Saturday, October 29, 2011

at long last: hello #multiliteracies, #POTcert11, #CMC11 & #change11

Finally! Today is the day I break the block, stop procrastinating and MOOC blog. So long, too much territory to cover.  I won't even try. Even so, it is still long enough to invite procrastination. 



I started impressions in 750words, an online writing application to develop the habit of daily writing. The purpose is just to write, get started writing and keep writing, with no other purpose ~ certainly not create blog posts, create documents, answer mail and so on, but the morning word dump gets me started.

Quick take on current state of my mooc activity at this point: if I had a compelling reason (i.e. credit, professional development, to add to CV) to or cared about optimum keeping up, I'd be in a drowning panic. I'm not though. Each mooc is a different gem, a view through a different lens that I'd rather not set aside in order to meet recommendations set by someone else.

Sure, I'd like to be getting more done but this is not all I am doing, not even all I am doing online. Try six+ blogs, four Facebook pages (in addition to profile and a number of groups), a bulging feed reader (even the filters have filters), four Scoop.it pages, three Pinterest boards, four Twitter lines (unsuccessfully trying to hand off local farmers market one), a NetVibes aggregation page and a static web page. No surprise that neither of the last get enough maintenance time. Moocs enrich and inform the lot.

That aside why am here? Orient, declare, network, cluster, focus and all that jazz?

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Complexity, self-organization, #Change11 etc


 Even if not specifically designated as such, thoughts on navigating chaos, an ongoing Multiliteracies consideration, shine through. Besides relevance, this sharing-as-post gives me the opportunity to a) post by email to posterous; b) autopost to CLW; c) get in the habit of using Diggo features; d) comply with MOOC tool building mission, even modest tools with less bling and glitz (and thankfully requiring less bandwidth); e) participate; f) contribute, however modestly, to artifact creation; g) and surely more

Quotes:

Complexity, self-organization, and #Change11: reactions to Siemen's presentation on online courses - michael sean gallagher

    • presentation from George Siemens on Self-Organization in Online Courses (embedded below) that addressed some aspects of learning complexity (through the context of a MOOC)
      • we need to sift through the chaos to create signal, perhaps even a pattern language
        • I liken this process to language itself and the alphabet. The alphabet developed to take a series of meanings and weld it to one symbol (a process more pronounced in Chinese and ancient Egyptian perhaps) that everyone might recognize and accept.
          • It reduces the complexity, yes, but more importantly it provides a starting point for a common process. Without it, we would be lost in theory. 
            • The same holds for learning to some degree. We look for structure, but if none exists on sight, we combine things until some structure emerges. That structure can be represented in a single symbol, but its foundation might shift as new understanding emerges. Occasionally, there is need to ditch the symbols or invent a new one altogether as emerging learning dictates. That is a healthy and complicated process. The MOOC captures this process a bit and adheres to an open structure to allow pattern language to emerge, a shared vocabulary, a knowledge construct (however ephemeral).
              • Feedback as friction as forces interact. A spark, a collision, waste, and occasionally a nova. A big (learning) bang. This makes me think a learner's responsibility (among many others) is to be open to this collision of actors, agents, feedback, waste, noise, and then, ideally, pattern, understanding. The only way out is through.
                • Disturbing- an ontological disturbance, an unknown, an uncanny sense of veering through uncharted, potentially treacherous waters. It is a good place to be as a learner, but it requires a strength and confidence that only an empowered learner could put forth. But in that disturbance, that mess, there is the friction, that meat-grinder of understanding.
                  • This is learning as curiosity and sometimes it can be quite scary. 
                    • Often we seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge (anyone subjected to my endless banal history lessons will understand this), but I do believe that most learning is action oriented. To learn not only to get a job, to live in a world, to subsist, but rather for acting as best as we can. For improvement, for progress, for self-actualization.
                      • self-actualization (the development of self) can only be realized through sharing, group interaction
                        • disaggregated, emotive, functional machine of interaction. One that has to be tinkered with constantly. 

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