W2.6 Convergence fishbowl Tuesday 12 GMT

[Joshua Underwood]

Post questions you would like asked in the week 2 convergence session here. 

If you would like to join the convergence session hangout to tell us about what you have been doing in week 2 you can also let us know here.

[LesC]

I would like to volunteer but my concern is that I am teaching in one of our Learning Centres where we regularly have bandwidth issues, if I were at home I wouldn't have any of these concerns. It would be useful to test how feasible it is for me to use this technology on campus but perhaps this is not the correct vehicle for doing so. I would be interested in finding out how you are creating and administering these sessions. Looking forward to it.

Within that comment you can see that my institutional constraints have a very big part to play in any discussion on context.

Cheers

[Will Pollard]

I become interested in learning through quality management, how do people learn inside systems? So is this "context"? Not much discussed so far. Probably more lkinks with Action Learning, but also this is not much mentioned.

I hope there will be more in future weeks about Design Science. This is also referenced in management writing but without much detail on what it is. If there is agreement on how to work with Design Science it could link learning and management.

By the way, I think universities are facing disruption. It is most unlikely any site can just add a MOOC and everything else will stay the same.

On Friday, 18 January 2013 23:43:17 UTC, Joshua Underwood wrote:

[Joshua Underwood]

I would understand the systems we interact with as part of our context, I think. Can you illustrate what you mean in a concrete example though to help me?

[Penny Bentley]

I wouldn't mind a swim in the fishbowl...really hot in Aus at the moment. 

[Joshua Underwood]

Hi Will,

Your reply did help me understand this better. I hope you don't mind me posting it below as it may be of interest to others.

--------------------------------------------------------------

"System" is an abstraction but widely used

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Action-Definitive-Methodology-Practitioners/dp/0470025549

Peter Checkland has written about systems , describing organisations or work situations. The soft systems methodology is to recognise the system description as a mental model. So the latest book is explicit about learning.

In the example of social video production, my project, a BBC trained camera operator might bother to learn cloud editing on a low level platform such as YouTube, but what happens in the system for motivation?

--------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, I understand the EoR model as a system of influences amongst elements, which would include learners' and other agents motivations, considered when identifying  "Learners' resources". As for your question about what happens for motivation in the systems that influence individual context in your scenarios, I think identifying that "focus of attention" (in EoR terms) is a key step in phase 1. Developing and sharing scenarios to get participation in exploring ways the system might support that motivation or actually trying them out and learning more in the wild.

I don't know what the answer is to your question "about what (should) happens in the system for motivation?" but I suspect it isn't reputation or badges..

 

[LesC]

As suspected, bandwidth issues are preventing me from active participation. Thanks for trying. I will contribute via this discussion group.

Cheers

Les

[Will Pollard]

Text fine as a base. Will try video also but not sure it will work

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[Grainne Conole]

How do I join?

On Friday, 18 January 2013 23:43:17 UTC, Joshua Underwood wrote:

[George Hobson]

Question - about the persona approach. In determining learner contexts, the process seems to rely on the planning team or individual's imagination of possible personas. Is there another approach that looks at learner contexts and attributes from a, say, checklist approach?

On Friday, 18 January 2013 23:43:17 UTC, Joshua Underwood wrote:

[LesC]

I would like to offer encouragement to those commenting "there's too much here and that they are losing their way". Is this not inevitable within any social group? Consider this as an analogy - you are at the theatre and there is an intermission. Some members of the audience exit auditorium and head for the bar, or foyer. Some stay seated. Now in that scenario you are not going to keep track of all the conversations going on - but you may overhear something when passing a group and make comment on that. You wouldn't necessarily then expect that group to join yours or permanently stay there. The play continues. The audience is huge - will you ever see these people again? - possibly, possibly not. If you have exchanged contact details (or anything else pertinent to that group/person) then you may be able to . Does that make sense?

On Friday, 18 January 2013 23:43:17 UTC, Joshua Underwood wrote:

[Joshua Underwood]

Hi Thanks for that question George - I think of the mindmapping activity as moving towards that and I think that a checklist would be great for use under tight constraints

[Kay Assynt]

Any advice on how to jump in at this stage?

