I can’t make up my mind whether I’m a visitor or resident. As Dave White says in his presentation its not a dichotomy – but rather a duality (which is very much Wenger’s approach to communities of practice). In his presentation Dave makes some comments that I have been thinking about:

Visitors leave no trace – my feeling is that this is not possible. Maybe they hope to leave no trace. I can see that they could leave an absolutely minimal trace, but not no trace. It’s a bit like when someone briefly enters a meeting and leaves quickly – their leaving and absence still affects the meeting. In relation to this, I believe that ‘lurkers’ can affect what is going on through their absence.

Visitors worry about identity theft – I would say that visitors might worry about identity full stop, particularly if the visitors are novices. In fact isn’t it possible that visitors may be visitors not by choice but because they are novices in the online environment.

Residents try to keep visible by continually feeding the machine – have residents subjected themselves to the ‘tyranny of participation?’

Remaining visible is important for residents – Why? What is in it for them, particularly if a lot of what they post is banal? Isn’t being perceived of as banal counterproductive?

The word ‘nebulous’ can be used to describe residents – Dave didn’t talk about this and I’m not sure what this means.

A resident is less likely to have their own blog – this seems to contradict the research that John, Roy and I did where we equated residency (we called this a ‘home’) to a blog. This brings up the complexity of the way in which we use language and metaphors to describe the way in which people learn and interact online.

The visitor is no more or less technically adept than the resident – this depends on whether the visitor is a visitor by choice

Visitors take an individual approach to working online – I don’t see an individual approach or autonomy as the preserve of visitors. The question of autonomy is complex and not easy to understand or unpick.

Lots to think about. I’m looking forward to the session tonight – Elluminate Conference

In another meeting this week there was discussion about whether it was worth the time trying to publish in academic journals. A project I am working with at the moment has to meet a requirement to disseminate their work and developments. For academics, publication in an academic journal is not only important for personal advancement and career development, but is also important for the University’s research rating. But does this help dissemination?

I think many people would agree that most journal papers are very rarely read. Not only that but they take so long to be published that if you are working in the area of technology-enhanced learning, then by the time the paper is published its out of date.

So what are the alternatives? The web offers many alternatives. There are open e-journals, blogs, newsletters, press releases etc. But do these offer the peer/expert review offered by respected journals and colleagues? 

So what do you go for -  to have your paper accepted by a recognised/high status  journal, despite the fact that it might not be read by many people, or have your work widely disseminated on the web or elsewhere?

John, Roy and I – with our papers on researching the CCKO8 experience have tried to find the middle way – a respected conference in which to publish, but a conference that publishes papers online – for wider dissemination.

What is the future of research papers I wonder?

My online PGCert group (for which I am a facilitator)  is currently studying a module on the emotional intelligence of teams. Had I not worked on the connectivism course in 2008, I might not have even thought to question whether working in teams/groups is a good idea and also whether working in teams/groups leads to group think and stifles creativity.

As a result of CCK08 I have been able to play devil’s advocate with my teaching group and question these assumptions that they might carry with them into the workplace – i.e. that working in teams is  the way to go!

One thing I have learned from Stephen and George (and others such as Stephen Brookfield)  is that it’s worth surfacing  assumptions, even if it means challenging the assumptions of CCK08/09 – rightly or wrongly. Who’s to say?

We – Sui Fai John Mak, Roy Williams and I - have finally completed work on 2 research papers following our participation in CCK08.

• Blogs and Forums as Communication and Learning Tools in a MOOC
• The ideals and Reality of Participating in a MOOC

On November 13th we will submit these papers to the Networked Learning Conference Steering Committee and hope that they will accept them for their 2010 conference in Denmark. The last time I went to Denmark I was 22 years old, quite a few decades ago. It would be great to go again!

Although we have not yet submitted our papers, we have been in touch with a member of the Conference Steering Committee who has encouraged us to share our papers with CCK09 before we submit them for the conference. So we have posted them (having first asked George and Stephen if that would be OK) in a variety of places including:

CCK09 Moodle site in Week 4 and General Discussion forums

Nellie’s CCK09 Ning site

John’s CCK08 Ning site

Roy has also invited discussion in his Google Groups Research site and John has invited discussion on his blog.

There is already some discussion about the papers. We will welcome feedback and are ready to amend the papers if necessary before we submit them.  There is still so much to learn!

Well, I have signed up again and have noted that quite a few people that engaged with CCK08 have done the same, or are still interested.

Viplav Baxi http://learnoscck08.wordpress.com/ has just made an interesting post about collaboration and the notion of ‘courageous silence’ – something to think about in relation to connectivism.

