User:Vtaylor/PLENK2010

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What role can PLE/N's play in my teaching? Or my personal learning? How has this course influenced your view of the role of networked technologies and learning networks? What types of questions are still outstanding

thinking things...

How will the learner know when they have achieved some level of understanding? How do they know they are on the right track? How do they know they have missed some really important that will be problematic to future understanding?

  • pLearn, Learning spaces - Explore: Investigate, Find, Collect resources needed to learn new material. Learn: Learn, mix and remix contents from other resources to create new content. Interact: Interact with the community, create a collective intelligence and enrich other contents. Socialize: Create a social network to interact with others.
  • learning plans - needs, objectives
  • learning objects - subject, level, format
  • evaluation - appropriate, effective, almost know, follow-up, next
  • connections, collaboration, communication, clues, camaraderie
  • direction, prioritization, emphasis, stimulation ?=curating - visualize as a map - http://www.text2mindmap.com/

participants in MOOC or PLN - goal-setting, other guidance for what is enough or how to decide how to participate - suggestions, time commitment, outcomes ? several curators with individual points of view - learners review and select appropriate for themselves

  • tools - navigation - better way to follow / filter parts of discussion in PLENK10 forums become overwhelming
  • assessment for learning, assessment as learning, and assessment of learning -- Ontario government - seven fundamental principles stating that assessments... • are fair, transparent, and equitable; • support all students; • relate to the curriculum, interests, learning styles and preferences; • are communicated clearly; • are ongoing and varied in nature; • provide ongoing descriptive feedback; • develop students' self-assessment skills.
  • Week 7 - 1. Create new tools - what do we need? What functionality is missing in PLEs? 2. Improve end user experience - new tools, new interfaces, and ease of use.
    ... mapping (dynamic visual representation), assessment, feedback, mechanism for learners to connect with other serious learners, new artifacts to show path / progress and plan / strategy for ongoing learning, emails with summaries (Daily), highlights / abstracts - points, less narrative, Checkering and Gameson practice (cf. theory) - 1. encourage student-faculty contact 2. encourage cooperation among students 3. encourage active/engaged learning 4. give prompt feedback 5. emphasize time on task 6. communicate high expectations 7. respect diverse talents and ways of learning


2010nov15 Week 10: Critical perspectives on PLE/PLN

  • Did you learn anything? Do you know more about personal learning environments and/or networks than when you started? - yes, yes
  • How do you know? - good question

How did the learning (if any) happen? - time on task - reading, writing, listening, thinking about application and problem solving

  • Daily was helpful providing links to posts, discussions, tweets, sessions
  • Moodle framework kept all the discussion manageable
  • personal records - delicious bookmarks, WE page of notes with links and discussion comments
  • Tweets - tweeting never really did anything for me in the past - more noise than useful content. However, the inclusion of tweets in the daily proved to be a good source of interesting links. Not sure how one finds other sources of tweets that are this specific and this good.


  • [1] - great slideset on complexity and agile management - increase risk perception - people are less mindful when they see no risks; reduce false security / risk compensation - people show riskier behavior when they think they are safe; remove rules to increase risk perception and reduce false security
  • Complex learning community - Our educational model doesn't work because we are stuck with two ends: Knowing (valued) and Not Knowing (being stupid). Learning isn't a place or state of value to the participant because it's a place to have your stupidity removed to whatever level of knowing you are selected to attain. Where does that celebrate people? At least MOOC felt celebratory and uncertain which I think is what being in the "flow" is about.


2010nov8 Week 9: PLE/Ns in the classroom (PLE/Ns and blended learning)

  • Uber-Tool - - distinction between expert and novice is in assigning patterns - Sources of Power, by Klein - Cambridge Handbook of Expert and Expertise - we think in patterns if we're experts, we think linear if we're novice
  • Educational Games - Rockliffe University's "World of Teachcraft". Using World of Warcraft (WOW) as a focus for collaboration, a half dozen teachers are meeting


2010oct31 Week 8: PLE/Ns and personal knowledge management

http://ple.elg.ca/course/moodle/mod/wiki/view.php?id=60&page=Week+8


2010oct25 Week 7: PLE/Ns Tools - What Exists, What is Being Built?

