Plain_Gillian - Reflections on Learning

Finally Applying for the Masters Degree

2011-02-27T10:15:00.000-08:00

I have finally buckled down to apply for my Masters Degree in Distance Education. As usual, I have left everything to the last minute and I can't figure out what to say in my questionnaire. I am guessing that when they ask what my primary reasons for applying are that they are not looking for "to get a Masters Degree". Ack! Hopefully I can pull it together by tomorrow.

OER Final Project - Aggregation

2010-07-07T10:53:00.000-07:00

Taking some direction from concepts I learned in this class, I have decided to slightly remix this assignment. Finding OERs for my topic was not always easy and there were some fantastic resources which I could not use due to the fact that they were not open. In some cases (one in particular) I choose to fudge this a bit to demonstrate how difficult it is to know what you can use and what you cannot.

The topic I choose to build my aggregation around was the Bechamel Sauce. Based on the resources I found and the direction my search took me in, I built the aggregation around the concept map below:

Cooking is an interesting topic when searching for OERs. It is strange that there are not more available since cooking is all about sharing, remixing, and mashups. In cooking we are often encouraged to take a basic recipe and make it our own which sounds just like the concept of remixing. We are also often shown that a great test for a chef is a black box challenge similar to what we see on the popular TV show Iron Chef. These challenges often display how using the same ingredients can result in very different products, similar to a mashup.

Although recipes themselves can be copyrighted it is difficult to enforce this. Lists can not be copyrighted so lists of ingredients are up for grabs. What can be copyrighted is how you describe the process. While you cannot copy a recipe word for word from a cookbook it is common for food bloggers to take a dish they ate at a restaurant and attempt to recreate it. Credit for inspiration is usually given to the restaurant or chef who created the original dish as in this example from the food blog The Amateur Gourmet.

Here is the link to my aggregation. I used the site LiveBinders.com for the first time and I really liked it for the most part. I found it easy to use and easy to organize. What I didn't like was that I could not figure out if I could put more than one resource on one page and it is not great for displaying some websites like Flickr or Twitter Search. The Twitter Search site is understandable as it is a real-time list and you would want to go to the site each time to renew the search. It would have been nice if the Flickr page had loaded so the viewer could see the picture in the binder.

Site Terms of Use

Free Culinary School - This site did not have a specific copyright or a terms of use policy listed. Based on the About page I believe that if it was licensed it would be under something like the Creative Commons (CC) Attribution-Noncommercial license. I linked to this podcast but I would not attempt to use it for a class or reuse any of the materials without first consulting with the owner of the site.
Wikipedia - All Wikipedia resources used are licensed under the CC Attribution - Share Alike 3.0 license.
Food Lorist - The Food Lorist blog is licensed under the CC Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs 3.0 license. I am allowed to share this work, but I must attribute it to the author and I must not use it for commercial purposes. I would not be able to use this resource in a class for which I, or any institution, was charging money without first obtaining permission from the author.
Flickr photo Bechamel (1) - CC Attribution 2.0 Generic. I can share and remix this photo, but I must provide attribution.
Flickr photo Bechamel (2) - CC Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs 2.0 Generic
Flickr photo Chicken Crepes - CC Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs 2.0 Generic
Flickr photo Hot Brown - CC Attribution - NonCommercial 2.0 Generic, so I can share and remix this photo but with attributing the photographer and not for commercial purposes.
Furey and the Feast - Cynathia Furey's blog is licensed with a CC Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs 3.0 United States license. As far as I can tell from the CC website the US license just means that the CC License also works within US copyright laws.
Flickr photo Croque Madame - CC Attribution - NonCommercial NoDerivs 2.0 Generic
Ms Glaze's Pomme d' Amour - CC Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike 3.0 Updated. I am free to share and remix if I attribute to MsGlaze and do not use the work for commercial purposes.
Our Life in the Kitchen - CC Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs 3.0 US
What the Fruitcake?! - CC Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
Flickr photo Croquetas - All photos in this series are CC Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivs 2.0 Generic
Hill's Kitchen - CC Attribution 3.0 Unported
PBS - This web resource is NOT an OER but I included it because it was my original inspiration for this topic and because it gives the appearance of being open. The video has buttons allowing the user to embed the video on a website and to share the resource through social media or email. This always bugs me because the tools provided indicate the video is free to use which it is not. As well the Terms of Use page is confusing. PBS has clear instructions on what you can do with a podcast, but not with a video.

Learning Objects on Shmoop

2010-05-23T11:16:00.000-07:00

For my Learning Object report I choose the website Shmoop. My reasons for doing so are purely selfish. I have been meaning to take a closer look at the website for a while and have not had time to do so. I was primarily interested in the Literature resources they offered. I don't work with any programs which offer a lit course but I do enjoy poetry and prose. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to take a closer look.

What is Shmoop?

Shmoop is a website which promises to make you a "better lover of literature, history, life..." (Shmoop homepage). The student resources are broken down into 9 categories: literature, poetry, Shakespeare, bestsellers, US history, civics, biographies, and AP exams. With the exception of AP exams, each of these categories offer free study resources for students at the high school and undergraduate level. All study guides are written by people hired by Shmoop University Inc. and most of the writers are teachers and graduate students.

The idea behind Shmoop is to make topics in subjects like literature, civics and history palatable to the 21st century learner. The study guide I viewed on The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock breaks the poem down stanza by stanza and explains it in a breezy, easy to understand style. This study guide includes web resources and study questions. Each study guide also includes a section called Why Should I Care which points out the cultural relevance of each work studied.

Open or not?

Our project parameters did not stipulate whether the Learning Object project had to be open or not. In an earlier post I defined open as an object which is easily available, freely usable, and customizable.

Shmoop is easily available. Most resources can be viewed without an account on their website. They also have study guides available through iPhone, Kindle, B&N Nook, and the Sony Reader. These mobile resources are not free however. At the time of writing, units from Shmoop cost $1.99 each on iTunes.

