I am an old fashioned letter writer

…yet another MOOC…this one about writing, so I'm putting CWL back in harness to post assignments and reflections. The course is English Composition I: Achieving Expertise, from Duke and on Coursera. It may seem like an odd choice for someone who has taught FY comp: since I have already blogged recommending it to my ESL self-paced study group and on Facebook to local GED students (albeit both with qualifications), I should check it out personally ~ and definitely before recommending it further or adding it to my GED and Independent Learning pages on Scoop.it. 


The first writing activity, "I am a Writer," is a "brief essay (~300 words) in which you introduce yourself as a writer to your classmates and instructor. How would you describe yourself as a writer? What are some of your most memorable experiences with writing? Please draw on your experiences with writing and refer directly to some of these as you introduce yourself as a writer. After you have written and posted your essay, please read and respond to two or three of your classmates' postings." Mine (also here on the course Forum) follows:

A “letter writer” long before the internet, I penned and snailed hand written letters in another lifetime. I come from generations of inveterate letter writers. That shapes my earliest writing memories. Learning languages, I would start writing letters in the new language as soon as I had a handful of words to rub together. I still am one: same genre, different medium. 

Observations about learning, knowledge and technology

Recent #MOOC & #PLE research from Rita Kop: publications on Massive Open Online Courses and Personal Learning Environments. 


Rita (ur-moocquette or mooc wonkette? Maybe both...) writes...

People interested in Massive Open Online Courses will probably be aware of the research by Helene Fournier and me on Personal Learning Environments and MOOCs. We carried out research in the MOOC PLENK2010 (The MOOC Personal Learning Environments Networks and Knowledge that was held in the fall of 2010). The data collected on this distributed course with 1641 participants has been massive as well. Its analysis has kept us and some fellow researchers busy over the past year. The research has resulted in a number of publications and I thought it might be useful to post links to all of our journal articles, conference papers and presentations that were published in relation to PLEs and MOOCs in one space. Each publication looks at the data from a different perspective, eg, requirements in a PLE, self-directed learning, learner support, creativity.

Read the rest at Observations about learning, knowledge and technology: Research publications on Massive Open Online Courses and Personal Learning Environments (and save the links)

'via Blog this'

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?

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. 

This message was sent to you by Vanessa Vaile via Diigo

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Basic Blogging, #potcert11

Explaining how to get started blogging was on my mind before this course started: a friend asked for help with basics. I assumed (and we all know the cliché about how that breaks down) everybody taking the class would already be a blogger. So I thought, why not revise and repurpose for the class? Too basic, just ignore it: filtering practice.

Blogging is not that different from writing email. The compose screens are very similar. Instead of emailing to designated addressees, you publish - send it into cyberspace. A number of blogging platform offer post by email, making blogging even more like email. Compose in your email program and save in drafts. Alternately, you can compose in a word processing program and then copy paste into the message screen. Use WordPad and save to rtf because Word has too much hidden garbage code that may not transfer well 

Explanatory stuff + links below the fold. Looking over a few blogs about teaching and in your subject area will help you get a feel for blogging and the possibilities. Best advice: just do and figure out the details as you go along. Ask questions: anyone you know who blogs is part of your learning network.

Comparing MOOCs

~ no two alike, about how they evolved and extending the comparison / discussion to large open courses such as MIT’s OpenCourseWare and Stanford’s Massive AI Course, by Michael Atkisson at Ways of Knowing, briefly excerpted with exhortations to click through and read the entire piece + bibliography. Size matters but is not everything, nor, according to some, is it even the most important element, which might (my best guess) be interactive, distributed networks operating according to connectivist principles. I've been told before by mooc-urus that I was wrong so could be again.

What is a MOOC?

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are large-scale online courses (in the thousands of participants) where an expert or group of experts from a particular field both 1. create the large draw to the course, and 2. facilitate a multi-week series of interactive lectures and discussion forms on critical issues from that field. Participants are expected to self-organize, to share and discuss the course material, and to create and publish new artifacts that represent their learning. Additionally, MOOC participation is recorded and published openly so that those who come upon it later may follow peripherally.

