Virtual Canuck

I am certainly not the first to ponder the relative merits of blogging inside or outside of education’s closed garden walls (see Bill Ives Is Blogging Inside the Firewall an Oxymoron?) However, I’ve recently seen a couple of presentation by University innovators using blogging – but from behind the institutional firewall and password protection – inside the ‘garden wall’. This of course resonates with some of the large LMS (VLE) builders who are adding blogging to their suite of (closed) applications. But, the presentations left me with a skeptical notion of the value of this learning activity, especially given the availability of threaded discussions which are often much easier to use and more familiar to both students and teachers as a blog.

A significant value of blogs and most other social software is the capacity to extend and develop networks beyond the limited circle of ones existing place-bound friends. Social software can of course be used to enhance or support place-bound communication, but it is sort of like driving a car on the sidewalk – gets you to destinations, but its slow, bumpy and often inconvenient to others.

So why do teachers develop learning activities behind the ‘garden wall’? (more…)

A recent paper by Jon Dron has stimulated my thinking about social learning from two perspectives. First is renewed appreciation for the value of a loosely knit networks as distinct learning resources and second the increasing value of learning networks (as opposed to tight, class or institutional bounded communities of practice) in both formal and informal learning.

(more…)

I’ve been on the road (well make that airplane, train and ‘coach’) for most of the past 6 weeks having gratefully responded to offers from colleagues to present keynote talks at a number of interesting academic conferences. I’m not nearly prolific enough to hit the blog compose button after each event, so am summarizing my discoveries and experiences here and linking to the major presentations now posted on slideshare. (more…)

The key to effectively and efficiently supporting, instigating and maintaining a critical mass of participation in online communities has long been illusively beyond my grasp. (see my Catching Tumbleweeds posting). Thus, I was very pleased to run onto Micahel Zarb’s Masters thesis, Modelling Participation in Virtual Communities of Practice (more…)

This year’s version of Athabasca’s University Masters in Distance education course “Emerging Technologies in Distance Education” ended with our now traditional online party.

The gala event (beginning on Elluminate) began with a pop quiz from the teacher (me) presenting effusive academic translations of famous Christmas tunes (for example, Are you Experiencing Parallel Auditory input = Do you hear what I hear). Of course the first respondent had to sing the correct first line to win a point. Then we moved to a gala gift exchange with downloads of a video of a dog playing the piano and a slightly risque mistletoe scene. We also were treated to original poetry and a few new sites to visit and jokes to remember.

This year’s party was of the progressive genre, in that we next moved to SecondLife (minus the four of us who had older machines with unsupported graphic cards, were accessing via satellite Internet or had unresolved firewall problems). One class member hosted the start of the party at the Nantucket Yacht Club.

Most of us were SecondLife newbees but we all learned a great deal during the party about SL and had a great time. For example I had not figured out how to dance. But now my avatar TerGuy Burns is a very hot salsa dancer!!! Now, if only I can get my First Life wife to Secondlife, just maybe she can get over her fixation with having us enroll in a real life ball room dancing class. I also learned how to ‘drink” in SecondLife – tossing down a couple of drafts and some very sparkly martini’s. I loved the new England theme and it warmed my Canuck heart to see ice skating on a frozen pond. I am saving up for a pair of skates now!

It was a bit of a challenge keeping us all together as we wandered through the Nantucket town. One poor soul fell of the wharf and spent quite a length of time under the pier trying to figure out how to get back on dry land – but she did it! It helped when our guide started a private group IM chat. We ended off the evening kicking back in our host’s brand new house and talking about the joys of virtual home construction and ownership.

All in all, twas a great evening, fun way to end a course and a terrific way to get into the festive season!

Many of the sites I’ve been involved with over they years have gracefully (and some not so gracefully) atrophied away – usually through lack of posting/input or contribution. Even my latest project – The Canadian Institute for Distance EDucation Research (CIDER site) seems to be barely sustining life and has yet to attain critical mass for robust knowledge construction.

At Alt-C conference last month I heard that this is far from a rare fate for many sites. Someone referred to the occaisional user as a “tumbelweed blowing through a ghost town”. I know from my youth on the Canadian prairies that barbed wire fences can (and do) catch tumbelweeds, but it seems a rather harsh restraint mechanism -even for teachers! Our challenge is to catch those tumbelweeds and use their energy to kindle or rekindle community.

Of course the easiest slutions are technical ones. I was very impressed by the new “leMill” learning object repository site. This Plone based application (released as Open Source under GNU GPL license) goes beyond earlier first generation learning object repositories by adding community features such as profiles (to find like minds), indiviudal blogs, groups for collaborative blogs and means to create and comment upon new “activities” created and supported using the leMill resources. LeMill seems to do for repositories what ELGG does for profiles.

Although it is very early times for leMill, I note that many of the groups lack even a single blog entry. Obviously, one can build it and but you cannot expect that they will come! (more…)

Nancy White has done a great series of postings where she creates a simple taxonomy of three types of blogs – single blog centric, topic centric and community centric. (more…)

This afternoon I recorded a 10 minute demonstration of the Me2u system which is an instance of elgg.net set of social software tools. These tools are being piloted tested at Athabasca University.
The demonstration is available as an Elluminate recording here . Clicking on this link will start the installation of the java based client tool for Elluminate and should begin playing the video, with assorted audio and application sharing features.

I created this video as some people experience disorientation when first exposed to ELGG systems. I hope the demo is useful for potential users of Me2U.athabascau.ca (must be associated with Athabasca University) and for those using other ELGG systems.

I apologize in advance for the poor production values, but the cost was right – free and relatively easy to produce.

Terry

The Net has created a context in which students are being transformed into empowered learners. These learners demand quality learning experiences- they know what learning is and what learning they need. Harold Ashe picks up the transformational aphorism “people formerly known as …” developed by Jay Rosen to strike an evocative manifesto for these connected learners. He writes:

The people formerly known as students are those who were on the receiving end of an oligopolist educational system that ran one way, in a broadcasting pattern, with high entry fees and few options, and accredited institutions competing to speak their truths while the rest of the population learned in isolation from one another— and who today are not in a situation like that at all. Harold Ashe 2006

To expand these into a listing of particular demands related to efficient, effective and empowered learning, I note that: (more…)

Dave Cormier from the University of PEI, invited me to record EDTechTalk #60 last Sunday. Dave and his colleague Jeff Lebow have been recording chats with assorted EdTech types for over a year. The chats tend to get a bit ‘far reaching’ and slightly off topic, and I think mine was no exception. A loyal band of 5-10 life audience members joined via SKYPE and text chat window, to contribute their questions/comments.

I probably tended to talk too much about my own history and in too little detail on some of the ‘big issues’ but it was Sunday evening in the summer, and I enjoyed the chat.
Thanks Dave and those who sat in. The MP3 recording of our conversation is available here.

Terry