Resources from Shmoop are not freely usable both in terms of cost and copyright. Although the Shmoop Teacher Resource How to Use Shmoop page suggests teachers can freely copy assignments and activities into their own webpages (using copy and paste or HTML code provided by Shmoop) the Terms of Use page paints a different story. Under section VI User Conduct and Licenses to Use Shmoop Services it states:

"User may download copyrighted material for personal use only, unless User obtains express permission in writing from an authorized Shmoop University, Inc. representative, and the copyright owner, to download copyrighted material for other uses. Thus, except as otherwise expressly permitted under copyright law, User may not copy, redistribute, retransmit, publish or commercially exploit downloaded material without express permission in writing of Shmoop and the copyright owner." (Section VI of Terms of Use Shmoop)

In the US teachers would be allowed to copy and paste information from the website under Fair Use. In Canada and other countries this is not the case. I expect that it would be easy to obtain permission from Shmoop to use content in this manner since they seem to encourage it.

Shmoop also does not allow alteration of their content. It is use-as-is content. This means that they do not meet my criteria of open in terms of customization.

Shmoop maybe easy and cheap to use but it is not open.

Where is Shmoop now?

Shmoop is still in Beta mode so it is still being tested. To gain user feedback Shmoop offers a suggestions link which takes the user to a page where they can rant, rave and request. Users can also vote on ideas they like. The page categorizes ideas based on popularity, and allows users to see which ideas Shmoop is working on and which ones are completed.

An interview with the President and CEO of Shmoop, Ellen Siminoff, explains that the site makes money through advertising and sales of exams, teacher resources, ebooks and apps (transcribed interview). Because Shmoop charges for their apps as long as people are using the apps they should keep making money.

Prognosis for Future

I see no reason why Shmoop might fail in the near future. They collaborate with their Beta users through an interactive suggestions page, Facebook, Twitter and a blog. They have a system to make money for the company. Siminoff has stated that Shmoop is close to actually making money and she doesn't see an immediate need to spend in the near future (transcribed interview).

I am not sure how useful this site is outside of the US though. Many of the video clips I tried to view are not available outside of the US which is a problem for international users. The language and cultural references used are also specific to a western audience. I expect there could also be arguments made which narrow this audience even further demographically. There is also the fact that their entire history and civics sections are about the US alone. I expect their target market is the US student though.

Although they are not an open initiative Shmoop seems to share some of the same ideals. They are passionate about their subject matter and attempt to make it accessible (at least intellectually) to many in the US and Canada. If they focus on the subjects they already cover and continue to develop and offer mobile services I see no reason for them to fail.

Library Critique

2010-05-19T17:10:00.000-07:00

This week we were asked to look at a library website and determine whether the library under review is a repository or a referactory. If we define repository and referactory in the same way as in in the Educause report we read then my institution's library is a repository.

The Northern Lakes College Library offers a traditional library search engine, learning guides / tutorials for students, a database of electronic resource, and a collection of web resources organized by topics. Although the site does not have any terms of service laid out like we saw in Schalk's example, I believe these issues are meant to be understood. The college has a standard plagiarism policy and copyright in Canada is covered widely on the library's Moodle site accessible to college staff and students.

I think you could have a library that was both a repository and referactory. I am sure I have seen examples of this as well although they escape me at the moment. I wonder if a library as referactory is taking away from the classes offered at an institution. From the articles we read I understood what differentiates a referactory from repository is that the former offers guidelines on how to use a resource. If this is true then doesn't that restrict how it is used within the context of a course? Are we back to the reusibility paradox or am I missing something?

Reuse of Educational Objects

2010-05-14T07:16:00.000-07:00

This week we looked at the Reusability Paradox. Basically this paradox explains that educational resources become more valuable pedagogically the more context they have, but the greater the context the less it is possible to reuse those resources. The greater the context surrounding an object the less likely it is to use that object in another context.

I looked one evening at three institutions who offer open content for courses to see how the content was being reused. I searched using a backwards link search in Google's advanced search function. The institutions I looked at were Capliano College (Canada), UC Berkley (USA), and The Open University (UK). I looked at a variety of different courses offered.

The most common form of reuse I found was a simple listing on a resource based webpage. For example, I searched some art courses at Caplilano and found this page listing many online art courses for free. I found one course which had a specific recommendation on a blog for a webclass offered at UC Berkley. I had an interesting find which I am not sure would count as reuse. When doing a link back for a course offered through The Open University I found a link to an article written in the OU's newsletter with an add linking back to the course I was searching. I thought this was a nice form of advertising. The topic of the article related to the course offered. Is this reuses though?

All in all my results were fairly disappointing. I really thought I would find more examples, especially recommendations on blogs.

Learning Objects and OERs

2010-05-06T16:41:00.000-07:00

Learning objects are something I don't know very much about. The first time I heard the term learning object (LO) I remember picturing a 3 dimensional object in virtual space and I couldn't figure out how you would use it for learning.

I think the name is part of the problem with LOs. What constitutes a LO? Is it a lesson, a set of exercises, or an entire unit of learning? The name learning object doesn't really tell you much about what it is and there doesn't seem to be a clear definition of what LOs are in learning communities. As I mentioned in a previous post this also is the case with OERs.

Another feature OERs and LOs share is the fact that both are spread-out all over the place. There are a few repositories of LOs and OERs but there are many out there which are difficult to find.

Answering the question regarding critical success factors to open initiatives is difficult. The issues I mentioned above while possibly contributing to the lack of success in LOs are also important in maintaining flexibility in open initiatives. While a clear definition would help in identifying what an OER is it would also limit what is considered to be an OER, so I believe it is important to maintain a broad definition. Collecting all OERs to one location would also be extremely limiting. If everything is kept in one location the potential exists for stagnation of ideas. These are both issues of control and freedom.

One advantage OERs have is the potential for customization and I think this is where the secret to success lies. The ability to take a resource and change it to suit your needs while keeping the original intact is a vital step in encouraging the growth of ideas while maintaining a map of where ideas came from.

Too Many Levels?

2010-04-28T17:15:00.000-07:00

Our reflection question this week regards copyright licenses - are there too many levels. In Creative Commons (CC) alone there are 6 license types available on their license page. There is also confusion about what the terms mean within those license types. Non-commercial is a good example of this. Many of our readings/viewings this week mentioned the confusion surrounding non-commercial.