Where did MOOCs Come From?

This is best answered in the words of David Cormier and George Siemens,

“The term was coined in response to Siemens and Downes’s 2008 “Connectivism and Connective Knowledge” course. An initial group of twenty-five participants registered and paid to take the course for credit. The course was then opened up for other learners to participate: course lectures, discussion forums, and weekly online sessions were made available to nonregistered learners. This second group of learners–those in The Open Course who wanted to participate but weren’t interested in course credit–numbered over 2,300. The addition of these learners significantly enhanced the course experience, since additional conversations and readings extended the contributions of the instructors.” (2010, p. 32).

Since 2008, several other MOOCs have developed....

What is a MOOC Experience?

The scale of interaction among MOOC participants is like that of massively multiplayer online games, such as World of Warcraft, but where as in the gaming environment large numbers of people come together online to play, self-organize, develop skill, strategize as a group, and execute strategies, MOOCs, on the other hand, facilitate learning about or the development of a particular knowledge domain at a participation scale ripe for diversity....Other ways to experience a MOOC are to lurk or to follow the course after-the-fact.... there were lots of ways to participate... I thought it was remarkable how much I felt that I was there in the class....felt immersed through my after-the-fact peripheral participation.

Is MIT’s OpenCourseWare a MOOC?

The short answer is no. I again point to Cormier and Siemens:

“In an open course, participants engage at different levels of the educator’s practice, whether that be helping to develop a course or participating in the live action of the course itself. This is distinctly different from the idea of open in the open content movement, where open is used in the sense of being free from the intellectual property stipulations that restrict the use and reuse of content” (2010, p. 32).

Though MIT’s OpenCourseWare is revolutionary, making content publicly available is not enough because it only focuses on the content.... MOOCs seem to differ from Stanford’s classes in these principle ways 


(now read the entire piece online, bookmark it, save the bibliography)

Into the #MOOC again

... but you never enter the same MOOC twice.

Adding the blog right off as part of the enrollment process put the feed right out there. Will that encourage regular blogging or blogger's block?

My own MOOC-blogging reticence puzzles me. I run a gang of blogs and generally post to about three a day. That's not counting affiliated twitter accounts and Facebook page. In other words, I've danced at this party plenty of time before, in front of both friends and strangers, so why be shy now? Maybe regular assignments are what I need ~ just like setting realistic blogging goals as New Year's resolutions.

Here I am, working my way through the POT list:

• already in the FB group
•  just filled out form
• waiting for password to add feed
• already in Diigo but need to join mccpot group
• finish reading syllabus (e.g. practice what we preach)
• writing that 1st blog post right now
• and then the Howdy Y'all blog post 
• on FB too

I am particularly pleased to have learned how to create a feed just for a single tag or label. Good news for a schizo multiple strand blog like this one. Although I've used this blog for a number of online workshops or courses with blog requirements, that is not it's primary purpose, especially between times. It started out being about the intersection of computers and the internet with teaching language/s and writing. Multiliteracies didn't take it OT, but MOOCs about teaching online have been a stretch. Both functions have suffered as a result. From the sidebar:

ABOUT ~ Writing includes email, blogs, wikis, genres less bound to but still involving computers. Web 2.0 collaboration, interaction, feedback, tech tools and apps that enhance the writing process. The blog started as part of an online workshop about teaching writing, with ESL instructors the intended audience, but has now gone beyond that and other boundaries. What happens to language when writing and computers collide? Or writing when language and computers meet up?

 Maybe I should write separate learning objective (per previous post) for each MOOC, including past ones with self-evaluation (eek). Learning objective should keep writing component in mind. I still intend to get to the Digital Divide too.

