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Graduation 2008

Activity 17: The role of abundance

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Edited by Amanda Harrington-Vail, Thursday, 24 Apr 2014, 14:27

 

Interesting that research by Wesch (2008) on what learners believe contrasted with what educators believe, (Weller, 2011 p.6). Perhaps this is due to social construction of 'authority' figures and ineffective research where the learners consciously or unconsciously felt they needed to provide the 'right' answer without processing it. For example Seely-Brown and Adler (2008) have studied participatory learning whereas likely the learners researched by Wesch have not, therefore they may be referring to previous rather than 'new' thinking - maybe formed of their own experiences. As Siemens (2005) claims "decision-making is itself a learning process". Therefore I would suggest in my context as an OU Tutor that students best make use of abundance by reflective practice, action research and critical incident analysis to focus on their inner dialogue. However this is not just for students, "the process of self-reflection as described by Schön (1987) should be included in ... teacher’s professional development" too (Rowley, 2014 p.35).

 

 

Rowley, J. (2014) Bridging the gap: improving students' learning experience through shifting pedagogical practices in higher education. [online]. Available at http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/ijld/article/view/4944 (last accessed 18 April 2014).
Schön, D.A. (1987). Educating the Reflective Practitioner. London: Jossey-Bass.
 
Seely-Brown, J & Adler P (2008) ‘Minds on Fire’  EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 43, no. 1
ationt/4582
 
Siemens, G. (2005) ‘Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age.’
International Journal of Instructional Technology  ,

2(1).  http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/article01.htm

 

Wesch, M (2008) A portal on media literacy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4yApagnr0s

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Graduation 2008

Activity 18: Theory of connectivism and its critics

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Edited by Amanda Harrington-Vail, Thursday, 24 Apr 2014, 14:28

 

Siemens (2005) raises a point that I consider refers to my discussion on activity 17, "learning is a continual process, lasting for a lifetime. Learning and work related activities are no longer separate. In many situations, they are the same". Furthermore principles of connectivism "learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions" confirms that the different views expressed by Weller (2011) within activity 17 of the learners and educators in research undertaken by Wesch (2005) are not a problem. Connectivism loosely translates into PLN that we worked on in week 10. Siemens (2005) refers to difficulties with connectivism “when knowledge, however, is needed, but not known, the ability to plug into sources to meet the requirements becomes a vital skill”. This relates to social and cultural capital. Downes (2007) seems to agree with my thoughts on this e.g. that it’s all about the connections that like-minded people make as a natural process. Although Downes seemed to have an anti attitude rather than provide a coherent critical discussion.

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Graduation 2008

Activity 12 - background to MOOCs

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Edited by Amanda Harrington-Vail, Thursday, 24 Apr 2014, 14:29

According to Dave Cormier, MOOCs are about a sense of belonging and having a purpose. George Siemens mentioned the ongoing problem of the drop-out rate and went on to state another challenge is that participants may not be 'experts' in the particular field of study yet they can have quite an influence in e.g. social networking as the topics are discussed on perhaps Twitter. Interestingly Dave and George claimed that it's the learning that is important and not the completion of the course, sometimes life gets in the way and people burnout but if they gained some knowledge and understanding during their short time on the MOOC then that makes it a success. George expressed his concerns about MOOCs, "I have some issues and concerns with the pedagogical model. I don’t think that they’re as innovative as people give claim to because in my eyes they basically duplicate all of the structural components of a classroom, you know – the heavy emphasis on expertise, the drilling of content and quizzing. These MOOCs prepare people for the knowledge structure that we currently have, or have had over the last century, very well. My argument is that the complex problems that society faces going forward, aren’t going to be solved through necessarily an exclusive expertise model. They’re going to be solved through very much a networked and distributed approach, where many individuals provide different pieces of the knowledge puzzle. And so I think my main critique of those MOOC formats, is that they duplicate the classroom model and they don’t necessarily prepare people for participation in these very complex chaotic knowledge settings that most of us live in these days". However this was some time ago and my experience of FutureLearn MOOCs is that they have forums where you can discuss or ask questions, they have interviews (admittedly with 'experts') and quizzes - which George may dislike but I appreciate. Everyone learns differently and perhaps this model may not suit everybody. FutureLearn could argue that they are networked because they are on Facebook and Twitter, however yes I see his point that this duplicates a classroom model - albeit with a relaxed stance.

 

"MOOCs have created wide interest as a change agent in higher education, and the peer-reviewed research literature on them is growing but still limited. MOOCs generate a plethora of data in digital form for interested researchers. However, this volume has so far limited researchers to analysing only a tiny portion of the available data, restricting our understanding of MOOCs" Furthermore "Mak, et al. (2010) suggest that there has been unacceptable behaviour (for example, forceful intellectual debates, feelings of participation being demanded, and rude behaviour) from some MOOC participants, which has led other participants to cease posting on forums. The possible cultural differences of participants in MOOCs and their MOOC experience would be an interesting avenue of research in relation to cultural tension in MOOCs" (Liyanagunawardena et al., 2013). 

 

Mak, S., Williams, R., & Mackness, J. (2010). Blogs and forums as communication and learning tools in a MOOC. In Networked Learning Conference, University of Lancaster, Lancaster, 275-285.

Liyanagunawardena, T.R., Adams, A.A. and Williams, S. (2013) ‘MOOCs: a systematic study of the published literature 2008–2012’, The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 202–27 [online]. Available at http://www.irrodl.org/ index.php/ irrodl/ article/ view/ 1455/ 2531 (last accessed 17 April 2014).

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Graduation 2008

The benefits of blogging

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Edited by Amanda Harrington-Vail, Thursday, 24 Apr 2014, 14:39
I am a huge fan of Weller - following his blog and Twitter. I also bought his book as soon as it was published. He highlights that academic blogs "compete with traditional means of public engagement" (Weller, 2011 p. 49). An example of this is where blog web-links are shared automatically via Twitter. Blogs are an invaluable tool to share ideas.
 
Conole demonstrates how blogs and reflection link together. "Use of the site during the conference is a perfect example of how we are actively co-developing the site, watching and reflecting on user behaviour to fine tune and tailor the site specifically for educational professionals" (Conole, 2010 p. 11). I follow Conole on CloudWorks and Twitter.
 
This is succinctly summed up by Kirkup as "The kind of academic blogging which seems to produce the greatest sense of subjective well being, and is best at enhancing professional reputation, is the blog of ideas. In this kind of blog authors engage in conversations with their own ideas and the ideas of their peers. Blogging is both a process where ideas are developed and expressed, but often in a concise and accessible form quite different from the traditional long, analytical, and discursive academic texts that are the products by which most academics are assessed" (Kirkup, 2010 p. 21). I've come across the work of Kirkup in previous MAODE modules.
 
References
 
Conole, G. (2010) ‘Facilitating new forms of discourse for learning and teaching: harnessing the power of Web 2.0 practices’, Open Learning, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 141–51.
 
Kirkup, G. (2010) ‘Academic blogging, academic practice and academic identity’, London Review of Education, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 75–84.
 

Weller, M. (2011) The Digital Scholar: How Technology is Transforming Scholarly Practice , London, Bloomsbury Academic.

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