On the CC FAQ page non-commercial is describes as the restriction of works which are "primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation". CC goes on to explain that judging whether something is commercial or non-commercial will depend on both the situation and intention of the user. This makes the definition wide open for interpretation which could lead to some tricky situations. The FAQ page suggests that if you are unsure if your use is commercial or non-commercial you should contact the license holder to see how they would interpret the use.

In the reading by David Wiley a future is imagined where the non-commercial part of the CC license brings about lawsuits because of interpretation. Eventually the non-commercial part is taken out and the issue is solved. Is this solution too optimistic? Would the actual reality be more complicated?

Confusion abounds in the copyright issue. What constitutes fair dealing or fair use? In the USA educational use of works is covered under fair use. In Canada (where I live) this is not the case. Fair dealing in Canada does not pertain to education. If I wanted to show a video in my class for educational purposes I would have to write to the copyright holder for permission. I found a rather handy quick guide on some of the differences at the Concordia University Library website. In Canada educational institutions must belong to collectives like Access Copyright in order to make copies of works for classes. As we read in class this week Access is raising its rates significantly which will raise issues for the next academic year.

At the very least all of the different options available make it difficult to navigate what you can use and what you can't. It might be simpler to have just copyright and public domain, but with copyright laws differing so much from country to country it would still be pretty complicated.

Different licensing options like those offered by CC offer an alternative to restrictive and obsolete copyright laws. It might not be the perfect alternative but I think we can look at it as a healthy step along the way to copyright reform. I am hoping for the evolution of the marketplace to new types of copyright which allow for the protection of both the producer and the consumer.

Interestingly, on my way home from work today I heard a podcast interview on the TVO show Search Engine regarding some thoughts on the future of Fair Dealings in Canada. You can listen here if you are interested.

What Does it Mean to be an OER?

2010-04-22T13:46:00.000-07:00

All three of the terms open, educational and resource seem to be difficult to define to anyone's satisfaction. I believe this is because to a certain extent all three of these terms have a different meaning to everyone

What does it mean to be open?

To say something is open might mean that it is freely available or it might mean for a small fee you can use that something and have knowledge about how it was created. Each of the articles we read as well as the video we watched delved into the concept of what it means to be open a great deal and all agreed clarification is needed. In the Tuomi article three levels of social openness were described which leads me to believe that some things can be more open than others. In my mind to be open something must be easily available, freely usable, and customizable.

What does it mean to say something is educational?This question always leads to the formal verses informal education debate. It is not really fair to say that only things created at an educational institution or with the purpose of education are educational. Informal learning occurs all the time and because it is personally relevant may have more of an impact on the learner. My definition of education is any situation from which a person learns. This is probably way to broad for the purposes of defining an OER, but I do think it is something which is personal and should not be confined to formal learning.

What is a resource?
I don't really want to limit resources to tools or digital assets. I think resources can include people, places (eg. a library) and things. I was wondering if an experience could also be a resource, but I think a resource might need to be more solid. A picture of an experience could be a resource because it is something tangible you could refer to again. My definition of a resource would be an object or asset which can be used for a particular purpose. The resource would not have to be created with learning in mind in order for it to be educational though.

My definition of an OER
According to what I have written above an OER must be an easily available, freely usable and customizable object or asset which can be used formally or informally to learn. I view the open part of the definition to be most crucial however. If something is open on all three of the levels discussed in the Tuomi article it wouldn't matter if it was intended to be educational or a resource. It could still be viewed as an OER by the user as long as they had open access to it.

Cape Town and Budapest Declarations

2010-04-18T10:55:00.000-07:00

For week one of the Open Educational Resources course we were asked to read both the Cape Town and Budapest Declarations and sign them if we agreed. I signed both of them.

I agree strongly with the statements made in both. The Budapest Declaration makes the point that freely sharing ideas for the "sake of inquiry and knowledge" is an old tradition. I believe this is what has allowed our collective knowledge evolve over time.

Limiting access to ideas only limits how these ideas change over time. I suppose that is why access to ideas was limited - to limit the changes to that idea. An idea is the property of the idea holder however that idea came from the idea holder's exposure to other ideas. How could it not? So, to say that an idea should remain static is ridiculous.

The point of documents like these is to raise awareness about the free sharing of ideas. I really liked that both documents gave suggestions for action. Even if changes at the institutional level are a long time coming documents like these at least have people thinking about change.

We are using Angel as our course management software in this class. Using any CMS is in direct opposition to what the Cape Town and Budapest declaration support. We are closing off our ideas and discussions when we should be opening them up.

Challenges to Mobile Learning

2010-03-22T08:36:00.000-07:00

In many ways mobile learning would be a good fit for the learning institution I work for. We are a small college whose mandate is to bring education to isolated communities in Northern Alberta. As you can imagine our service region is quite spread out and we have instructors working as far away as Ontario. However there are some significant challenges this institution would have to overcome before initiating an M Learning program. Three of these challenges are a lack of infrastructure available in some of our servicing regions, financial barriers of our student demographic, and a lack of buy-in from faculty.

Challenge 1
According to the Northern Lakes College website, the service region covered is "in excess of 163,000 square kilometers"(http://www.northernlakescollege.ca/content.aspx?id=2640). As you can see from the map provided the campuses are quite spread out and in many cases in fairly remote areas. Cell coverage is quite spotty in many of our communities and internet is often limited to dial up or satellite. Dial up internet is extremely slow and satellite is contingent on weather and quite costly. M Learning would often depend upon one or the other of these.

Solution
A clear cut way to overcome the lack of service availability is to provide access points for students to downloading content to work with offline. A student could download their content for the week while attending an online session for example. Lectures could be created as a podcast if students were unable to attend virtually because of lack of service.

Challenge 2
Aside from the barrier of distance, our students often choose our institution because of the financial burden involved in going away to school. Many of our students have families to take care of. It is difficult for them to move away from their communities. Going to school away from home requires money they do not have. Creating an M Learning program may increase this financial strain. If students are expected to pay for a device to use as well as service to the device school will become more costly than it already is.