1. Create new tools - what do we need? What functionality is missing in PLEs? 2. Improve end user experience - new tools, new interfaces, and ease of use.
... mapping (dynamic visual representation), assessment, feedback, mechanism for learners to connect with other serious learners, new artifacts to show path / progress and plan / strategy for ongoing learning, emails with summaries (Daily), highlights / abstracts - points, less narrative, practice (cf. theory) - Chickering and Gameson Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education - 1. encourage student-faculty contact 2. encourage cooperation among students 3. encourage active/engaged learning 4. give prompt feedback 5. emphasize time on task 6. communicate high expectations 7. respect diverse talents and ways of learning


  • Our Expertise? - This is a great idea. The results are starting to show some interesting divergence from the original list prioritization. Why is that? Are we, as a group, using tools and technology differently than the contributors to the original list? What does this say about "them" and us? --Valerie Taylor 00:58, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Prior Learning Assessment process in which matriculated students could conceivably receive college level credit through articulating learning done through OERS. Our PLA credit is very very reasonable $300 US for evaluation of up to 96 credits. However, PLA credits only "count" if they are part of our degree programs and students have to take at least 24 credits with us. --State University of New York/Empire State College


2010oct17 Week 6: Using PLEs successfully

Using PLEs successfully - skills, mindsets, and critical literacies

  • Visitors & Residents - delightful video by David White, Oxford University (tallblog)- residents see web as a space is right on! Educational ideology - traditional learning / education is increasingly personal / autonomous as advances - just me, content and expert but not other learners > presence of more experienced (better word than knowledgeable) others - not academic or technical skills but cultural and motivation
    ... vt - more collaboration, short contributions, multiple contributors ? tweet length (140 characters, single "thought") may be too restrictive, more powerpoint style (5 points, 5 words each)
  • PLENK 01 and a funny little movie - couldn't find the link to the actual movie - just to the site
  • Visitors & Residents Principle - last year - sometimes I'm a visitor, sometimes a resident. Interesting - some people visitors in their professional space.
  • Mindsets - For me, another factor is time - it takes a longer time tor read and write a conversation than it does to chat about it, think about it and keep the exchange going. Feedback, if any is after the fact and may have little if any relevance, because in the interim, we move on and find other comments on the same subject. All the dead non-engaged time in between can contribute to "complexity", fragmentation and discontinuity. Anyone else find that this is part of the complexity for you? --Valerie Taylor 20:15, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Plenk - A World to Change - Stephen Downes' article
  • Assessment in distributed networks - assessment (previous week) - interesting questions - how about collaborative building of assessment rubric/criteria by organizers, facilitators, mentors based on learning objectives and outcomes for use for self-assessment. Learning is free - credit cost money - those wanting credit may then be manageable number to be assessed with help of technology - tracking, retrieval, aggregation...
  • Kerr - Alan Kay's Non Universals - reading and writing, deductive abstract mathematics, model based science, equal rights, democracy, perspective drawing, slow deep thinking, griculture, legal systems
  • Formal learners have the best of both worlds? - a knowledgeable person is present and being paid to make [certain] that people become aware of issues a self directed learner on a network might not come across. ‘Kerr refers to Kay’s non-universals for instance, a series of understandings (identified on the basis of research by anthropologists) that are not learned spontaneously, and which are common to all known human societies – for instance, “deductive abstract mathematics, model-based science, democracy [and] slow deep thinking.” Kerr suggests that if learning these non-universals is considered important, then methods ought to be identified to teach them.’ (Kop&Hill,2008). - interesting idea - there are things that won't / can't be learned "spontaneously" - what are the implications if these are then not learned by a significant portion of a population or community? Importance of identifying this deficiency and systematically(?) teaching them?


  • NYT - The shared perception of a neighborhood — is it on the rise or stagnant? — does a better job of predicting a community’s future than the actual level of poverty --Robert J. Sampson, a sociologist at Harvard
  • TEDtalk - Sir Ken Robinson 2010 - too often education directs people away from what they are good at and enjoy / who they are. Need innovation / transformation. Sense of ability and being good at something. Fast food model of education - conformity, standardization. Excite passion and spirit. > Agricultural model of education - tread softly for you are treading on my dreams - Yates


