The End is NIGH (NIGH I SAY) CCK08 tick tock
We are approaching the final days of the grand
experiment of Connectivism, and I are starting to fray at the edges. I
will admit I am tired, this course plus my other responsibilities has
been at times a little too much, so I feel it is time to reflect on the
course and hopefully myself.
I will state that I think the class was too large, they capped the
registration of the course for a limited number of credit learners,
unfortunately for them they did not cap the non-credit learners.
Looking for clear responses and advice is sometimes difficult, and
makes my personal learning questionable. Am I on the right track?
This is a tough area for me, self assessment within a course that
relies on a network approach. So who is right, the developers of the
course or the network that has developed its own meaning of the
material and applying it as they see fit?
Also, I know this goes against open-source
and everything
else I have heard, but as a credit learner it is easy to get lost in
the noise no matter how hard you bang your drum. I personally banged pretty loud, I wanted to be heard
because I wanted to learn. But did I? Did I learn about connectivism,
or did I learn to have my views heard easily in a group? I think a
little bit of both. I think it is important to learn how to work the
crowd as one might say, but also in those moments ensure that the crowd
hears you. We have heard many times the conflicting views of nodes,
and their strengths and such, but I have learned that no matter what
some will have more power than others. When @courosa speaks from
Twitter many listen, when I speak… I might be heard. I am fine with
that, he has built his social credit and has the cred’s to back it up…
This class has also shown the emergence, spastic growth, and rapid
decline of a network. Or is this an artificial network or group, only
being held loosely by the bonds of our time limit in this course. Or
does that matter, I think not. I think that networks like any
organization comes together as needed and disbands as such.
Also I will admit I am tired of writing, I have experimented with the
sharing process and that was exhausting. Because of that my creative
exploration while writing has decreased to a trickle. I just am
lacking the motivation. This is resolved by balancing out the
assessments more, not have 90% of the course due in 3 weeks time, my
students would kill me if I did that…
I hope to write some more thoughts down in the next couple of days. I
am not being critical of the course. I have enjoyed it most days, but
I feel personally that nothing is perfect and that improvement can
always occur. However how will anyone know what to fix if no one says
anything…
So I will end by asking you:
CCK course, what would you do better?”
Posted by email from ubiquitous’s posterous
Filed under: Uncategorized and
Being a non-credit participant, I chose to learn freely. I was only able to attend one Elluminate session, mainly because the time didn’t suit me.
I often read your posts and found them interesting and stimulating.
I do not need that piece of paper for my job, and I still haven’t turned up any article. I have spent time in the forum posts and blogs instead. Yes, it took me lots of time in preparing and reading posts. But, what’s more important for me is to meet someone like you in the course. And a better understanding of your and others perspective on connectivism and its application.
I could understand why it’s hard to introduce those tools and technologies at Grade 7, especially when these teens need guidance and concentration in their study. Unlike adults, they need to focus on their studies to achieve the standards required. Also, there may be information overload if they don’t understand how to select the connections from the net/networks. Given the existing curriculum setting, it would be difficult for the teacher to implement changes as set out in connectivism.
A square peg to a round hole.
Great to meet you.
John
Hi Tom!
As usual I resonate with your views, I am not sure either if I’m on the right track. Your question is not an easy one, however I’ll put forward my views here.
Maybe it would have helped a lot to define, make clear, from the beginning that every participant was expected to set his/her own learning outcomes, not only to set our expectations in our introduction to the network.
If I had sat to think thoroughly what items, concepts, abilities, etc I wanted to learn from this course I would have by now a good guide to assess if I accomplished my own learning outcomes or not.
If I had known that feedback would not come from the moderators of the course (I thought that as credit learner I was entitled to it), that would have saved me a lot of confusion. At some point I felt like there was a race to get mentioned in the Daily, I even saw people tagging their 2007 posts as CCK08 to get a mention there which is kind of weird.
I also feel tired. From all the people I was in touch with, I see that Lisa was the only one that got clear that heavy load (90% of the credit marks) was assigned to the last 3 weeks of the course. I guess SD and GS had a reason to design their experiment like this, probably I’ll never know it. What I see is that most participants are involved in teaching and that the last 3 weeks of the course overlap with heavy workload at schools, maybe there lies the reason for the decline on participation.
Changing the subject, I found a place where they give ideas to carefully protect youngsters in online environments, maybe it will be of interest to you. VoiceThread is used for math courses in very engaging ways.
I hope to keep in touch with you after the course is over.
Best Regards. Maru :X
Tom
I am pleased you had enough energy to write this post. I think you invested an enormous commitment to CCK08.
I was a non-credit participant and allocated as much time as I could to the developmental nature of the course. I thought the intensity of the first half of the course forged our identities as course members.
The course has had an enormous impact on me and I am hopeful that the connections I have made will go beyond the course. I have found that the course is changing my practice but at present I am not constrained by a commitment to teaching.
I found it interesting that John and Maru have posted comments here. They have been remarkable in their support of co-learners.
I would be keen to participate in CCK08 again. The change I would make is to have the course as a year long course with significant time to explore and reflect. In this way a week would be replaced by a month. I have been staggered by Stephen and George’s output and wonder how they find the energy to fuel a vibrant community.
Thanks for all your posts, Tom. As I am sure you have taught your students, energy does not disappear it is transformed into a new type of activity. You have demonstrated this energy change wonderfully!
Keith
[...] of ‘a dingo ate my homework’ plea (that included a further impetus on ANT for me.) Tom wrote about ‘the end is nigh’, His post started with this observation ” I will [...]
I agree with Keith, the #1 change I would make is to decompress the time frame - we definitely covered enough material to make this a year long endeavor, and unless you’re a full time student, I found CCK08 impossible to maintain or keep up with at this time in my life. I might have been able to do it under different life circumstances, but you weren’t the only one to end up feeling ragged!
[...] — lisahistory @ 7:51 am Tags: cck08 Having been invited to do so by both George Siemens and Tom Whyte, I here note changes I would make if I were teaching this class (or a class like it) in future. [...]