Solution
The cost barrier faced by our students could be solved by the college providing devices for use in specific classes. One of the programs I work with has recently instituted a laptop program which allows continuous access to one laptop per student for the duration of the program. So far it has been fairly successful; however it is quite a strain on our already overworked IT department.

Challenge 3
Another challenge comes from faculty not buying into the idea of M Learning. Part of the problem is that many of our students receive funding from different agencies. Many of those agencies have very specific attendance policies which have not caught up with a model that follow learning on the go. Because of this many faculty members see no point in creating such resources because they will not be properly utilized. We do have quite a few courses on Moodle with the idea that students can access they course content/resources from home and we do conduct many classes through an online meeting software from Saba called Centra. Saba has recently released a free iPhone app for Centra which is one step towards M Learning, however my institution does not have the correct version for the use of this app.

Solution
The challenge that will be the most difficult to overcome is the one of lack of buy in. It is difficult to convince someone who sees little to no value in a tool of its usefulness. It just seems to be the case that most of our faculty do not have a lot of experience with different technologies. Maybe an increase in PD spent on technology in the classroom would help but then we would still have to convince the administration. Unfortunately all of this takes money which is in relatively short supply. I think our best course of action is to continue as we have done before, pushing little by little and eventually M Learning will stop being a radical idea.

Although there are many challenges to implementing an M learning program I don't think it is impossible. My particular institution just needs some time to catch up to the technology. We have made a good start with our small laptop project and transferring course content to Moodle. I am excited to see where we go from here.

Autonomy vs Control

2010-01-31T13:41:00.000-08:00

In designing and developing learning materials for mobile devices there are a number of different points to consider. What kind of access is available to students? What service providers or data plans are available to the student? Are the students familiar with mobile devices and are they comfortable working with them? Who has control over the choice of mobile device and data plan? Should this be the domain of the institution or the student? All of these questions address the larger issue of institutional control verses learner autonomy.

Institutional Choice

If a particular institution is going to be providing devices to the learner they have control over what types of devices are used as well as what data plan is chosen. The institution could choose to go with one particular device or a select few. In a model like this the designer can be sure that all learners will have access to the same device capabilities. The designer can create learning materials that work on that particular device and have a relatively good idea of how the materials will look to the learner. The designer can also know what the limits of the data plan are and be sure to design materials which will not exceed those limits.

Another benefit to this model is increased support for the learner. The learner will not have to spend their time and money choosing their own device or plan as it is already done for them. They will also not have to worry about any problems that arise with the device as the institution will most likely have tech support available for situations like this as well as reserve replacement devices.

Learner Choice

If learners are free to choose their own device and plan institutions lose control. Designers will not know what type of device they are designing for or if their design will even work on the device that a student chooses. Another consideration is that of familiarity with mobile technology. This model assumes that each learner has a mobile device that they are familiar with. What if that is not the case? The learner would then be forced to not only choose a device and appropriate plan but also to familiarize themselves with the platform.

One of the advantages seen in m-learning is the ability to personalize the learning experience. In the article Mobile Learning in Higher Education: Multiple Connections in Customized Learning Spaces, author Ruth Renard discusses the ability of m-learning to allow students to customize their own learning experience (2008). The idea is that each student will be able to use their own device and software to increase learner independence as well as reinforce learning through each learners own preferred learning style (2008). How can learners truly personalize their learning if they are not given the opportunity to have a choice in what type of mobile device they use?

Autonomy vs Control

The problem of devices comes down to autonomy vs control. Institutions require a certain amount of control in order to ensure quality learning materials for the learners. However the learners might do better with greater autonomy. If we are designing learning materials for m-learning it might be better to use a more learner autonomy pedagogy such as constructivism or connectivism. The designer could provide some basic starting points but leave the learners to determine what type of content to access and how to present and share ideas. It would be similar to the course we are currently taking where we as learners, are free to use whatever tools we want to access and create course content with a bit of support from our instructor and the institution.

References

Renard, R. (2008). Mobile Learning in Higher Education: Multiple connections in customized learning spaces. Campus Technology. Retrieved from http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2008/04/Mobile-Learning-in-Higher-Education.aspx?Page=1

Concept Map

2009-12-04T13:36:00.001-08:00

My concept map for this course never seems to be done, but as today is the date to submit here it is:
To see a closer view of this map go here.
I also just noticed that if you click on the picture above you can view it as a Picasa file. I love it when I discover something new.

CCK09 Final Project - Thoughts and Reflections

2009-11-29T19:38:00.000-08:00

For our final CCK09 project we were given a number of possible questions we could reflect on. The questions I choose to focus on were "what is the quality of my network?" and "how connected am I?".

I first wanted to record a video podcast of my thoughts but the words just wouldn't come out without me reading a script and no one wants to see that. I turned to a tool I have never used but always wanted to, Prezi. I found it useful since I have a lot of thoughts that seem disjointed. I managed to pair a few with pictures I have taken. You can view the presentation here.

So, how connected am I and what is the quality of my network?

These are difficult questions to answer. I always end up comparing myself to others I see online. My network is smaller and compact, but it is growing and changing and I think that is a sign of a developing network.

Within my network I have a variety of people who share different things with me. I have also noticed that my network is made up of lots of different groups.

The best way to answer is to say for now my network and connections do what I need them to do. As my needs and interests change in the future so will my network and the connections I make.

Changing Roles in Instructional Design - CCK09 Paper #2

2009-11-21T13:30:00.000-08:00

Everything changes, so it is no surprise that the role of the Instructional Designer will also have to change to keep up with society. There is a vast amount of information available on the internet and increasing social connection possibilities. We are coming from the framework Martin Weller refers to as a Pedagogy of Abundance (2009).

I received a comment in one of my recent blog posts from suifaijohnmak (2009) which stated, "In an learning ecology over the net, we are able to pursue our own interests with autonomy, and broaden our learning horizon as we engaged with different learning sources, experts, and media". I think this comment gets right to the heart of the matter in that there is so much in the way of content already out there and we have the potential now to easily access that.

This is completely different from reasoning for courses of the past. We are coming from the idea that knowledge or ideas reside in experts and those experts are few and far between. We needed to access them from either a recognized institution or a lecture or video that would be limited in distribution or accessibility.