Changing HigherEd one MOOC at a time

The links + excerpts below, although not about MOOCs relate to them and especially #EduMOOC Week 8. They are reactions to higher education disruptions and changes from various (and conflicting) perspectives on the future topography of higher ed. I recall, perhaps imperfectly, a comment by Stephen Downes on disaggregating courses and credits as the only way to keep learning open and certification available. That made sense to me, even though I immediately recognized the authority (and thus power) to bestow credits as a line in the sand issue not easily resolved. 

I was not wrong. Judging by the academic blogosphere's reaction to Stanford's open course experiment, WGU encroachments, charter universities and other tech transgressions, I may even have underestimated the reaction.  

Resistance to technological change does not fuel the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education and supporting blog Restructuring Public Hi Ed directly. However, it plays a major role as threat to the campaign's preservationist stance and stated purpose of educators having a voice in higher education changes. My own experience tells me they could have a voice in MOOCs and learn more about the unknown by listening to others with an open mind and the free exchange of ideas across the full spectrum of higher ed stakeholders. Nothing runs counter to the Campaign's basic principles.  

In the following collection of reactions and opinions, Stanford's "is it a MOOC or isn't it," moderately massive but not open online courses (i.e. IT courses at SFSU) already being taught online, and Western Governors University are neither MOOCs nor representative of their connectivist foundations. MOOCs (and distributed networks) could be the solution to problems (e.g. authentic interaction) the others still present. 

How then would a judicious application of MOOC and connectivism affect each of the following cases? How would it address concerns for the profession voiced by educators? 

More Online Teacher-training opportunities

In addition to the eduMOOC2011 (Massive Open Online Course) starting June 27 and recently blogged ("Online Learning Today... and Tomorrow") on Computers, Language, Writing:

Would You Take A Free Online Ed Tech Workshop This Summer?

via Emerging Education Technology by K. Walsh on 6/19/11

Interested? Which of these topics and time-frames would you prefer? I'd like to offer a free online workshop for teachers (and anyone else who is interested) this summer. I'm planning on...
[Please click on the post title to continue reading the full post]

Note: most of the materials in both courses can be accessed asynchronously and without a high speed connects. EduMOOC2011 audio files and asynchronous live sessions will be archived for later listening/viewing

belated

Indeed, almost a month between posts, of listening and reading more than "speaking" (CCK11 on Facebook excepted). There's a lesson there. There's always a lesson somewhere, everywhere ~ up to us to make connections, analyze the information, draw and apply conclusions, taking note but not worrying overmuch when conclusions don't match those of cohorts or even guides. Information, however, should not ramble too far off the reservation. Presumably, we are all working with the same or at least similar information. Conclusions will vary but, adjusted for purpose, perspective and other parameters, should not be wildly inconsistent.

Translated that means (among other things), briefly, not all of us are here for the same purposes and hence will not take away same resources, not use MOOC, analytics and connectivism lessons or data for the same purposes. My interests are not the same as administrators or IT managers. Theirs are not the same as mine. They may not even the be same as most teaching co-participants. None of the preceding takes listening to, following coversations, reading, sifting ideas and sharing resources off the table.

image from a connectivism wiki

Remember the admonition: follow according to your focus/interests and take what you can use. Share and collaborate with all, regardless of their focus. It's a network, not a group; networked, not hierarchical.

 

So where have I been coming from (not to mention where headed)? I am not an administrator, manager, IT designer. Retired, I am not even a full time educator any more. I remain a learner with PLN, a volunteer, an activist, a community networker and interested in both education and online learning as they applies to all of the preceding. 

And what am I doing with, how do I hope/intend/plan to use, all this? Can't say for sure just yet but creating public self-regulated learning programs for open community access is part of it. This grows out of community blogging and volunteer teaching ESL online. It is as nourished by IRL experiences and networks as it is by the online. 

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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What is Technological Literacy?