[Kay Assynt]

Into the mooc I mean, not the hangout;)

[Annette Dalsgaard Vilain]

Hi Grainne

Here is the link for the Convergence: http://www.olds.ac.uk/the-course/inquire/convergence

:-) Annette

[Joshua Underwood]

Go to https://plus.google.com click on the red 1 accept the invitation to join the hangout

[LesC]

On penny's pint this is a self-help group that someone has created - https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/team-lost-olds-mooc

On Friday, 18 January 2013 23:43:17 UTC, Joshua Underwood wrote:

[Joshua Underwood]

Have tried to answer about checklist in the hangout

For the Ecology of Resource and Personas as I understand them you may start in your imagination but you want to move towards validating and filling them out by grounding them in data from the settings of interest and through negotiation with others' [perspectives...

On Tuesday, 22 January 2013 11:56:28 UTC, George Hobson wrote:

[Bob Ridge-Stearn]

Hi Les,

I find this discussion about the multitude of interactive spaces used on this MOOC interesting and I am completely torn as to what I think. One the one hand I like the idea that the participants choose their own spaces and we have had in the convergebce session this morning the analogy of delegates at a conference choosing to meet with a handful of likeminded people in cafes and bars around the conference venue. All well and good. I like this. I also like web-based social spaces and have a presence on many, so I am not frightened of them. However, what I worry about with this MOOC is that, if we return to the conference analogy, there are only breakout sessions and no plenaries, no coming together in the main hall. Agreed, we have the main website with instructions for the week but we cannot interact there. There are no questions from the floor there so to speak. I also found it frustrating right from day one that some people introduced themselves on Cloudworks and others on the Google Forum making it difficult for me to find people - not impossible, but slightly more difficult than it needed to be.

However, these concerns I have are just mild irritants to me personally. I can cope. What I worry about are participants who are less computer and digitally literate who might become frustrated and then drop out. I think this is why I would design the space with a single official communication channel - e.g. Google Forums. Let participants find their own spaces away from that but maintain a single conference main hall.

Best wishes,

Bob Ridge-Stearn.

[Katerina Avramides]

Hi Bob, this is an interesting discussion. Would you say it's only digital literacy that you're using or other skills as well?

Could we say that by participating in a MOOC we've developed our skills in learning in open-ended, ill-defined spaces?

Could we identify skills that are needed to make the most of MOOCs? Or perhaps it depends on the design of the MOOC.

[Xin Alice Huang]

Hi Joshua, 

Just a thought, this MOOCs is having students all over the world, we all live in different timezone. I know in virtual team management, there is a way to deal with this situation, which is  to rotate meeting time, so every one will get a chance to participate online sessions in day time, or simply not in the middle of night. I wonder if it is possible for this course to try this practice? I really want to experience real time Google hangout session, but it is too hard for me to attend the session at 1am.  Any chance? Cheers,Alice (Xin)

[Joshua Underwood]

Hi Xin,

It would be great if you could join us. I would love to hear how you are getting, your project proposal interests me very much.

Personally I think that is a sensible idea and worth trying, though we did manage to engage today with Art in Minnesota, Penny in Australia and people in the UK so there was a fairly good coverage of timezones. Also I should point out I personally am only involved in this capacity in week 2. The MOOC team and responsibilities are variously distributed.

Posting your suggestion here though is a good way to get it noticed and I hope it will prompt others to make suggestions and share their opinions.

Josh

[Jonathan Vernon]

I fear that the analogy I would use is Liverpool Street Station. In the throng I latched onto one group and it has come together. I joined a couple of others but nothing happened and my own proposals weren't picked up. I enjoy knowing that somewhere there is something happening and that you can wander in, take an interest, follow a thread - too much activity is better than none, though not if you are not used to it.

[Jonathan Vernon]

I somehow missed this despite being at my desk abd online all day. At 5.45pm I got an alert email for some webinar I'd registered with weeks ago. I clicked on it and it self loaded. I got on with other thing for ten minutes then I started to hear voices I opened the window and joined in. My suggestion is to think like a salesmen - alert as the time approaches and get their attention when they arrive. I was suprised to hear my name read out for this thing that finally stopped me doing whatever it was. You have to compete for everyone's attention.