The abundance of information also impacts the role of the student. No longer are students going to be passive learners. They need to take an active role in choosing the content of the course through the connections they make socially and also with the course material itself. This will inevitably have an impact on how an Instructional Designer will design a course.

I think the big change will come in how courses are actually designed. If education is moving more towards philosophies such as constructivism, problem based learning, and connectivism, Instructional Designers need to be involved through out the course, not just designing a set course and leaving it to run. Formative evaluation will play a much larger role.

Students are going to become more in control of where they want the particular course to go based on their own interests. There will be less emphasis on required readings and topics and more freedom for students to bring their own materials to share and for them to choose which way the course unfolds.

I propose the metaphor of the Instructional Designer as the Gamemaster or GM, a term borrowed from role-playing. A GM may have a particular story line he/she would like to players to go down but ultimately a good GM knows that the players have to control the story. If they choose not to take the story bait the GM has left, the story line must change. I think the same will be true in designing a class in the future. There maybe a learning path that the designer wants the students to go down but based on the interests, connections and experience of the students they may end up going another way. The Instructional Designer will need to watch where the students are taking the course and make changes to the design to accommodate that learning path.

There are many possible impediments to this idea. The first is that this is not a very good system for keeping consistency in courses for accreditation purposes. We would have to completely change the idea of static course outlines. Instead we might be able to use more open descriptions about possibilities of materials the course might cover. However there would be no guarantee that each group within the same course would learn the same materials. In all likelihood they would have very different learning experiences as their groups would be different. I think this is evident in our current course CCK09. From what I have read it is significantly different from CCk08, even though it is the same course and the same topics are covered. We as the student of CCk09 have taken the course materials in a different direction based on our interests.

A lack of purposefulness is another potential impediment. The current idea is that education should take a student from point A to point B in a logical predictable manner. In my idea of the Instructional Designer as a Gamemaster this is not the case. There of course is a purpose for the course but the purpose is often more vague than people would like. The purpose is to make connections and forge your own learning paths as a group of students.

Currently my idea of the Instructional Designer as a Gamemaster is not practical for many courses at a K to 12 level, however I think courses like this could be experimented with at the post secondary level. The blending of the informal and formal learning models is a gradual process. There are more an more people within education everyday experimenting with personal learning networks and discussing ways to incorporate learner empowerment into their classes. I think the more we experiment with these ideas the closer we become to the learner directed course as an accepted model.

Works Cited

Weller, M. A Pedagogy of Abundance (Elluminate Presentation). Retreived from CCK09 Recordings Wiki: http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/wiki/CCK09_Recordings#Week_9:_Net_Pedagogy_Conference

suifaijohnmak. (2009, November 20). My Position on Connectivism (Msg 1). Message posted to http://plaingillian.blogspot.com/2009/10/my-postition-on-connectivism.html

A Response to John Mak's Blog

2009-11-17T13:55:00.000-08:00

Hi John,

Thank you for sharing this thoughtful post. Although you may not recognize me from CCK09 I recognize you :)

I have to admit I have been a bit guilty of lurking for some of the forum chats but I have been trying to chime in lately.

I will attempt to answer your questions from my point of view:

1) I expected CCK09 to be a bit overwhelming at first and it was. I did not expect some of the types of conversations though. Some have been well out of my comfort area in terms of knowledge. This has been helpful though as it has exposed me to all sorts of new concepts and terminology.

2) I am not totally sure what my needs are. I am taking the course as a part of the Emerging Tech certificate at the University of Manitoba so I think that makes me different to a lot of the participants. I need to understand enough to pass the course, but I want to meet different people and be exposed to different ideas. I also want a chance to work out what my own ideas are.

3) My needs have been met so far in the course. I think I could be doing more in the way of starting conversations. At the beginning I was quite intimidated, not because of the online nature of the course but rather the depth of the subject matter being discussed by participants. I also have needed time to reflect, which I try to do on this blog. I also do my reflecting with the people closest to me in real life, such as my husband and friends, which is not meeting needs on a course level but that is my fault :)!

4) My needs are fulfilled on the forum. I had heard that this course would probably take place mainly outside of Moodle so I ignored the forums for a while. That was a mistake. I think if I had been more attentive inside the forums I would have been saying more earlier. I do enjoy the formation of concepts that takes place inside a forum. I like that I can see who said what, in relation to what, and when. It gives me a good picture of how the concept is developing.

5) I am not sure what sort of new emerging concepts, knowledge, and connections I expected from the forums. I think it is difficult to predict where a course like this will go, but that is part of the fun of it.

6) Yes the concept of connectivism resonates very strongly with me. I have always been aware of my need to discuss and reflect on concepts. I love exploring and sharing with my colleagues and classmates. I was recently labeled a "connector" at a PD event my college held.

Once again John, I appreciated your blog post and enjoyed thinking about these topics.
I look forward to us continuing our learning journey!

Kippers for Breakfast

2009-11-08T13:05:00.001-08:00

This week's CCK09 topic was openness and transparency. Transparency in particular is a topic that is very interesting to me.

George Siemens in the CCK09 outline for this week states that transparency "involves making our learning explicit through forums, blogs, presentations, podcasts, and videos". I love it when I identify with what I read in a blog or hear in a podcast. I think this is probably a very common feeling. I also love it when I can see inside someones thinking process. How did they solve problem "x", did they even think that "x" is/was a problem? These are all things that transparency allows us to view.

There are many people who think that sharing or transparency is invasive or that people won't care about their experiences. Someone in one of this week's talks made a comment about posting about having kippers for breakfast on twitter. I just about died laughing. It cuts right to the core issue; do we care that you had kippers for breakfast? I respond with a loud YES! I want to know little things like that about the people I communicate with online. It is what strengthens our connections. I feel like I know you a bit better for that. Maybe I am in the minority, but I am probably not going to remember you for some deep insight you made in class last week, I am going to remember that you ate kippers for breakfast and then remember that you also made that deep comment.

I feel like transparency and openness are necessary for us to connect and have meaningful conversations and that is especially important in an environment where we cannot see each other. I know that you my classmates are not robots, even though I can't see that you are wearing a shirt I really like in class. It is as if we all live on these tiny little islands and when we find out our islands share some features we can say "Hey! My Island has that too" or we could say "How can I get that on my Island?".