Technological literacy is the starting point. No literacy, no meaningful access to technology. Online learners avoid logging into LMS, postpone assignments. When they do finally log in, the time logged in LMS does not reflect productivity. The absence of technological literacy skews learning analytics, shrinks the effectiveness of computer mediated learning and connectivity, not unlike how gaps in print literacy affect learning. Technological literacy is also as much a mindset and way of thinking as a skill set. The critical thinking aspect is indispensable to connectivism. 

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GENERAL

Technological literacy is the ability to understand and evaluate technology. It complements technological competency, which is the ability to create, repair, or operate specific technologies, commonly computers. 

EDUCATION

Technological Literacy: Comprehension of technological innovation and the impact of technology on society -- may include the ability to select and use specific innovations appropriate to one's interests and needs. 

The U.S. Department of Education (1996) defines technology literacy as "computer skills and the ability to use computers and other technology to improve learning, productivity, and performance." It lists four goals related to technology literacy that ensure all students and teachers have equitable access to and effective use of technology.

• Expanding the Definition of Technological Literacy in Schools, James Fanning, 
• Technological Literacy , Michael E Wonacott in Eric Digests, 2001, and Digest No. 233 in pdf format  
• Technological Literacy Reconsidered, JTE, Volume 4, Number 2, Spring 1993 

ENGINEERING from the National Academy of Engineering (NAE): 

One useful way to think about technological literacy is as a component of the more general, or "cultural," literacy popularized by educational theorist E.D. Hirsch, Jr. Hirsch pointed out that literate people in every society and every culture share a body of knowledge that enables them to communicate with each other and make sense of the world around them.

What a literate person knows will vary from society to society and from era to era; so there is no absolute definition of literacy. In the early twenty-first century, however, cultural literacy must have a large technological component.

Technological literacy is a much richer concept than computer literacy, although the two are often confused. Technological literacy can be thought of a comprising three interrelated dimensions that help describe the characteristics of a technologically literate person.

Three dimensions of technological literacy 

Technological literacy encompasses three interdependent dimensions:

(1) knowledge;

(2) ways of thinking and acting; and

(3) capabilities.

 

These dimensions can be placed along a continuum-from low to high, poorly developed to well developed, limited to extensive. 

Every individual has a unique combination of knowledge, ways of thinking and acting, and capabilities that will change over time with education and life experience. The characteristics of a technologically literate person can be described along these dimensions. 

Different job and life circumstances require different levels and types of literacy. For example, a state legislator involved in a debate about the merits of constructing new power plants to meet future electricity demand ought to understand at a fairly sophisticated level the technological concepts of trade-offs, constraints, and systems. He or she must also understand enough details about power generation to sort through conflicting claims by utility companies, environmental lobbyists, and other stakeholder groups. The average consumer pondering the purchase of a new digital television may be well served by a more basic understanding of the technology - for example, the differences between digital and analog signals - and a smaller set of critical thinking skills.

In practice, it is impossible to separate the dimensions from one another. It is hard to imagine a person with technological capability who does not also know something about the workings of technology, or a person who can think critically about a technological issue who does not also have some knowledge of technology and science. So, although the three-dimensional framework about technological literacy can be helpful in thinking and talking, it is important to remember these dimensions are arbitrary divisions.

Characteristics of a Technologically Literate Person 

A technologically literate person has knowledge of technology and is capable of using it effectively to accomplish various tasks. He or she can think critically about technological issues and acts accordingly. Technological literacy can be visualized in three dimensions.

 

1. Knowledge
A technologically literate person:

• Recognizes the pervasiveness of technology in everyday life. Understands basic engineering concepts and terms, such as systems, constraints, and trade-offs.Is familiar with the nature and limitations of the engineering design process. 
• Knows some of the ways technology shapes human history and people shape technology. Knows that all technologies entail risk, some that can be anticipated and some that cannot. 
• Appreciates that the development and use of technology involve trade-offs and a balance of costs and benefits. Understands that technology reflects the values and culture of society.

