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This is a little funny… I wrote on Mimi’s #notover blogpost that I was behind Simon Ensor’s taskforce idea… And that I have a task for the taskforce that I would blog about.
The funny part is that I can’t remember what that task was! But hey, I can still make one up 🙂
I have written elsewhere that I think something like #ccourses would continue if the participants made good enough connections that they valued and wanted to maintain. What’s a course on connecting that ends with disconnection? But I am sure it will only be a subset of people who continue to connect thru #ccourses itself, the hashtag or google+ or wherever. Other connections continue in back channels and are not as visible or easy to connect to #ccourses. Even other connections involve things like research (ongoing) and joining other MOOCs together (happening also) – and ummm becoming friends on facebook (one of my fave things that make me feel closer to people, it’s a bit silly I know). Some people were already connected thru #rhizo14, #clmooc or even just twitter or (gasp) real life!
Soo umm the task I’m errr…
FORGET IT – there is no task, but a request. Maha Abdel Moneim (whom i met via #ccourses and have not yet met in person btw) and I are doing a workshop f2f on becoming a connected educator… It’s January 26-27 – it is for Nile TESOL (so audience are teachers of English to speakers of other languages)
So I have two requests:
1. Question: what do you think would attract peope totally new to this? Can you tell us about moments that clicked for you? Things that work for you or help you become more connected? [disclaimer, we might quote you so let us know if it’s OK to quote you by name – aaah it’s a public blog anyway]. I do know that for me, cMOOCs make a very big difference. Terry Elliott is right about it being like an addiction (and if you have not noticed his latest blog post on how to get learners together to build something together of their reflections on their own experiences – you should!)
2. Request/Invitation: Would you be willing to interact on twitter with participants during out workshop? (Worked great w my students). We could actually ask them to look at particular hashtags including #tesol #efl but also #edtech and maybe more special ones like #ccourses and #clavier – we are trying to make the workshop close to 3pm our time so it’d be 1pm UK and 8am EST -hopefully some of you would be awake….
Meanwhile, I may show Dina Moati’s video on connecting through Twitter:
The best way IMHO for a new group to “get” it is to have a connective experience; you cannot replicate the one people get in an experience of (fill in your favorite cMOOC hashtag), but as you suggest, you can do a quick hands on experience. What if you have the audience pick a hashtag (show them how to check if it is unique?) Make it a goal to have them connect with at least ____ number of colleagues- maybe send them out to comment on ppls blogs? Do a quick #dailyconnect ?? You can count on me.
Ahh i like the idea of a quick dailyconnect and definitely the commenting on people’s blogs – it makes for a deeper connection than just likes, tweets or retweeting (I am beginning to sound like you, but they’re wise and sensible ideas that work, so i have internalized them lol)
@Bali_Maha @Maha4Learning thanks for adding that! Great blog post Maha
@Bali_Maha @dinamoati excellent idea & Request. I love the video great idea. p.s I LOVED the music lol
If I can, I would love to be part of the session from afar. Not sure how it will fit into my teaching day … keep me posted.
The one defining moment for me was many, many years ago, as a newspaper reporter (my gig before teaching), when I saw a classroom of young children huddled around an old classroom computer, writing emails to a teacher who was on leave in Costa Rica, studying butterfly migrations. Those kids were so engaged with one email because it connected them to another part of the world. I saw the possibilities. And that was in the mid 1990s.
I never forgot the power of that moment, which I still get myself when I connect with folks like you.
Somehow, you need to build an experience of connection with those folks … have them do something in the session in which they connect (not just watch you connect for them) to others in the world …. not that I have any grand ideas right now …
Kevin
Yes Kevin I would love them to be able to interact with you, and I could show some of your cartoons as well!
@Bali_Maha @laura_ritchie @reedyreedles @JaapSoft yes would love to contribute!
I can certainly try to connect as well, depends on how cr
I can try to connect as well, depends on how crazy my morning is. For me the best ways to connect has been developing a kinship through Twitter then sometimes email, often Voxer, and even Facebook. It seems to be an organic messy process mostly.
Thanks, Pernille! I was planning to target Twitter, so hopefully that could work out with you 🙂 I’ll tweet you a day or two before to remind you and give you time, etc.