I have decided to post a list of 10 things that you as classmates probably don't know about me so that we can get to know each other better. I also invite you to post back with some things about yourselves.

I love the TV show Lost. I mean LOVE it. I read numerous blogs about it, twitter about it and even have my own Dharma Initiative jumpsuit to wear while I watch the show.
I live in a really small town called High Prairie in Alberta Canada. I moved here about 3 years ago from Vancouver BC. When I first moved I lived in an even smaller community called Grouard which had less people than my old apartment building in Vancouver. I really enjoy living in a small community which is a big surprise to me and everyone who knows me. There are days when I am frustrated that I can't have a Latte or buy lemongrass at the supermarket but I get over it quickly.
I have a cat named Loki and a husband named Pat, but no children.
I am currently contemplating applying for a Masters Degree in Instructional Design at Athabasca University and would love any input from anyone in the field.
I am guilty of lurking. I am slowly getting over that though .
I am really bad at sharing stuff I find on Twitter. I keep thinking people will have already seen what I am looking at. I need to get over that.
I spend a lot of time on Facebook which many would consider a bad thing but I love because I get to see what is going on with my friend and family who also use it a lot.
I love to cook and to eat.
I am attempting to win a weight loss contest with some friends this month.
I don't have an amazing story of openness but hope to one day.

Word Cloud of my Delicious Tags

2009-10-25T13:34:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to do this for a long time and my recent re-visitation of PLEs in CCK09 reminded me to. Here is a word cloud from Wordle of my delicious tags.

Clearly I have a lot of catching up to do if my toread tag is any indication.

(taken from http://www.wordle.net/)

My Postition on Connectivism

2009-10-22T16:39:00.000-07:00

Our assignment was to discuss our position on Connectivism and I found this difficult. Every time I think I have a handle on what the theory is saying and how I relate to it I change my mind. So, I stuck with the suggested questions. I feel like I ended up not saying much! I think Connectivism is a concept that is difficult to verbalize in a short to the point way.

Here it is for better or worse...

What is Connectivism?

Connectivism is an idea that posits that knowledge is an emergent property of connections. Connections can form between people, concepts and neurons. This knowledge is also distributed across a network. So to gather or learn this knowledge we must understand how to navigate a network. Learning is by nature networked.

Is Connectivism a Learning Theory?

In his 2006 paper Pløn Verhagen states very strongly that Connectivism is not a learning theory. He believes that Connectivism only deals with the pedagogical or curriculum level of education (Verhagen, 2006). A learning theory would deal with how learning happens while a pedagogical theory would deal with "what is learned and why" (Verhagen, 2006).

I would argue that Connectivism is a learning theory. It attempts to explain not only how learning happens but how to improve learning. Connectivism goes into great detail on how learning occurs. In a Google doc by George Siemens (2009) Connectivism is broken down into a chart that describes its position on how learning occurs, influencing factors, role of memory, how transfer occurs, and types of learning best explained.

There also seems to be some question as to whether Connectivism is a new learning theory. Connectivism certainly contains similarities in thought to other theories, most notably Constructivism. I think that there are clear distinctions though. A Constructivist believes that knowledge is created by the knower while a Connectivist believes that knowledge is grown from a connection.

What are the Strengths and Weaknesses of Connectivism

One big strength of Connectivism in my mind is the fact that everything becomes a learning opportunity. If learning comes from navigating a network then we do it all the time. We are constantly making new connections and those new connections give us a new perspective on knowledge. Essentially we are always learning even if we "know" something because we are connecting from a different context. It also allows us to move away from the idea that someone holds knowledge and that we must get it from them.

Connectivism incorporates concepts form a large number of disciplines such as, neuroscience, AI, philosophy, sociology, and economics. This poses a possible weakness. The marriage of all this information makes it more difficult to test or validate as a whole theory. While the parts of the theory may have merit in the eyes of the academic community it may not be true as a whole and without the support of community it will make it difficult for Connectivism to be embraced as a theory. This is also a strength though. Connectivism in taking all of these diverse concepts and melding them in to one theory is self demonstrating. A new theory has emerged from the connection between individual concepts.

How does Connectivism Resonate with my Learning Experience?

The more I reflect on my learning the more I see how connections and networks have impacted it. I think I was taught to see learning as something only I and my teacher were involved in. That never quite worked for me. I always wanted time to reflect on what we were learning and more time to discuss it with my classmates. Both of these would have allowed me to deepen the connections I made as well as increased connections. I have also come to realize that a network is only as good as its connections. For example, if I had not signed up for the Daily in this class or Google alerts (to name a few) I would have missed out on some great insights from my fellow classmates. I would have a different understanding of the concept of Connectivism. Every time I make a connection regarding this topic more knowledge is grown which deepens my perception or understanding of the concept.

Conclusion

Connectivism is a fairly new concept which is based in many disciplines which are either cutting edge or constantly changing. As such it would be impossible to say where this theory will take us. Each day brings more connections to the theory which in turn molds its being. I have many outstanding questions which are not ready to be answered yet such as, how will this theory effect instructional design, how will it affect things like accreditation and assessment, or how will it change the role of a teacher. While there are many possible answers I think if Connectivism tells me one thing it is that these answers are all dependent on the connections made.

Works Cited

Siemens, G. (2009, September 12). What is Connectivism? Week 1: CCK09. Retrieved October 21, 2009, from Google Docs: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=anw8wkk6fjc_14gpbqc2dt

Verhagen, P. W. (2006, November 11). Connectivism: a new learning theory? Retrieved 10 21, 2009, from http://elearning.surf.nl/e-learning/english/3793

Contributing to the Network

2009-10-17T16:25:00.000-07:00

This week there is a thread in the Moodle forum for CCK09 asking where all the people have gone. Reading this made me re-evaluate my participation in the course.
I have found this course to be a bit more intimidating to participate in since it is so large and a number of people actively contributing seem to know so much about the subject already. But that shouldn't stop me! That is precisely what I should want right? I want a network with different views and discussions. That is the only way I will learn... if I connect with different nodes of the network.
So, I have come up with a plan that will hopefully get me participating more actively.