2010oct11 Week 5 - Evaluating Learning in PLE/Ns

  • Connecting Assessment - rubric, guiding questions rather than quiz / test - beginner. capable, accomplished, expert
  • What Can't Be Measured - standardized tests that measure what is measurable rather than what really matters. .. correct its "gross underemphasis on wisdom and ethical qualities." .. add the word "judgment."
  • Evaluation by Recognition - 1. Learning is recognized, not measured. 2. Recognition is global, not particular. --Stephen Downes
    .. I'll know it when I see it - For me, Scott is getting to "it" with his statement: ‘The atmosphere we best thrive in’ comes to mind, though I don’t know why. The article What Can't Be Measured on judgment also touches on these things that we seem to implicitly understand and value but have trouble even describing, let alone assessing. Does any one have any descriptions or analogies that help us get closer to understand this elusive "it"? --Valerie Taylor 10:47, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
    .. That's the whole point - Currently, we try to assess learning with tests and competences in traditional learning settings. Many people recognize that this isn't effective or accurate although it may be scalable. Isn't that the point - working to come up with a new view that accommodates PLE/PLNs AND provides some way to effectively determine the depth and breadth of the learning that results in some scalable and recognizable way? --Valerie Taylor 11:35, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
    .. assessment for learning, assessment as learning, and assessment of learning -- Ontario government - seven fundamental principles stating that assessments... • are fair, transparent, and equitable; • support all students; • relate to the curriculum, interests, learning styles and preferences; • are communicated clearly; • are ongoing and varied in nature; • provide ongoing descriptive feedback; • develop students' self-assessment skills.


2010oct4 - Week 4: PLE/PLN and learning theories

  • Complex knowledge and personal learning environments - George Siemens - theory needs to..., Papert - learning vs teaching, activity theory - context, tools; actor network theory - links, relatedness, interaction; biological views of learning; connectivism - network formation & management / resonance, mapping learning and knowledge to real life, application; PLE/PLN tools and methods with process/product of learning & knowledge
  • blog - curse of being a “P” in the Myers Briggs sense. Everyone takes in information some of the time. Everyone makes decisions some of the time. However, when it comes to dealing with the outer world, people who tend to focus on making decisions have a preference for Judging because they tend to like things decided. People who tend to focus on taking in information prefer Perceiving because they stay open to a final decision in order to get more information. I am such an extreme “P” that I have spent all of my time in this course gathering. And I have fabulous tools for that. It will take me a year to followup on all of the knowledge I have gathered but not consumed.
  • Cathy Moore - Learning styles: Worth our time? - rather than creating redundant versions of the same material, such as narrating on-screen text, we would likely get better results by helping learners structure their learning and gauge their progress, and by offering contextual feedback and any necessary reinforcement. - comment : any “learning styles” classification as more of a useful brainstorming tool / framework for a qualitative check when deciding on approaches.
  • How important is theory for practice? - I hadn't seen the Alexander Framework before. The questions are good guides - What should learners learn? How should the learning be taught and assessed? What is an educated person? Why should learners be educated in this way? - We think about the questions but without the framework to connect the interplay of the answers into theory and practice. Thanks! This helps. As for personal learning, I'm still working through the question: What should learners learn? The flip answer would be: Anything they want - it's personal. However, that doesn't necessarily move the learner toward the objective as defined by What is an educated person? It's complicated but the journey is fascinating.
    ... Absolutely. As a parent and an educator, there is nothing more frustrating than seeing kids who are doing poorly in school, excelling in World of Warcraft knowing how engaging WOW is and how much time-on-task the kids are willing to put in. But, suppose I want to be a brain surgeon. Knowing how to learn is definitely a requirement, but just wandering the web at will isn't likely to help me achieve that learning outcome. Even a community of knowledgeable others can't get me there. Seems to me there is a bit missing in the path. How do we address that in theory and/or practice as it relates to a PLE/ PLN? --Valerie Taylor 14:59, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
    .. Rita: Who decides what learners should learn? Have learners any input in this themselves? In a PLE/PLN you would also want to ask why do people learn as it is not imposed on them by others? ... educators would be much more aware of the why of education and teaching, as this very much influences the what and the how.


2010sep27 - Week 3: Understanding the neXT/eXtended Web

  • Janet Clarey - eLearning 1.0, 2.0, data from each changing, layering with brain surgery, George - active foraging for data > recommender / filter - 2010 current state showing 6 elearning examples including text/video, open wine education, google = on-demand learning, mobile american culture for indian commuters, hybrid group stock transactions game - hybrid training important - Saba walled garden but includes social tools and lms in user configurable front page
  • Paul's Learning Blog - Recommenders - What? - Learning path, List of recommenders are current filters, Could be proactive outline, Ask about objective and depth so provide sequence and breadth, Learn about learner > Tim Berners-Lee linked data as information about learner and what is appropriate to their learning
  • Chickering and Gameson in PLE?
  • PLEs and the Extended Web (Rita Kop) - great article by Rita - addresses many of the issues that would be important to expand the utility of OERs beyond the creators and the learners they direct


2010sep20 - Week 2: Contrasting personal learning with institutional learning, PLEs with LMSs

http://ple.elg.ca/course/moodle/mod/wiki/view.php?id=60&page=Week+2

LMS - a component of PLE that provides functionality with some prescribed organization - varies dramatically by institution, course, instructor, students / participants - could be only set of tools for PLE but rarely will be