Mike Bogle is getting all geared up and has posted a presentation he has done on CCK08 to keep us all up to speed.  http://techticker.net/2009/08/06/recording-from-cck08-presentation-for-unfed/

Gina Minks has created a CCK09 Friendfeed which is attracting interest. http://friendfeed.com/cck09 

There is probably a lot more going on that I am not aware of. There was last time, so no doubt there will be this time. Despite the fact that this blog is called Jenny Connected, I really am not that connected!

But because of the research I have been working on with Sui Fai John Mak and Roy Williams (CCK08 participants) I think that probably not a day has gone by since CCK08 that I haven’t thought about connectivism in one way or another. We have finished our data gathering and analysis and are now in the process of writing. We have at least 3 papers in mind and the first one has been drafted – the other two are still being discussed. The research has been a difficult and time-consuming process but immensely rewarding. I am hoping that as a result of this I will be in a better position to understand what is going on in CCK09, but maybe not!

If you are reading this and are not sure what CCK09 is then here’s the information http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/connectivism/

I have just watched a TV programme which has moved me to make this post after quite a long absence from blogging. The programme (on BBC 2 – UK – with the title Classic Goldie) was the story of  a DJ who cannot read music, who composes an orchestral piece for the BBC proms, accompanied by the 70 str0ng London Philharmonic Choir. This one hour programme has prompted me to blog again after quite a long gap. Why?

The programme moved me in a number of ways. I could relate to it, perhaps because my second son is a music technologist – full of dreams like Goldie – but yet to realise his potential. I didn’t record the programme and now wonder whether I will be able to find it again to show my son who is about to start on a music technology degree.

I could relate to Goldie’s emotion when he saw his work, efforts and dreams being translated into practice.

There was resonance in the immense feelings of self-doubt, concerns about self-worth and levels of expertise, expressed by Goldie.

There was also resonance in the power of music. I could understand that the power of music lies in melody, but I also remembered the book I read in my ‘youth’ about Stockhausen and the effect that that had on me in relation to my understanding of creativity.

All this makes me wonder again what it is that causes a connection. It is not technology. In this instance it was my past experience, my prior knowledge of the subject ( albeit limited, although I do sing in a choir which explains my interest), a close family connection – my son who I love -, my empathy with Goldie as a novice working with experts and the emotion he experienced, and finally my conversations with my colleague and online friend Matthias, who first raised for me the question of how and why we recognise resonance in online connections.

From this I might now think that online connections/renonance are related to past experience, current emotions, levels of interest and expertise, empathy, mutual interests and mutual respect.

Lots to think about!

PS  Twitter would just not do what I need for this post!

George Siemens is reflecting on the CCK08 experience with a very interesting blog post. There is lots in this post to think about – not least because a CCK09 will be offered. I responded to George’s post and am copying my response here for my own records.

George asks – What concerns do we have with the model he presents. This is my current thinking, which I posted as a response on George’s blog.

I have recently (with a colleague) submitted a research paper which highlights how difficult it is for participants to learn effectively in a course which simulates an experience rather than offer the ‘true’ experience. I think this was also the case in CCK08 and I blogged about it at the time.

It seems to me that there is a tension between the nature of an accredited course and the type of learning environment, that CCK08 aspires to – one of openness, diversity, autonomy and interaction/connectedness. To be true to these four characteristics of connectivism, the course ‘tutors’/facilitators (whatever you wish to call them) need to take a ‘hands off’ approach, and that is where I think CCKO8 experienced the most problems. These problems were related to the fact that

- some people were seeking accreditation and therefore needed a ‘tutor’ at the very least to assess their work
- many people still have very traditional views of what we mean by course and the role of a tutor within a course
- the tutors were sometimes inconsistent in their approach – so we could view the lack of intervention in ’sparring’ that went on in the forums as a ‘hands-off’ approach, but then the choice of exemplary posts to be included in the ‘Daily’ is a very ‘hands-on’ approach.

I’m not sure that there is a straightforward answer to this dilemma. A ’simulated’ experience is not the same thing as a ‘real’ experience and I’m not sure how you can reproduce a ‘real’ experience of autonomy, diversity, openness and connectivity in an accredited course.

The course continues to stimulate my thinking – so thanks for that!

We have launched our CCK08 survey today. Did you blog or post to the moodle forums, or both, or neither during the CCK08 course?

It seemed to us that there must be very few courses that offer participants the choice of where they want to communicate, and that it would be interesting, if not important, to investigate the possible reasons behind the choices that were made.