@Bali_Maha @reedyreedles @suebecks @JaapSoft YES! of course 🙂
@Bali_Maha @laura_ritchie @suebecks @JaapSoft of course!!! 🙂
@Bali_Maha @laura_ritchie @reedyreedles @suebecks Yes
@JaapSoft @laura_ritchie @reedyreedles @suebecks excellent! Thank u all! Will tweet day/time when I know them!
@Bali_Maha @laura_ritchie @reedyreedles @suebecks very good.
i would love to participate at Twitter, Maha – count me in! One of the (many) good things CCourses has done for me is to make me a better Twitter user (I found this post by checking in at the #ccourses hashtag at Twitter just now).
About pulling people in: this remains one of the great mysteries to me. I failed completely to get anyone at my school to participate even a little bit in Connected Courses. Even though we are running a Reclaim pilot. Go figure. So any strategies and ideas that emerge along that line would be great! Connected courses need connected educators! 🙂
Hey Laura, one of my more conservative colleagues thinks that people like me (and u and some of us in ccourses) are overzealous about openness in such a way we seem too “out there” for the majority of people. Where was it… I think it was Alan Levine referring to some kind of curve that shows how much slower “late adopters” are from early adopters. I wouldn’t consider myself an innovator since i knew abour twitter in 2008 but never used my account; knew about blogs 10 years before starting one – but i have been an eLearning fan all the past 11 years so that’s something 🙂
What I mean to say is, it might just be a matter of time, except that once all the late adopters get HERE, you and I will probably be ahead in the new new thing 😉 although you’d think connectedness and openness are constants of sorts, but you never know. Ummm am i making any sense at all? Also there is Kuhn’s idea that paradigm shifts occur as young ppl become adults/experts rather than by older ppl changing their minds. Sure there r ppl like Gardner and Howard (umm i have no idea how old you are! Just realized i assume you’re young like 30s) but i assume they’ve always been passionate revolutionaries/dissenters. But what do i know? I could be totally off. And i will still keep trying to influence mindsets locally
Ha ha, I am one of the veteran old guard (50s, not 30s) … revolutionary dissenter dinosaur! And yes, totally out there. And that was the case even before the Internet.
But seriously, I just see how the dependence on the LMS at my school is holding us back so badly. I’ve been here since 1999 and have seen so little progress towards open, largely because everything and everybody gets herded inside the LMS which is totally closed (we had Blackboard, now D2L), and which certainly does not INSPIRE people to go beyond the LMS into the open; just the opposite.
With the students, things are always great – they are so eager and intrepid, ready to try anything and always with lots of new ideas. The contrast with the faculty is pretty extreme that way: hardly any faculty bloggers, hardly any faculty Twitter.. and the LMS keeps us from connecting to share what new ideas we do have.
I keep hoping, but would love some insight into how to make things happen, in addition to the magical moments of serendipity like what Kevin described in his comment above!
I think my boss feels like, we spent so much time to convince faculty to finally get on Blackboard, now ur telling me we should leave it? (Also the ppl who invested time money and effort into it of course, influenced by corporate ). Then again, i often question myself…if what i am doing might not work for other ppl, given their personalities and contexts. It,s a big risk and dipping into loads of uncertainty, isn’t it? Not everyone is happy with that arrangement.
But hey, 50s is no dinosaur, c’mon 😉 and ur prob closer to ur students’ mindsets than faculty in their 30s who aren’t doing social media, right?
Oh, I mean dinosaur in a good sense: impossible to ignore! I shake the earth as I walk, ha ha.
I see faculty being intrepid about their RESEARCH all the time. Research would not be worth doing unless it involved uncertainty.
The question I think is how to get those dynamic, open-minded, fearless attitudes about research to cross over into the teaching world. And the LMS is definitely NOT helping. Argh!
Good points. Except for one thing: ppl also generally don’t have open attitudes about research! Depending on ur field, ppl stick to the more conservative research method/paradigm (in soc sci and edu there are many overlapping ones so its kinda crazy) and most ppl don’t respect open access, open blogging about research, open data, etc etc! Tho UK and some European countries encourage it at govt level now esp for public funded stuff
I do keep thinking, though, about how there is no RMS for research! 🙂
http://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-lms-again.html
Just real tools for real learning and real networking instead.
Lol!