User:Vtaylor/social learning

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social learning



Flexible Learning

http://www.wikieducator.org/Flexible_learning

  • Science and Engineering
  • accreditation - structure, measurements, accountability
  • institutions, organizations - professional tests / demonstrations
  • apprenticeship programs


  • topic maps / reference model
  • connectivism


The story of X

X is a bright young man, never a great student by school standards, but clearly well read and well informed in a wide range of topics of interest to him. X continues to take classes at several community colleges so that he can transfer to a four year college and earn a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He has to attend several colleges to get all the courses needed to transfer to a low-demand transfer major like science, math or engineering.

Few of the courses are interesting or challenging. Few are taught by instructors who are very proficient in their subject areas. Often X meets other students outside class to explain what the instructor has failed to. X earns a C in the course - not good enough for meeting transfer requirements. These are the rules. In addition to completing all the lower division courses, X must have a GPA of 3.2 to transfer.

The flexibility needed isn't time or place. Genuinely assessing student capabilities and potential to contribute to society must move beyond what is taught and evaluated by formal education institutions today. Far too many young people are being short-changed by the inflexible system currently in place. These kids have much to offer. They just need the opportunity to connect and move toward achieving their true potential that has gone unrecognized, unappreciated and/or unrewarded. X and his peers will succeed in spite of the present system, not because of it.


Learning Environments

  • learning environment - resources, networks, connections, arcs, contributors, learners
  • "teaching" roles - Terry Anderson


Topic Maps

  • TMQL Topic Map Query Language
  • TMRA Topic Map Research and Applications
  • TMCL - Topic Map Constraint Language [?]
  • TMDM - Topic Map Data Model [?]
  • TMRM - Topic Maps Reference Model


  • The TAO of Topic Maps - Dubbed “the GPS of the information universe”, topic maps are also destined to provide powerful new ways of navigating large and interconnected corpora.
  • Topic Maps - wikipedia - A topic map represents information using topics (representing any concept, from people, countries, and organizations to software modules, individual files, and events), associations (representing the relationships between topics), and occurrences (representing information resources relevant to a particular topic).
  • topic map displays as a web site - IRS tax information for agents - need something like this for informal learning
  • The Omnigator is a technology showcase and teaching aid designed to demonstrate the power of Topic Maps. It is also used extensively as a topic map debugger and prototyping tool. Now, with the introduction of RDF support, the Omnigator is evolving into a multi-purpose Semantic Web Agent.


What is this?

Are there any WE initiatives around Topic Maps and Topic Maps Reference Model?

Creating a personal learning map based on a course Topic Map, combine with ones for optional topics and the learner's specific areas of interest rendered as a web site would be awesome.


This is my sandbox on the subject - I have looked at this off and on for years, never making any headway and never finding either applications or projects that quite fit my vision.

Topic maps and the relationship definitions look promising. An important factor is the ability to combine topic maps from multiple sources to make the resulting Topic Map bigger, stronger and/or customized.

The behind-the-scenes portion of WE Collections is a subset, I think. Selecting the collection elements implies (and records) sequence which is part of a Topic Map description.

Just using Categories doesn't give any sense of progression. There needs to be some definition of flow or connections (assertions) - basic to complex, concepts building on a foundation, general interest to in-depth to very detailed / technical / theoretical / experimental...


Related...

  • Learn nodes notes and links to Judy Breck - Our goal is to give you links to the best webpages to match your search. A key now to learning is making superior educational resources findable online. Learnodes.com develops and launches landing pages for academic subjects. Learnodes is created by Judy Breck.


  • open textbooks - provides framework - usually linear, static topic map


WE tools


note


Libraries, repositories

  • Open Textbooks


March 2009

Bob Cormia - Foothill College

  • social learning, collaboration, enabling, engineering
  • sensemaking
  • mindmanager - mindmap
  • assertions, hyper.. arc, like paths, notebook annotation, machine readable - search for hunch
  • tribes - seth godin
  • groundswell charlene lee, forester


Personal learning environment

personal learning network

  • RDF - research definition framework, arcs, xml
  • annotation
  • notebooks
  • connections, assertion, authority
  • shepherd, control, safe learning - guided, facilitated
  • community - realcommunities
  • Stephen Downes - OLDaily, connectivism, networks
  • FOC08, CKK08, SCoPE