ANT links

Behind blogging your MOOC? Don't be bashful ~ just jump in anywhere.

ANT... for Actor Network Theory. I look at the acronym and think, "not another learning theory!" NALT. I could feel my eyeballs starting to roll back in their sockets, just like the reaction to analytics, just as confusing but not as useful. Persistently (and sometimes perversely) self-regulated learner that I am, off I went looking for more about ANT. See cross-disciplinary selection below, faves highlighted.

• LaaN vs Actor Network Theory
• Space and Culture book review (actor network theory and urban studies)
• Presentation on Actor Network Theory (UCB, sociology and CS)
• Actor Network Theory (ANT), from "Thoughts, writing & snippets" blog 
• Actor Network Theory in Plain English [video]
• Network theories for technology-enabled learning and social change: Connectivism and actor network theory (pdf)
• When all that is theory melts into (hot) air (pdf)
• actor-network theory and a composition program
• Why did actor network theory run out of steam?

I'm not the only one wondering "why ANT?" My mind went on a different track to get to my own "ANT,OK" moment, taking me through a variety of familiar disciplines, several I would not have thought to ANT up. Making connections, get it. 

Reading that Greimas influenced LaTour made yet another connection, a major aha moment at that to connect or at least associate the Greimas Schema as a structural tool for viewing schematics of linked networks. Sometime back, I was trying to do the same for urban chaos as expressed in literature. I used the schematic to organize the jumble of seemingly contradictory metaphors for the city across multiple literatures (a comparatist thing) from earliest literatures through contemporary cinema, from the Aeneid to Bladerunner. Familiar chaos... 

Semiotics, semantics, semantic web, metaphors and more.

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Book Review: Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age

Although not immediately relevant to specific topics, assignments, etc on any MOOC, massive or modest, that I am currently following (albeit in a distracted, scattered fashion), this review and its subject is relevant ~ highly "connectible" ~ to data, multiliteracies, connectivism, networks (virtual and IRL). 

Popular culture is another rich source of data about cognition, learning, social behavior, crowdsourcing and networking. Connectivism on the hoof. 

More on social media theorist Clay Shirky in his own write:

• writings about the internet
• here comes everybody (2008 blog about book of same title)
• blog
• TED profile
• "Does the Internet make you smarter?" ~ WSJ review of Cognitive Surplus

reviewed by Nabeel Ahmad — January 05, 2011

Title: Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age
Author(s): Clay Shirky
Publisher: Penguin,
ISBN: 1594202532, Pages: 256, Year: 2010
Search for book at Amazon.com

Citizens across the world watch an average of 20 hours of television per week, adding up to trillions of hours each year. The interest in this fact is not that we have this free time – or Cognitive Surplus, as author Clay Shirky describes – but how we choose to expend our most valuable resource. Shirky argues that our creativity and willingness to share in this connected world – the book’s subtitle, even on a miniscule level and especially through the Internet, can have great impact. Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age succeeds in getting us to think about how we can better understand this phenomenon by dissecting numerous examples and threading them together into a smoothly read piece.

Doing (multiple) MOOCs + Multiliteracies

I am currently registered in and trying to follow one online workshop and two MOOCs. Vance Stevens, who is conducting the online workshop, (TESOL's EVO or Electronic Village Online Multiliteracies , responded that he was considering designating Multiliteracies a MOOC or Miniscule Open Online Course. Comparing the courses, finding connections, is as much my goal and ongoing blog topic as surviving the experience without my head exploding. 

All three are populated with repeaters. The light finally went on. Since these are networks are part of my immediate (maybe longterm) learning network, I should draw on them, ask who else is in multiple open courses and how they handle them, navigate the chaos. What strategies, tools, practices, tips can they (YOU) share?  

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 Hi there ~ I know a number of evomlit-ers (or however we designate ourselves) are taking one or more concurrent MOOCs, in addition to Multiliteracies?

I've been wondering: