#NRC01PL – What does personal learning mean to me?

This is the question we have been asked to respond to in Week 4 of the Personal Learning MOOC (#NRC01PL). This is a quick response.

The word that immediately came into my mind in response to this question was ‘Freedom’. Freedom to decide whether or not I want to answer that question; where, how and when I want to answer that question. In other words, freedom to learn when, where, how, and with whom I want to. Of course I know that that is a bit of a utopian view. There will be elements of my PLE which may not offer me unlimited freedom. For example, if part of my PLE is a learning management system (LMS), then I will experience constraints within that system, but ideally it will have been my choice to have an LMS within my PLE.

Perhaps autonomy is a better word, or perhaps autonomy is a result of freedom.

So I have decided to answer that question here on my blog. I saw it first on the EdX course site, then on Facebook. I wondered whether it would make a good Twitter chat. It probably would – but I don’t want to do that. That’s what personal means. I can choose.

To choose I don’t have to be super tech saavy. I am not a technologist. I am not even particularly interested in technology. I have a fairly standard set of tools that I use all the time. These are – in no particular order

• Email: I use this a lot but I am not overwhelmed by it
• WordPress: My blog is where I feel at home online
• Twitter: I use Tweetdeck to follow Twitter streams and private messaging
• Facebook: I really don’t like Facebook, but it’s the only way to keep in touch with some long-term distant friends
• Flickr: I am not interested in the Flickr game of promoting photos by commenting on everyone else’s. I use it as a personal photo back up store
• LinkedIn: Only for professional contact and sharing my CV
• PbWiki: I have lots of wikis, but only for invited people, so not public. Wikis are where I do all my research work
• Pinterest: This is a very recent addition to my PLE and only because I have started art classes so it’s a good way of collecting images of art from the artists mentioned in the class
• Mendeley: I couldn’t manage without this for my research. I have a huge library of papers
• Evernote: As above. I have collected a whole library of links useful for my research
• Youtube: I create Youtube videos because that’s the only way I know of getting an embed code for my blog and also because for work purposes it is quite easy to privately share videos.
• Google+: I only use this to share blog posts. I do not interact there. I don’t find Google+ intuitive. It reminds me of my reaction to Elgg. I always feel lost in it.

These are the tools that currently make up my personal learning environment. But personal learning for me is a lot more than online environments. A lot of my personal learning is not public. Privacy and solitude are extremely important to me. So a lot of my learning really is personal. i.e. for my eyes only, or only for the eyes of very close and trusted friends/colleagues. Ironically some of those friends are online friends who I have never met face-to-face and others are friends/colleagues who I do not interact with online.

So what does personal learning mean to me? It’s complex – and personal!

The MOOC Bandwagon

As others have noted – most recently Bon Stewart in her Inside Higher Ed article  – everyone seems to be jumping on the MOOC bandwagon at an alarming rate.

This week the JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee, UK ) has jumped on it with a webinar entitled

What is a MOOC – JISC Webinar 11-07-12

Four speakers were invited. Here is the programme and here is the recording
12.00 Definitions of MOOCs (Martin Weller)
12.10 Tutor perspective (Jonathan Worth)
12.20 Learner perspective (Lou McGill)
12.30 MOOCs and online learning (David White)
12.40 Q&A

Martin Weller presented a useful overview of the history of MOOCs and some thoughtful ideas about the benefits of MOOCs and the associated concerns in relation to Higher Education.

Jonathan Worth told us about his ‘open’ photography course in which he uses Twitter with his students to reach a wider network of experts. I was not sure that this is a MOOC in my terms, although it was clearly an ‘open’ course. It got me thinking about whether using different technologies necessarily means that the course is distributed across different platforms, which according to Stephen Downes is a necessary condition for a MOOC (at least a connectivist MOOC).

Lou McGill is a staunch advocate of the DS106 MOOC, in which she has been a learner and she shared her experience of authentic learning in this MOOC. She is also working with Strathclyde University to research learner experiences in the Change11 MOOC.  I was a participant in Change 11 and was also interviewed by Lou McGill for the research – an interesting experience in which I realized that my understanding of ‘What is a MOOC?’ stems from CCK08, but many, many people who are discussing MOOCs today were not in that MOOC and appear to be coming from a different place.