[Jonathan Vernon]

This is a good idea. I've attended live hangouts based in Australia that run late in the evening to get a European audience involved. So we in Europe should scedue some early breakfast sessions.

[LesC]

On the question of Licensing; Creative Commons versus YouTube's Standard License? I have found that the Standard License allows anyone with access to YouTube's API to extract, disassemble e.g. separate audio from video and embed that content anywhere without acknowledging the creators of the original content. I therefore would not recommend this. Does anyone else have experience of this?

I think this is the relevant section in YouTube's Terms & Conditions:

8. Rights you licence

8.1 When you upload or post Content to YouTube, you grant:

1. to YouTube, a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable licence (with right to sub-licence) to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform that Content in connection with the provision of the Service and otherwise in connection with the provision of the Service and YouTube's business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels;
2. to each user of the Service, a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to access your Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display and perform such Content to the extent permitted by the functionality of the Service and under these Terms.
3. Any legal experts out there?

[Yishay Mor]

Hi George,

Something like this?

Kaptelinin, V.; Nardi, B. A. & Macaulay, C. (1999), 'Methods & tools: The activity checklist: a tool for representing the "space" of context', interactions 6 (4) , 27--39 

http://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2829f293dc56d81bdfdaf6c8c106ce5ca

Yishay

On Tuesday, 22 January 2013 11:56:28 UTC, George Hobson wrote:

[LesC]

Hi Bob

Having replied to you - I think/hope you see my point - I can now no longer find that post. So this one is public. On the topic of the Digital Divide - which is what I took you to be referring to.

You may be interested to watch this by Michael Wesch from Kansas State University.

Then take note of the date - 6 years ago!!

Cheers Bob

[Jonathan Vernon]

I dutifully followed the article and as the idea of turning an Activity System into a check list I literally expected a set of questions and a check box set against the key concepts/issues of an Activity System: Tools, Subject, Object, Rules, Community, Division of Labour ... It has to be a matter of choice and working practice, but this on a large sheet of paper is a far better way to visualise and share the components involved. I have even gone so far as to take out chess pieces and put them at these nodes to represent 'community' for example ... and have pieces of string to denote the activity and interactions. Then if people aren't flummoxed to add a second activity system to represent separate communities or system with a common goal that through interaction will produce a valid, for different, new and unexpected outcome (or Object 3 if you follow Engestrom closely). In this respect sharing how Activity Systems can help explain the context becomes a creative problem solving exercise and a crucial part of early learning design analysis. I found reading about Activity Theory without the classic equilateral triangle rather like trying to describe a rhinoceros without a picture.

[Yishay Mor]

Hi Jonathan,

Sounds fascinating! Can you share the outcomes? Looks like you did a very visual, even plastic, analysis - perhaps you can take some pictures and share them in a cloud (or a blog post, if that works better for you). I can try to call Victor Kaptelinin and ask him to give you some feedback.

Yishay

____________________
Dr. Yishay Mor
Senior Lecturer, Educational Technology
http://iet.open.ac.uk/people/yishay.mor
+44 1908 6 59373

 

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[Graham Storey]

Hello Les,

I was watching as your transmission failed. Will Google Hangouts not allow you to participate using audio only, ie with your video switched off? I often have to do that in other synchronous apps even on faster links when traffic builds.

Let's try it out sometime.

Cheers

Graham

[Clem]

I agree with you there Jonathan. I found it hard to actually relate the check list (or rather, the series of tables this turned out to be), to Engeström's Activity Theory with the triangle(s). I have returned to my references and the papers I read on Activity Theory and note that they were published in 2001 - 2011; whereas this document is from 1999. Perhaps it needs updating? I like the idea of getting out the chess set and pieces of string. I think it does really help to write down the actual Tools, Objects, Rules, Subjects etc next to their position on the triangle; I can see having this up on a wall and using sticky notes in a group session. What helped me, was to take the explanation of Activity Theory in one or more of the papers I had read and illustrate it as a concept map. Although I did not go so far as to bring in a second system.

[Bob Ridge-Stearn]

Hi Les,

Just found you r reply in my inbox, automatically filtered into a bulging sub folder called OLDS MOOC!

