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Cloudbusting and camping: implications for learning design #oldsmooc

One of the MOOCs that I’ve signed up for is #OLDSMOOC. The focus of which is learning design. These are my thoughts on the  first week and some initial thoughts about learning design. Right off though, I have to say that I’ve no substantive idea of what learning design actually is; is it a fancy name for something that I do already when planning learning activities, is it something quite rigorous and scientific that I’ve hitherto not been exposed to, or is it something quite new altogether – a response to the way technology is impacting teaching and learning maybe.

Any how, my major observation from week 1 relates to the OLDSMOOC learning platform (of choice??), Cloudworks. Well, it doesn’t. The objective of the week was threefold: in an area called Dreambazaar outline your dream learning design proposal, review the assemblage of proposals and then through discussion and negotiation form small teams around the selected project, and beyond that form into study circles. All of which constitutes a big ask in any body’s book, but the process was severely hampered by the functionality of the Cloudworks platform. It was ill equipped for such a large scale, intense, nuanced and interpersonal activity. It was just impossible to figure out the platform and track down all the people that you wanted to talk to, so after considerable effort and not getting very far, I decided to park myself  under the cloud entitled “Digital Identity and Social Media” that had been started by Jane Challinor (@virtualleader) and likewise with the Digilit study circle cloud, again started by Jane Challinor (actual leader it would seem). I then pasted the links to these clouds into my Evernote account and proceeded to access Cloudworks  from there. The Daily digest, with its series of links, kept me on track with all the rest of the day’s happenings and, together with my home pasted links, was how I was able to penetrate Cloudworks, cloudbusting if you like. For me, this incident highlights a lot of the issues relating to closed platforms, begs the question as to why an open system, or one sympathetic to open applications wasn’t used (like Canvas), and what’s more, demonstrates the merits of a personal learning environment (PLE).

I suppose the reason I dislike Cloudworks so much is down to its lack of agility in supporting conversations, which in turn makes it feel sterile and inhospitable (a bit of a current theme with me). It’s just so hard to get a sense of people in there. For me, this experience confirms that eLearning technologies can no longer be considered as tools rather they’re sites of practice, places where people go to learn (Goodfellow & Lee, 2007). In my mind, the idea of  sites of practice somehow fits with the camping related conversation that sprang up on Twitter during the convergence session on Tuesday (“storified” here) and also links to not just personal learning environments (PLEs) but to many Web 2.0 pedagogies, none more so than rhizomatic learning, which partly triggered the camping conversation in the first place.

Learning intents
Learning intents

Returning to the the learning objectives of the week, I feel that I achieved those designed by the course team but I didn’t articulate any of my own. However, as the week unfolded, I decided that my goal was simply to hang on, because there’s no two ways about it, it was a difficult process to work your way through. Hopefully, things will be more straight forward from now on as I’ve emerged from week 1 with not just a fascinating project but a strong partner too. I’m looking forward to finding a learning design solution to Jane Challinor’s call of “let’s get digital”.

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vcp-bretten/1102756605/

References:

Goodfellow, R. and Lea, M. R., (2007) Challenging e-learning in the university : a literacies perspective. Maidenhead: McGraw Hill Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.

Hospitality: a promising philosophy for designing online courses & fostering critical digital literacies #moocmooc

In addition to POT Cert, I’ve enrolled on a few other MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). The first of which, entitled MOOC MOOC, takes a look at the phenomenon of MOOCs themselves…, naturally.

And it was here, within the customary introduction stage of the course a reference by Kate Bowles @KateMfD  to “hospitable pedagogy” immediately caught my eye. The reason being that only last week I read “Critical Digital Literacies as Social Praxis” where, in the chapter by Anna Smith and Glynda Hull, I came across the concept of hospitality as an aspect of Cosmopolitanism (p.63-66).

On first encounter, the notion of hospitality really resonated with me (see why), and it did so again when it emerged in a #moocmooc Twitter chat as an associated concept of Internationalism. Ironically though, I missed the chat itself because of what might be considered the inhospitable pedagogical design of the MOOC MOOC course (time-zone grief!!).

Get a snapshot in Storify.

Hospitality forms a crucial part of cosmopolitan philosophy as it foregrounds our relationships with guests, outsiders, foreigners and others, and as such is significant for online participants in a global and digital age. As Kate points out, every online host is sometime a guest and every guest can be a host somewhere too. Furthermore, there are increasing opportunities for people of diverse ages, nationalities and socio-economic positions to engage with new kinds of texts in the digital sphere and make comment on social issues, provide entertainment, produce news or engage in learning activities. Increasing reciprocity between authors and readers and the fact that texts are virally distributed through the web and across networks gives increased possibilities to encounter “distant, unknown, imagined others” (p.64).

In a media sense, hospitality translates to an obligation to listen, which in turn translates to thoughtful openness towards pluralist meanings and to the inhibition of  prior assumptions. Consequently, in order to anticipate and accommodate not just issues of global housekeeping but also diverse cultural interpretations we must adopt not only new creative learning designs but new dispositions too, cosmopolitan practice in fact.

That’s what I’ve learned from my MOOC MOOC experience. Plus, I’m coming to think that it’s not so much the massiveness of the MOOC that’s important just as long as it’s open and online, and that a community may be preferable to a course. That’s why I’ll continue to call by and say “hello” to the good folks of the Hybrid Pedagogy community from time to time.

References:

Smith A. and Hull G. Critical literacies and social media: fostering ethical engagement with global youth. In: Avila, JA and Pandya JZ eds. (2012)  Critical Digital Literacies as Social Praxis, Peter Lang Publishing, New York

POT Cert Week 12: mid-term reflection

12 weeks and semester 1 completed already. Wow, how time flies when you’re having fun, and learning loads! Pot Cert has really started to give me great insight into what quality online education might look like and, more importantly for me, how to go about creating it.

This week is a chance to look back and take stock of my learning journey so far.

looking back
looking back

Here’s a series of links to my reflections about my posts and thoughts on what I’ve learnt.

Week 1: Introduction and Start Blogging

Week 2: Teaching and Learning

Week 3: Pedagogy and Course Design I

Week 4: Pedagogy and Course Design II

Week 5: The Online Syllabus

Week 6: Internet Skills and Tools

Week 7: The Online Classroom

Week 8: Creating Community

Week 9: Student Activities

Week 10: Open Platforms for Teaching and Learning

Week 11: Class Resources and Intellectual Property

Finally, I have to say that impressively the POT Cert course is both well structured and well supported, and that I’ve really found the addition of a personal mentor to be an invaluable aspect of the programme. A big thank you to everyone, it’s much appreciated. I look forward to continuing in the Spring semester. Until then…

Image source:

http://frank.itlab.us/photo_essays/wrapper.php?nov_20_2007_sydney.html

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