How do people keep blogging when they have their fingers in so many pies. I just can’t seem to do it.  The more I have on, the more difficult it becomes to blog. Where should I focus?

Recently I have been:

• keeping an eye on CCK09 and trying to keep up with how CCKo9 participants have been taking learning into their own hands
• tutoring on two online courses – one an international course and one a course for company graduates
• working to support eight JISC projects
• posting to the http://www.networkedlearningconference.org.uk/ Hotseats
• attending (albeit as a lurker) the JISC online conference - at least two great keynotes in this
• working with a colleague from Birmingham University to develop an online resource to support working in communities of practice
• attending CPsquare online research Fests to see how ‘people out there’ are working in CoPs.

And all this doesn’t include listening to, supporting and learning from my three grown up children in all their wonderful projects and interests, visiting my 84 year old mother and hoping that I take every opportunity to keep close to her and learn from her  in her declining years, keeping contact with my wider family and all their interests, keeping connected to my friends and ensuring that I don’t let these connections lapse, keeping connected to my wider interests which are mainly to do with art, choral music, gardening and travel.

Am I alone in wondering how I can keep up with all this? Recently I have felt that there is so much going on out there amonst so many really talented people, that I’m not sure what I could offer?

I thought the most recent CCKO9 participant Elluminate event (I didn’t attend  – but listened to the recording), organised by participants, was a wonderful example of how a diverse group of people from across the globe can come together, share and learn from each other. Thank you to Frances, Ulop, Roy, John, Leila, Ailsa, Heli, Eduardo. I learned a lot from this session.

Still trying to work out what I am learning from all this – but I feel as though the fog is lifting slightly!

I keep coming across great questions which really make me stop and think.

George Siemens  asked four really thought provoking questions in the Networked Learning Conference 2010 Hot Seat

1. What skills/attributes do learners need in order to learn effectively with networked technologies?
2. What role will educators need to fulfill in networked learning environments?
3. Can learning networks (partly) replace the teacher?
4. Given the prominence of networked technologies and the growth of networked learning, what types of research questions does our field need to pursue?

In fact I think George must be in question posing mode as in this week’s CCK09 course he has asked another great question

• This week is an opportunity for you to reflect on what openness means to you, what benefits you get from being open, and concerns with transparent learning (as well as how you expect to overcome those concerns).

And in this post George has alerted us to D’Arcy Norman’s question:

• How do you connect to people online?

These are all questions that I have been thinking about for some time but haven’t been able to articulate so clearly. They are all relevant to my life and work. So where to start in answering them?

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!

I have finally come across the resource that talks about what I am interested in, i.e. how the theory of connectivism can be applied to schooling and education in a practical sense.

Here is GS talking on the Robin Good Show. A great interview because Robin Good does not give an inch. It all made sense to me and the idea of everyone being a teacher as well as a learner, although not new, fits very well with connectivism.

However, for me the key point was made by Robin Good, where he said; ‘We have a responsibility to all become teachers.’ It’s that word ‘responsibility’ that resonates with me.

My experience of online learning is that a very big shift has to be made to move learners from simply networking and co-operating with each other, to taking responsibility for each other’s learning. For me the most successful online learning experiences have been when groups of learners collaborate on a project, where the outcome of the project depends on each person making their contribution and being responsible for the learning of the group as a whole. These are the experiences that have had the most impact on my learning.

There was also talk of school of the future. GS suggest that schools of the future will be learning networks instead of classrooms and children will have access to many experts not just one or limited numbers of teachers. The idea of having internationally networked schooling is quite a thought! I’d love to see some examples in action.

Well, we’re moving on to Week 2 and I haven’t even got ‘What is connectivism?’ sorted yet. I was beginning to despair but have just come across this – posted in one of the forums and probably elsewhere – An interview with George Siemens on Connectivism

So here are my notes and some questions:

The learning process is being changed by what we’re able to do with technology. We can create and share more. We can do this with people at a distance who we don’t meet. The starting point for learning is the connection – which opens the door – so the act of learning depends on the ability to navigate these networks. Our knowledge is networked. Technology opens the door further. Not much to argue with here.

Connectivism didn’t start from nothing, but is a natural progression from existing theories. Nor here.

In connectivism the emphasis is on the connection, either at conceptual level, neural level or social level.

Would it be fair to say that there seems to be a lot of emphasis on the social level?

So how do we use this theory in education?

1. We need to encourage openness – a capacity for communicating with others, a willingness to share and externalise ourselves. I don’t see this as being very different to the communities of practice ideas. What happens to introverts in connectivism?

2. We need to think of the act of learning as the formation of a connection and so encourage our students to see that

• the world is highly complex and we don’t know the outcomes of learning
• we need to be adaptive to stay current and informed
• we need to give students links to networks and help them to navigate networks - this is probably harder than you would think
• we need to help students become critical thinkers – an old chestnut and not easy
• diversity of networks is needed and students need to learn what’s worth connecting to and what’s not – another tricky one
• we should bring in experts from all round the world; use resources that have been created by others
• the curriculum can’t be defined in advance; we don’t know what the students know and therefore we need a participatory pedagogy – negotiating the curriculum – the most interesting one for me and one that I have tried to implement in the past

The idea of a negotiated curriculum has around for a while, but the stumbling block in education is always assessment. Ultimately a lot of what is mentioned above is constrained by assessment.

I signed up for this course yesterday http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/connectivism/ - a bit late and am chasing my tail to catch up. I have briefly looked at some of the readings for this week, but none of last weeks yet. I have promised myself that I will not spend more than 2 hours a day on this.

I have spent most of my time struggling to get organised with the technology – setting up this blog (trying out WordPress for the first time), downloading CmapTools (don’t know why since mind mapping and me just don’t go together), bookmarking the readings, adding myself to the map, i.e. spending far too much time on the technology and not enough time on the ideas/concepts.

As for feeling connected: I only know one other person out of the 1900 people enrolled on the course. How’s that for feeling connected?