Dave White pondered on why the Stanford MOOC attracted such large numbers and thought it must be to do with their credibility and brand name. He raised the question of the role of the teacher/facilitator in MOOCs and suggested that this is important if MOOCs are to be inclusive. This is a topic we have been discussing in our review the FSLT MOOC.

These are my reflections as a result of attending this webinar.

There are still plenty of people who have technical difficulties accessing a site like Blackboard Collaborate. We cannot make assumptions that people have the technical equipment or skills to engage in MOOCs.

Whilst MOOCs might be the new buzzword in Higher Education, there are still plenty of people who have never heard of them, only just heard of them, have no idea what they are, or who completely misunderstand what they are.

The original connectivist principles of MOOCs are getting lost in the plethora of offerings which now bear the name MOOC, e.g.

• CCK08 (the original MOOC) was an experiment in getting people to think about learning differently;

• the idea was that learners could be in control of their learning and meet in learning spaces of their own choice  according to the principle of distributed environments (see slide 33 in this presentation by Stephen Downes) and see his LMS vs PLE video

• learners would experience learning in the massiveness of the network – so they would not be able to rely on the tutor/convener/facilitator – instead they would need to make connections and seek peer support. In the light of this our understanding of the relationship between teacher and learner would need to change

• the purpose of learning in a MOOC would be to create knowledge and artefacts through exposure to a diverse network, rather than have it centrally provided. This would, through the aggregation, remixing, repurposing and feeding forward of resources shared and created, enrich the learning experience

• MOOCs were never intended – despite the name – to be ‘courses’ ( see this blog post  and this response from Stephen Downes ); they were intended to be a challenge to the traditional notion of a course – in the form of learning events. If they don’t do this then they are ‘open courses’ (with some of the attributes of MOOCs), but not MOOCs in the terms of how they were originally conceived.

This is my understanding of what is meant by MOOC – now renamed (in the light of different interpretations) a connectivist MOOC. Many of the most recent courses which have been called MOOCs are not MOOCs in these terms, but fall somewhere along the continuum from connectivist MOOCs with these principles, to the Stanford AI type of centrally located MOOC (see Stephen Downes’ LMS vs PLE video for an explanation)

It is evident that there is room for all these different types of MOOCs or ‘open courses’.   But I hope we will not lose the principles of the CCK08 type of connectivist MOOC, as it is the connectivist MOOCs that are really pushing against the boundaries and challenging traditional ways of thinking about teaching and learning, which is of course why many people feel uncomfortable with them and why we are now seeing efforts to somehow tie them down and bring them into line.

# PLENK2010 – Breadth versus depth – an illusion?

This is a response to Dave Ferguson’s and Stephen Downes’ comment’ on my blog post . Well actually more of a reflection than a response.

I understand Dave’s response. I can see that he is coming from the same place as I am in concerns about balancing depth and breadth in online courses, i.e. the practicalities of knowing how to manage the breadth of information we are exposed to on an open online course and knowing where to focus. This is a common concern. For example in her blog post Linn – talks about trying to avoid being ‘overfed’. Others have talked about feeling overwhelmed as George has noted – in his Moodle forum post (Making sense of (in?) abundance – in the General Discussion Forum). These feelings are very common, so is the depth versus breadth problem an illusion as Stephen claims?

To quote Stephen in full – he writes:

It occurs to me that the depth versus breadth problem is an illusion. One person’s breadth is another person’s depth. It’s an artifact of how we divide the world. If we divide it by discipline – computer science, physics, art – depth looks like one thing. But if you divide it by function – saving lives, educating children, building bridges – depth looks like something very different.

