show your own compentences , you can only get something inside these boundaries. If you come to learn with others and from others, so you get it.

I found many new interesting blogs every time I was seeking for .. and if I had given comments to others i had got more, but I have got enough for sense making or meaning making ( in my blogging).

Perhaps I plan a slideshare with photos or other pictures. I admire Irmeli´s presentation and Keith’s photo about this course. Photos speak: the bridge in fog is my favorite.

The quality of my networks is an open question even to myself. I cannot live without networks but very few people are near me or deeply meaningful in my life and my development. If i were more open myself, could I have more deep connections? I don’t know. The quantity is no answer, it’s quality that matters.

Some day I’ll continue to last 2 questions and all new ones that arise when writing these last blog posts in this course.

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?

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.

Three weeks have gone and I want to write somethig about my studies. I just listened to the Friday Discussion and almost could follow it This is a good way to practice my ability to use English. Perhaps it is my point during these weeks. I know the concepts and I can follow discussions.

It is a great/ enormous job to integrate these studies to my earlier knowings. Something will happen until 3 months – has something happened already? I am not sure. I am an experienced teacher an I can easily follow tht stucture and possibilities of this course. I can choose and I know that it is Me who have to choose, not facilitators. The responsibility is all mine. We have been brought together for studying. Course is stuctured but it is flexible enough. This is a great challenge and has immersed me in a way that astonishes.

I can also follow some differences between George and Stephen and I learn from both of them. I had seen the difference in the point  ”individual – system” before the discussion. Our facilitators are a good model for discussion  without changing opinion to the same direction. Diversity is OK. There is enormous diversity in CCK08 students, its is not possible to follow but it is a source of learning. I enjoy it (if only I could express myself in English…) .

My focus is in learning: what is happenig in human learning? Networked learning is something that I have to know and explore more. Knowing is distributed but it is still an individual who has the brain and the ability to learn. Is there any shared processes, really. I have a shared life process with my husband and a shared process to develope work with one or two or three people. We influence each other. I can see roles and perhaps levels but the process is dynamic and it is hard to capture – and why should I? It is living, isn’t it?

Today I learned that collaboration is not a good concept, its doesn’t say much. Until this day I considered it as a beautiful concept, suitable to many contexts (oh, it is only that: suitable).

We have been asked to write about our position on connectivism: it is just what I have to do. Wise facilitators we have - I agree with this assigment.  I have to make a map or presentation of my way in  order to participate and give something to somebody during this course. I am/feel  lucky to be here!

Today I have spent time in reading CCK08 recent blog posts and I have linked some of blogs in my blogroll. I must have a home here, go to other rooms without Daily or Moodle. If someone doesn’t want to stay in my blogroll, so let me know and I’ll take you off. I selected the blogs that I felt that … blogs were written by living persons that I would like when meeting them. You told honestly about your thoughts and experiences and I appreciate it.

There was still another lady without name, so I link her here (so I don’t forget her).

The theme of this week is networking – and I am doing it, I suppose? Step by step…