Yes, I take your point and I am aware of the Wesche video and the digital divide concept.  I do agree that we should not shy away from using technologies just because some people are digitally illiterate (no disparagement implied).  However, I'd like to come back with a few points - 

1. In the video you get the impression that the students are sitting in that lecture hall and can be seen as a student body - somehow a unified group (digital natives) being held back by professors (digital immigrants).  In reality the natives are divided, speak different digital languages and have very different skill sets and levels.  Many digital immigrants are way ahead of them. 

2. I am talking about a digital divide but the division is not clear cut because the skill sets we need now and the applications we use and the ways we operate on the web are myriad and changing all the time.  We can't say with any certainty whether someone who spends their life on twitter can operate efficiently in a forum environment or whether people who inhabit virtual realities can operate within this MOOC.  My gripe, I suppose, is that we don't always make things easy for this diverse group to operate and come together.  But as I said, I'm still formulating my thoughts on this matter, so may change my mind tomorrow!

3. This isn't really related, but further to the digital native/immigrant reference, it irks me that we don't have digital pioneers.  I'm classified as an immigrant and not a native, but I was there when we got off the boat.  We didn't all wander about clueless and pick things up more slowly than our kids, we created this digital landscape. A personal gripe :-)

All the best,

Bob

[Bob Ridge-Stearn]

Hi Katerina,

Answers to your thee questions:

1.I guess you could define digital literacy to encompass everything you need to operate on the web - computer literacy and information literacy so i'm not necessarily saying you need other skills. You need lots of skills but they're all encompassed within digital literacy IMHO.

2. Yes certainly.  In this MOOC I guess most of us are interested in online learning so we will be a fairly digitally literate bunch.  I'm concerned with designing learning spaces that can be exploited by the less digitally literate. I know many people, young and old, who could never do this MOOC. They'd simply feel overwhelmed and depressed and drop out.

3. I think this would be a productive and interesting thing to do.  Shall we do it? Would you like to start a wiki and invite people to contribute ideas? Or shall I do it?

Best wishes,

Bob Ridge-Stearn.

[LesC]

Hi Graham

You're probably right. This was a test by me to see if the college network would support this type of interaction. It's a bit frustrating because I live about 8 miles away and I'm pretty certain it would have worked from there. I enjoyed the session - much of what I would have said was said by others. I'm thinking I should rekindle my Tweeter account - seems a good alternative. Google+ hangouts are new to me so still finding out about the possibilities.

Thanks for your comment ,, and yes let's try it out.

Cheers

[Yishay Mor]

We've added notes taken by Simon Kear:

http://www.olds.ac.uk/the-course/inquire/convergence

Please edit and improve.

Yishay

[LesC]

Thanks for the link Yishay - I found it has added an enormous amount to my (previously) limited view of "context". I am fascinated by the concepts of internalization & externalization and so, as an exercise I am aiming to follow this strategy:

"Third, in order to use the tool effectively, practitioners should familiarize themselves with the Checklist and even try to internalize it."

And this metaphor resonates with me:

"Borrowing Brown and Duguid’s well-known metaphor [5], we can say that if it is difficult to grapple with the “whale” of context by trying to get a firm grip on its specific parts, let’s try a large net instead."

I think in there lies my thinking on a multi-discipline approach to Learning Design - Product Design is (I think) providing that larger net. I find this a useful diagram, taken from "VIGANÒ, Roberto and CARULLI, Marina (2009). Methods and tools for supporting industrial design innovation. In: Undisciplined! Design Research Society Conference 2008, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK, 16-19 July 2008." 

(I'm experimenting here, in that, I don't know how well the graphic will display in this forum.)

On Wednesday, 23 January 2013 00:10:37 UTC, Yishay Mor wrote:

[Jane Nkosi]

Hi Josh,

I've just finished watching the convergence presentation. While it was cutting at some point, I was able to follow the discussion. From my participation in the weeks'activities,  I have been able to answer the question: why LD and not ID?  The learning design approach is holistic in my view.

 

Jane

[Joshua Underwood]

Personally, I think that is a neat short summary.

[Apostolos Koutropoulos]

Jane, can you elaborate on that? Not that I am picking to support the ID camp, but I would be interested in a more in depth explanation ;-) 

At the end of the day for me, the methodology doesn't matter as much because I pick and choose the parts that are applicable and produce better outcomes ;-)

Από το iPhone μου

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