My experience with thinking about depth versus breadth has always been in terms of the ‘overload’ problem discussed above and ‘recognised’ by Dave. This is a real problem so in that sense is not an illusion – it is something experienced by many learners and something that many teachers think about in trying to select a curriculum for their learners – and it has become more of a problem now that we have so much ready information and networks at our finger tips. How do we know where to focus? This ability to filter, select and focus is a critical literacy skill that will be important to develop. This was discussed in the Critical Literacies course and Matthias and I have also discussed it in relation to e-resonance.

But Stephen’s point gives us a different perspective which is also very relevant to the networked world. I think my own experience of looking for depth has been in going deeper into a given discipline – but I can now see that the links/connections that you can make as a result of being part of a large learning network can also enable a depth of knowledge and understanding that might not be achievable through a single discipline.

This reminds me that Etienne Wenger often talks of the value of learning that takes place at the boundaries of communities of practice – i.e. where there is overlap between different communities. Paul Lowe has also made reference to Etienne Wenger in his blog post – The PLE as a roadmap of the landscape of practice. I can see links between these ideas and those related to balancing breadth and depth in learning.

I can also see that in this age of PLEs, PLNs and networked learning it will be important to be able to gain depth of knowledge and understanding both through digging deeper into a given discipline and through being able to exploit the diversity and breadth of our networks. But the question still remains of how best to keep this breadth and depth in balance and avoid losing out on both counts through an inability to manage information overload.

#PLENK2010 Immediate thoughts

It is interesting that this course has attracted so many people (over 1000?), but the Critical Literacies course attracted far fewer – and I’m wondering why, since a critical literacy must surely be to be able to manage a personal learning environment/network. Is it because the management of a personal learning environment/network is more practically focussed, but consideration of critical literacies is more conceptual/academic?

I have had a quick look at all the readings for this week. I was intrigued by Scott Leslie’s Mother of All PLE Diagram Compilation and thought I had better try and construct my own diagram – which I started to do and even considered using Prezi, until I realised that all this is terribly time consuming and I didn’t see that I would gain a lot. In my head I know which tools I use, why, when and with whom – I use most of them every day. I also know who I am networked with, which communities I follow and which tools I use to meet up with different groups/individuals. Having said that, looking at the diagrams was a spur to activating my Twitter account which has lain dormant since I created it ages ago. Now seems like a good time to test out whether it should be part of my PLE/PLN.

But more interesting for me is Dave Cormier’s blog post – Five points about PLEs and PLNs – Dave Cormier (Blog post) because he is talking about the related issues and why we should think about this at all. Like him I have always been concerned about the confusion between e-portfolios and PLEs (he didn’t express it like this – but this is the issue that his post raised for me). A lot of universities in the UK have introduced e-portfolio systems which are tied into the University’s platform. (Is this because of assessment requirements or am I just being cynical?). When the students graduate and leave the University they have to buy their own portfolio. It all seems very inflexible to me and ties the students to a system which ultimately may not suit their needs, when they move out into the world of work.

But an alternative perspective on e-portfolios is that at least everything is in one place in what is presumably a secure environment.  The disadvantages of open source distributed environments are not too difficult to identify; for example, you may lose your environment, as when Ning suddenly decided that users would have to pay for their previously free site.

There is also a concern lurking in the back of my mind about the effect of distributed environments on the quality of learning – i.e. the old breadth versus depth concerns. I personally find it very difficult to balance these. I have been very fortunate that my experience with distributed networks such as those promoted by the open courses I have attended, CCK08 and Critical Literacies (I only attended part of this one) has enabled me to experience more depth than breadth, in that I have ‘met’ research partners in these courses and have been able to collaborate in research projects which, as an independent consultant, not affiliated to any institution, would have been difficult to organise without these networks.

For me the  personal/conceptual interactions between small groups are more stimulating/interesting/fulfilling than a wide network of connections, but paradoxically I need a distributed network in order to find the resonating connections to lead to the conceptual and personal connections that I value. Resonating connections is very much at the forefront of my mind at the moment since Matthias Melcher and I have just completed writing a paper on this very topic after months of discussion. See The Riddle of Online Resonance – and yes – now that I have realised that there obviously is a link between the issues surrounding PLE/Ns and e-resonance – this is a shameless plug of our paper 🙂