Every day I must post at least one thing to either the Moodle forum or on someones blog
Each week I must post at least one blog entry
I should check the Twitter feeds on #CCK09 more often
I should post things I find regarding CCK09 on Twitter

I forget that building a network and maintaining a network is time consuming. I get so involved in the weekly readings and catching up on the Daily that I forget what their purpose is... to start dialogue.
Any other ideas are appreciated.

Thoughts on Groups, Networks, Social Comfort, and Lurking

2009-10-10T15:15:00.000-07:00

In our week 3 elluminate session we began discussing the necessity of social comfort to learning. In order to learn effectively we must be comfortable socially and since groups encourage control and silence the thought is that networks are a more effective place to learn. My question is with this line of thinking. I understand the reason that groups may not be conducive to learning in that they do not allow a person to deviate from the norm easily. However networks could just as easily be socially uncomfortable. The idea of sharing an idea with a network is daunting because you don't really know how the network is going to react. Even though the network is based on reason I may have a particular emotional tie to my idea and end up being socially uncomfortable when my idea is rejected. I think the concept of social comfort is precisely what keeps us from learning. We become to worried about being uncomfortable that we miss the learning.

My other thought is about lurking within a network. I have been especially guilty of lurking in this class. I find that as I read the posted readings, moodle comments, blogs, diigo comments/articles, and twitter posts for this course I often don't have anything to say. I have not fully formed my opinions or thoughts about a subject and so don't really have anything to say. Should we be forcing ourselves to say something just for the sake of interacting? Is this part of making a connection in a network and so not saying anything is an opportunity lost?

How Connectivism and Constructivism Differ

2009-09-27T10:28:00.000-07:00

After listening to the week 2 discussion in Elluminate for CCK09 I think I have understood a key difference between Connectivism and Constructivism.

In Constructivism knowledge is created or constructed by the knower. It is all based on previous and present experience. This is an idea that has always made me uncomfortable. In Constructivism the correctness of knowledge is all about perception and you can't say someone is incorrect because you are not them and they are the constructor of their own knowledge. It is right for you but not for me.

In Connectivism knowledge grows or emerges from a connection. It is perceived and meaning is inferred by the perceiver. The knowledge emergent from this connection might be correct but that is not the issue. This is where the concept of feedback comes into play. Our connections are not static and the transfer of signal between the entities can be a check for our perceptions. This is also why we don't want our networks to be synchronous all the time. We need input from different groups to give us a better way to check for accuracy.

Does this sound right or have I totally missed the point?

Connectivism and Connected Knowledge Weeks 1 & 2

2009-09-26T16:34:00.000-07:00

In the first week of the CCK09 class we were given a basic introduction on Connectivism. What it is, how it is different and similar to other learning theories, and how our two facilitators differ in their conceptualization of it.

Originally I thought the majority of my learning would happen on Twitter. I have found the Twitter feeds to be a bit overwhelming though. Surprisingly to me the most useful things so far has been Google Alerts and the Daily. I have also decided to use Diigio for the first time. I am still kind of lost as to how to use Diigo but hopefully I will get there soon. I had also hoped to use SL but I think I might let that go for this time.

There are so many people with so many different ideas and projects going on that it has taken me this long to actually get my thought together enough to actually write something.

Here are some initial questions I have:

I feel like there is some part of the idea behind Connectivism I am missing. It is almost like I have a veil over my head that is obscuring my full view. I wonder though if this is how it is supposed to be. Maybe there isn't a clear cut definition. Maybe it is more about knowing on a different level? I had a nice conversation with April Hayman and Christy Tucker on April's blog about this and have decided I need to work on visualizing my thoughts. I guess that is what the mindmapping is for :)
Is Connectivism more than the sum of it parts? Is the connection between two or more entities more than those entities?
Is Connectivism somehow related to Chaos Theory?
I am a bit fuzzy on Connectivism and the nature of Knowledge. This is what I think is the key idea but please help me out: Knowledge only exists when a connection is made. This connection can be neural, conceptual or social. Connections are made between entities (neuron to neuron, person to person, object to person). Knowledge is not transferred between entities rather it emerges in their connection.

I think sometimes this is difficult to grasp because we are looking at a large picture not discrete parts. I keep getting stuck on the social connections and forget about the neural and conceptual aspect which made the idea of where knowledge comes from difficult. I need to remember we are talking about multiple levels. Hopefully I am getting there!

Learning Styles

2009-06-09T10:12:00.000-07:00

As part of my Instructional Design course I took a look at learning inventories again this time with some surprising results.
I used to always test very high on the auditory part of the VARK, however for the past year I consistently score much higher on the kinesthetic side.
I also used a measure to test my Action/Reflection, Sensing/Intuition, Visual/Verbal, and Sequential/Global preferences (do your own tests here). I was not surprised to see that I highly favor action over reflection or intuition over sensing, but I was surprised to see visual over verbal (narrowly though) and global over sequential.
I think all of these results are not really an accurate measure of how someone learns though. I find it very tempting to answer the questions in a way in which I would like to be thought of. I think this is why in the past I have scored higher on auditory, I always took great pride in my ability to listen well. Now I seem to take pride in my new found love of experimentation which would explain the kinesthetic result.
Are these tests really measuring how we lean something or how we would like to learn something? Or could it be that we change how we learn depending on how we think we should?

Part 2 of the Assignement - Personas

2009-03-24T16:25:00.000-07:00

So part 2 of my assignement in Instructional Design is to create three personas. A persona is a fictional person who might take my class. I actually really like this idea. It seems like a great way to come up with possible pitfalls/problems early on.
The first thing I need to state about these personas is that all three of them are Teacher Assistant students. That is they are all in a college program to certify Teacher Assistants.

Persona 1: Lila Pennyworth
Lila is a single mother of two in her late 20's. Lila dropped out of high school when she became pregnant at the age of 16. She recently finished her GED though and has decided to continue her education. She used computers in high school and during her GED training and has a basic competency with them. She uses the internet mostly to keep in touch with friends over Facebook. She is a caring person but sometimes seems guarded due to her shy and serious nature. Lila is no stranger to change and sees it as a necessary part of life. She is excited to be back in school. She wants to make her children proud of her while ensuring a secure future for them as a family.