  • The Books You Read "You are the same today as you will be in five years except for two things, the people you meet and the books you read."
  • Learning styles: Worth our time? So rather than creating redundant versions of the same material, such as narrating on-screen text, we would likely get better results by helping learners structure their learning and gauge their progress, and by offering contextual feedback and any necessary reinforcement.
  • Learning or Management Systems? - LMS provides a set of learning tools and the management required by today's institutions - other social tools not included
  • On the value of artifacts... - important to create and reflect, same assignment to compare results - like cmap of ple, usually good to provide for individuality
  • Finding a Voice in a PLN v a Pre-structured Interaction Environment - includes suggestions for counts, retweets, analystics if you really want / need actual numbers, need better ways to find opportunities for online interactions and collaborations
    The Daily email with links to new posts, discussions and tweets has been a great addition to the MOOC format. This is a guide to what is actively being discussed. Adding your two cents will likely be seen and draw comments. Asking questions within an active discussion can generate interactivity too.
  • Learning plans and doing plans - perhaps this is another area for a third party contribution - doing plans - goes beyond curation because there is some explicit learning objectives. A lesson plan but could be very broad or narrow.
    Learner selects plans and can adapt them as appropriate - personalize. Here is a list / catalog of learning plans, pick 2-3 and make something that suits you - I'm here to suggest and review and advise.
  • Die LMS die! You too PLE! - Leigh Blackall November 13, 2005
    it all makes me wonder why it is we educationalists still think we are even relevant anymore. The people (yes that includes us) are learning how to read and write for themselves, and in an amazing act of collective generosity, the people are teaching each other - why do they even need our classrooms... is it perhaps only credentialism that we offer? Or is it also sense of security and safety?
  • Weaving a Personal Web: Using online technologies to create customized, connected, and dynamic learning environments - personal web technologies (PWTs) - tools = my PLE definition, includes their definitions - online PLN of colleagues and friends and PLE is the sum of websites and technologies that an individual makes use of to learn. PLEs may range in complexity from a single blog to an inter-connected web of social bookmarking tools, personal publishing platforms, search engines, social networks, aggregators, etc. ** short sighted to limit this to online, should be as broad as possible to include carbon-based life forms, dead trees and stone as appropriate.


2010sep13 - Week One: A tour of PLEs and PLNs - diagrams, discussions, examples

http://ple.elg.ca/course/moodle/mod/wiki/view.php?id=60&page=Week+1

student, guide / tutor, learning objects, curator / agent - roles / contributors to my PLN - some are me some of the time, others may not know that they are contributors

  • for me : PLN - "cloud" - big, lots of different resources, people, connections : PLE - tools, access, collaboration, creation eg. browser, email, wikieducator, delicious, elluminate, Moodle
  • curation - new / T5 (Grow) - content-focus (cf learner-focus of T1-T4) - resources, reviews, connections, social navigation, trusted, filter, summarize
    provide a small selection of excellent choices and have a point of view about why you chose those few among the many [Tom Kelley, IDEO]
    Robin Good says it has to be done by humans but Pandora does an amazing job for a computer


  • Not Aggregation - Yet today I can’t imagine living in a world where I don’t filter, collect and share. More important, I couldn’t conceive of a world of news and information without the aid of others helping me find the relevant links.” -- Nick Bilton - NY Times

    A curator is not an expert. The expert seeks to provide the definitive answer, while the curator seeks to provide the greatest range of high value info-facts, perspectives, to allow you more leeway in constructing your own picture. The expert is a judge... working toward restricting the view. The curator is an explorer-reporter, working toward expanding the view. His job is all about sense-making, organizing, illustrating and offering the best resources and viewpoints available out there.

    The real-time news curator, doesn’t just select the good, relevant news from the rest. The newsmaster orders, edits, re-titles, adds or re-writes introductions and synopsis, adds commentary, tags, adds images or reference links, credits and resyndicates through his own networks the most relevant news stories on the topic-theme he covers.


  • Curators - Newsmasters - helps the system scale, provides higher quality and more relevant content to be accessible by a greater number of people, does the dirty job of categorizing, ordering and separating news according to specific audiences and interests.