Compare your Tech Savvy with those who participated in a Gallup poll on technological literacy, 

2. Ways of Thinking and Acting

• Asks pertinent questions, of self and others, regarding the benefits and risks of technologies. 
• Seeks information about new technologies.
• Participates, when appropriate, in decisions about the development and use of technology.

3. Capabilities

• Has a range of hands-on skills, such as using a computer for word processing and surfing the Internet and operating a variety of home and office appliances. 
• Can identify and fix simple mechanical or technological problems at home or work. 
• Can apply basic mathematical concepts related to probability, scale, and estimation to make informed judgments about technological risks and benefits.

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What is Technological Literacy? via Everyone's Blog Posts on Multiliteracies by Vanessa Vaile on 1/16/11, inspired by Vasi's forum question...

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A PLN Blueprint in 5 parts

The 2011 MOOC (Massive Online Open Course) season is upon us. This time I'm enrolled in two in addition to Multitliteracies, aka #evomlit, at EVO (Electronic Village Online, Tesol's annual pre-conference). Evomlit is not a MOOC (in massive sense) but is both open and online. They are all also free and self-paced.

With these courses comes PLN-OCD. Following (or actively participating in) MOOCs (aka "mooking about") is saturated with PLNs. The the activities seem inextricably intertwined. Workshops still spend time defining and describing PLNs, differentiating them from PLE's. Something "meta" is definitely meta going on here. 

Tom Whitby blogs on PLNs, clarifying what should have been clearer from the outset, 

This was one of my early posts explaining how I became involved in Social Media and the idea of a Personal Learning Network.It seems to be a topic that needs to be continually explained because of the growing number of educators who continue to enter the world of social media for educators. 

Part 1
One of today’s educational buzzwords, or fad terms is the PLN.  For my purposes it stands for Personal Learning Network. Others call it a Professional Learning Network or Community or even Environment. That would be PLN, PLN, PLC, or PLE. Many educators today are involved understanding and developing their own PLN’s. Everyone has one, and each is different and as unique as a fingerprint. Some employ technology, and others dwell in faculty rooms across the country and around the world.

more literacies, networks, knowledge, etc

I'm doubling up on PLN related open / online courses. Too tired to come up with a name both right and clever. Do enough and I may even get a handle on them - if only on the acronyms. 

Platforms are another issue. I remember D2L from when it was a study skills and how to learn site. LMS (Learning Management Systems) are becoming increasingly complex and admin oriented, more about micromanagement and surveillance. I first used WebCT (if memory serves) around 2001 or 2002, creating and loading most of my own course materials, all of which went into the belly of the beast. Course back-ups only opened in WebCT through the university account. You leave, your course material stays. 

Now the trend is for colleges and universities to subscribe to WebCT pre-loaded with course materials as well as automatically upgraded, adding (imo fake) "social media" features. Why would an informed student want to keep a private personal blog shared with not just instructor and classmates but sysadmin to boot?


LMS can be seriously clunky, some more than others. The more intrusive, the clunkier. UC Davis' course listserv did everything I needed, and the Tech in Teaching program was developing a nimble LMS DTA or Distance Teaching Assistant, designed for flexibility and customization. Now they've gone to one of the commercial systems.

I still think online and hybrid classes could run just fine on a collection of free applications, e.g. a blog, a web based/archived email group, microblogging for short notices, document sharing, chat for office hours. That opinion also has more than a little to do with edu punk leanings, which is why I'm giving all this a spin, including the PLN/PLE. Forget e-portfolios though. No more evaluations, which is what that particular artifact is for. I prefer the network approach because it can allow weaving in community, academic advocacy, learning materials (whether for local or global users).

My current, sort of related project (obsession) is filling gaps - teaching materials, course pages - as best I can. Portfolio but as memoir and biography.  An electronic CV for someone no longer on or in the market, which means I am free to do it my way. If it the self-paced study group works, I'll think about putting up something self-paced (that I already have material for) for community use.