Persona 2: Stella Lacombe
Stella is a married woman in her early 50s. Stella spent 10 years working as a TA but has not worked in 15 years. She would like to get back into it but has discovered that most schools in her area require a certified TA. Stella is not happy about that. "Leaning doesn't change" says Stella. She knows that 15 years of experience count a lot more than any peice of paper. Stella has not had a lot of experience with computers and feels that they are a bit too complicated for her. She doesn't understand people's facination with the internet. "Young people spend too much time in front of the computer", she thinks.

Persona 3: Travis Wentworth
Travis is a single 19 year old who lives with his parents. He took a year off after graduating high school to travel and has just returned home from Thiland. Travis grew up with a computer in his home and cannot imagine what life must have been like with out them. He is very active online. All of his social engagements are managed through tools like Facebook, Twitter and his email. He is never with out his iPhone. He plays in an MMORG (World of Warcraft) at least once a week and enjoys the social interaction he gets from it. He is very outgoing and gets along with a wide variety of people. Travis has a form of ADHD but has learned to manage it for the most part. It is because of this he has decided to become a certified TA. He remembers the help his TA gave him when he was in school and would like to be able to help other kids reach their potential.

Course Unit Topic for my Instructional Design Project

2009-03-14T21:08:00.000-07:00

My new course is an Instructional Design course. I wasn't sure if I would like it, but after week 1 it looks promising. It is way more structured than my last course which was an introductory course to types of technology.
I have a major assignment in this course where I have to design a unit of learning. I love that there is no actual content. We just come up with the topic and design the ways to achieve the outcome. Our unit has to be very small so we can have between 4 to 6 learning outcomes and it should be applicable to our jobs or personal life.
I have chosen Critical Thinking and the Internet. Here are my ramblings which I hope to turn into an introduction this week.
This unit deals with critical thinking and the internet. By the end of the unit I want the learner to be able to, recognize what critical thinking is, why it is important when viewing the internet, learn some ways to evaluate webpages, and be able to identify possible biases in example webpages.
The target learners are at a vocational college level and they may not have completed high school. They must have at least a grade 12 english level though. Some of the students have not been in school for quite a few years. The students all live in a rural setting and most have not had a great deal of exposure to computers and the online world.
The institution is a small college with campuses spread out across a distance. All campuses service rural areas. The instructor will not be present for face to face contact with most students. The students can obtain face to face assistance at their campus but due to other students the staff are in high demand.
That is all I have right now. I hope it is a topic that works out because it would be great to turn it into a real min-course next year.
As always please share your thoughts and suggestions.

Inclusive and Induvidualized?

2009-03-10T09:45:00.000-07:00

I was reading about Alberta Educations proposal to revamp the Special Education Program yesterday and I noticed a trend that I find interesting. In the Summary Report for Phase 1 of this discussion it was reported that a number of people want an Education System for all students. That is they don't want separate programs for students, they want one system for all children. At the same time they also want a highly personalised program for students. My question is can people have it both ways?
Is it possible to have one system of education while catering to individual needs? Are the two ideas mutually exclusive?
I am not sure but it is an interesting process to watch.

LMS

2009-03-04T20:20:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of writing out there about the problems with an LMS. Until recently however I had never really considered any of this. I have been working with Moodle for my job for the last little while and these ideas seem to be at the centre of my attention.
I guess the concern is that an LMS by nature is not open enough, there isn't enough sharing going on with the outside world. The term walled garden gets thrown about quite a bit. It is interesting that tools like wikis and forum chats are used in LMS systems and yet they are totally isolated to one group of students. The whole idea of these tools is to learn through collaboration. I appreciate that not everyone wants to share ideas with the public at large it just is a strange thing. The two ideas seem to be at odds.
Another concern is the institutional control over an LMS. In this world the people who created a course would have ownership of that course and be the ones to decide how to share it. But I also realize that institutions are essentially out there to turn a profit. They want to have some kind of control. If every course follows that cookie cutter pattern the institution knows what its product is. There is a clear way (at least on a surface level) to measure if a course is doing what it is supposed to do. Knowledge has become something which is owned not shared and it makes sense for an institution to want to be the owner. It was a sad day for me when I realized that a course or curriculum you design for an institution is not yours but the institution's. I don't really know though how to solve this problem or if there is a solution.
Obviously control is necessary for an institution. They need it for all kinds of reasons including public accountability. But also a certain amount of freedom is necessary for new and fresh ideas and learning to take place. There must be some kind of happy medium.
I guess it is that same old problem of measurement. It would be lovely if we didn't have to measure.

My PLE

2009-02-26T10:39:00.000-08:00

My PLE

Creating a concept map of my PLE was extremely difficult for me. Every time I thought I had it the connections would go crazy. Everything was so interrelated that is was hard to make it clear using the concept map. It is also difficult to explain to others how your thinking process works. I suppose though that is what is useful about this exercise. It started me thinking about how to better explain my thinking :)!

I ended up simplifing what I inteded to do but I think it reflects my learning in a clearer way. Instead of showing how all the different tools I use connect with each other I show how they connect to different aspects of my learning. I broke my learning into different categories: Discovery, making sense, collabortation, and reworking. I then mapped out how these categores interact to help me learn.

Learning - What Are the Steps Involved in Learning

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Homework Academic Work learning umaniet09

After I broke down my learning into categories it was easier to see how the different tools I use fit into these categories. Originally I envisioned my PLE as being much more grand. I had many versions that I toyed with but as I meantioned above I could never get the connections to work the way I wanted. It all got too messy. I worked with a lot of tools that were new to me over this course as well I began thinking about things I had not thought of for a while. I am still trying to process it all and there are a bunch of tools that I know I will be using more very soon and so they will become part of my PLE.

My PLE (Round 2) - What Makes Up My Personal Learning Environment

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Academic Work umaniet09 PLE

Obviously because it is a Personal Learning Environment my PLE will change as I change and the tools I use change. I plan to revisit my PLE periodically to see how things have changed.