  • The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's strategies for beating the devil's advocate and driving creativity throughout your organization - Tom Kelley
    Caregiver - offer customers a safety net - curate the collection, build extra expertise, small can be beautiful, build relationships with sustainability, invite customers to join the club
    • curate the collection - provide a small selection of excellent choices and have a point of view about why you chose those few among the many


  • Guidance - We are seeing this already in this course - people asking about what that can they learn. They are obviously willing learners but are having trouble getting any traction. Just waving my arms around telling them it is all here, isn't helpful at least not initially.
    Having others point out the good bits is great. Having others summarize the better discussion threads is wonderful. But how does anyone come to find who has a shared perspective? Who is a good resource who will be around for a few weeks? It would be nice to have some guidance. This is invaluable information and expertise to the self-directed learner. How can this be recognized and shared? Is this curation?


  • Re: Competency levels for building and managing a PLE - This is all on the right track as far as the tools and the environment / ecology / network / space / connections are concerned. However, you touched on an other topic - social networks and trust. The underlying questions for all personal learning are: What should I learn? Why should I learn this? Who / What should I learn this from? Where does the social network and trust fit in? Any thoughts on this?


  • Learning Network Plan, which was a plan created by students which included their long term life long learning strategies/tools/nodes that they hoped to develop after the course was finished.


  • MOOB provides... An interesting point came up in the Elluminate discussion today. How to determine how to participate in PLENK10? There is structure, instructions, resources, tools, support, community. But how do new participants know what is possible? How much time and energy are required to acquire new skills and knowledge? What new skills and knowledge can one expect to gain?
    It is more than just being a self-directed learner. We all have the basic skills - goal-setting, self-evaluation, project management, critical thinking, group participation, learning strategies, information resources, and self-esteem, which make self-directed learning possible. It sounds like many participants need help figuring out which of these skills are needed and where to apply them.
    Is this something that all learners will have to address in any PLE / PLN / MOOC?


  • Elluminate Wed 2010sep15 - PLENK - plank . MOOC - moke . MKO - more knowledgeable other - PLENK2010 course as a contribution to participants' PLE/PLN - how much structure / autonomy - curate, summarize content / discussion forums, course facilitators roles and responsibilities vs participants


  • A couple more thoughts about an LMS in a MOOC PLN
    • providing a threaded discussion format that can track new posts, be rearranged as newest first, oldest first, threaded or nested - check it out these are great features of Moodle
    • keeping everything in one place to provide minimal organization, direction, and structure - if this is Week 1 then this must be the place to be
    • who's who - picture with the posts, and links to profiles - having a visual with a post really contributes to a sense of community which is pretty amazing with 1000+ participants
    • a safe and secure place - you are among friends and colleagues, without having to worry about spam, viruses and other annoyances out there on the web. This is especially important for public schools that are bound by student privacy laws and educational use copyright restrictions


  • Mismatches between Teaching Styles and Learning Stages "Mature students may respond like the disgruntled dog in a recent New Yorker cartoon, who complained, "It's always 'Sit,' 'Stay,' 'Heel'--never 'Think,' 'Innovate,' 'Be yourself'" (Steiner, 1990)" From the article, Teaching Learners to be Self-Directed
    ...teacher delegates responsibility that the learner is not equipped to handle. ... Many will not be able to make use of the "freedom to learn," because they lack the skills such as goal-setting, self-evaluation, project management, critical thinking, group participation, learning strategies, information resources, and self-esteem, which make self-directed learning possible


  • Clear challenge in learning: match or mis match between learner needs and educator support - Rita Kop
    my comment - Thanks for the great links. The "teacher" roles that Grow describes are important and I'm looking forward to seeing how these will evolve as our students create and expand their own PLNs. There is still a need for direction even if it is just a nudge or a suggestion or a link to another resource or subject matter expert. Is this a separate class of "teacher"? Are there new and different skills that I need to develop to be effective as an agent / curator / cross-pollinator?


  • building community - There is a nice friendly form to add your profile information - link is in Moodle's left navigation menu. I encourage my students to fill this out - especially the description and the picture.
    This really helps bring the group together. You get to "know" people from the visual cue and have a bit of personal information to associate with the posts in the discussions.


  • going mainstream - Kahn Academy - online video lessons in a wide range of math and science topics
    Kahn Academy is almost mainstream. There was a piece on CBS radio, allbeit at 4:30am about Kahn Academy, its creator and the likes of Bill Gates and others who are interested in the idea of online education disassociated with traditional education delivery.
    It was interesting to see the extensive list of lessons which has branched out to include things you don't normally see in a school curriculum such as an in-depth explanation of the bankruptcy process, the government bailouts and various recovery plans. This may not seem like a big deal of those outside the US, but it is quite remarkable for those of us living in California.
    Definitely a part of a PLN for learning and sharing.


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