We have spent a month working out the design for the survey. There has been norming, forming and performing in our small team, and a little storming – but no team would be complete without storming At one point I thought that Tuckman might have got it wrong – but once we started storming, I knew he had probably got it right!

We have agonised endlessly about whether we are asking the right questions. We have agreed and disagreed. We have referred to other research studies and advice on questionnaire design. We have unpicked each and every statement numerous times, agreeing and disagreeing all over again.  

And today we launched it – and we are all exhausted – and I have found the whole process scary and anxiety provoking. And we are supposed to be doing this for pleasure! No doubt you become immune to it all if you are an experienced researcher, but I am not!

But together with this anxiety is excitement. The results are already coming in. There is still a keen interest in what happened in CCK08 out there. It brings it back all over again. 

Our research process so far is worthy of examination (maybe another research study) as I think our research wiki shows. We are a group of people who have never met and are conducting this study mostly asynchronously on a wiki. So far we have only had two Skype meetings. We are looking forward to opening our wiki for everyone to see  what we have been doing, once all the results are in. We haven’t felt we could open it yet for fear of invalidating our questionnaire. But once we have the results in, we are really looking forward to hearing what others think of what we have done – however critical. It is all part of the learning process and I am certainly learning a lot.

To anyone who responds to the questionnaire – thank you!

This week, the research project has been a lot of fun. Loads of activity with everyone throwing in their ideas. I don’t usually like chaos and confusion, and I’ve had to spend hours today going through everything on the wiki to check whether my understanding is correct (if only I didn’t have a memory like a sieve!), but it has been stimulating and enjoyable and not as chaotic as it might at first appear.

One of the fun things we are doing in this research project (investigation into people’s preferences in the CCK08 course for communicating in blogs or forums), is to examine ourselves as researchers as we go along. John puts up tests and charts for us to fill in. We have created a folder on the wiki for research reflections and these activities go in there.

We started in quite serious vein examining our different perspectives on whether we have agreed the research questions, whether we have clear goals, open communication, support each other and so on – we did pretty well on that one although there were some different perspectives, but we did establish that we regard ourselves as a good team. (The team is made up of me, Sui Fai John Mak, Matthias Melcher and Roy Williams).

John then put up some questions asking us to identify whether we think our left-brain or right-brain is dominant. It appears that I am left brain dominant. John even had the courage to tell us all what he thinks we are. According to him I am

LB predominantly, though at times like RB. You prefer to systematically analyse ideas, a typical blogger with strong reflections.  Could be excited by RB people like Matthias, John (at times only) and Roy (I am not sure!)

So in the spirit of John’s example, I followed the link on Viki Davis’ blog (pointed out by Matthias) to find out what kind of blogging styles we have and this is what I found out.

One of us is a Protector

Another is a Scientist

I am a Thinker

As far as we know Roy doesn’t blog, or if he does, he is keeping it very quiet – probably very sensibly. I can’t say that I take any of this very seriously, but these activities do have a way of making us constantly reflect on how well we are working together as a team and bit by bit, we are getting to know each other much better. So quite a shrewd tactic by John, and a lot of fun for the rest of us.

…. and no more so than when you are doing research and are a new researcher! I’m wondering if it is more or less messy when you are working with others. I remember that for the CCK08 assignments some people chose to work collaboratively and some chose to work individually. It’s interesting to reflect on whether the outcomes would have been better or worse for having worked in the alternative way. They would almost certainly have been different.

For myself, I prefer to work with others. I learn so much from the others’ expertise, their insights, alternative perspectives and different ways of working, which is enriched even further by different cultural backgrounds. I also find this whole process as interesting as the research itself. But it’s difficult not to go into information overload, particularly if the information is new. For example, I know nothing about Actor Network Theory (ANT), which other members of our research team seem to be familiar with, if not very familiar. It even took me a week or two to realise that IMO in a post meant ‘In my Opinion’

It’s very interesting how easy it is to make assumptions about every possible aspect of life and learning. I try and stay mindful of Stephen Brookfield’s work on assumption hunting when involved in something like this research project, but I’m not always successful. This, of course, is complicated by the fact that this is a ‘virtual’ research team. We have never actually met. We probably have all sorts of erroneous ideas about each other, but it’s interesting how the process of working together, teasing out ideas, negotiating meaning and sometimes ‘going round in circles’, brings a sense of proximity and commitment.

In this team of four wonderfully enthusiastic researchers, I think we will have written a book before we even begin to write the paper! We are going backwards and forwards, sideways, up and down and round about, but bit by bit are making progress and untangling the knots of the messy learning business. I feel so pleased to be working in this team.