#PLENK2010 PLENK & Network Metaphor

I shared the below post in my blog on CCK09, and may I share the same with PLENK here?

My observation so far is that our “network(s)” do exhibit some of the phenomena of singles and flocks of birds or schools of fish, when it comes to CCK08, CCK09, CritLit2010 and this PLENK course.  Some would prefer to fly individually in the sky, whilst others would fly with flocks of “birds”, flying freeing through the sky, with multi-directions, and multi-”guidance” at times, and then the way they go afterwards…. Others would like to go for a “swim”, like a school of fish, through the ocean, and explore the deep, deep world down the ocean(s), and across the different oceans, where they encounter big and small school of fishes of all kinds.  Are there any borders in these network exploration?  Where are the limits?  The sky?  The ocean? The clouds (cloud computing, artefacts, social media)?

Would the birds and fishes meet?  May be, if they want to. But it’s all up to the desires and needs of the individuals. There are more and more “clouds or tools” forming, sometimes blurring the flights of the birds, but often they would help in guiding the flight paths as “mediators or navigators”.  The traces (artefacts, URL, tools, media and techniques) left behind could often be used as guidance for others. Would that be the emergent learning?

Are the ”birds”, “fishes” self organising?  Will the “clouds” help in the flight journey? Any thoughts?

May be we are all just human behaving similar to the emergence of flocks of birds and school of fish, but we won’t see these ourselves unless we step out of our comfort zone, and look at ourselves swimming in the ocean, or flying ourselves with the planes, and we could see ourselves out from the outer space, realising how small our planet is….

Refer to more sharing from others in the forum in PLENK before and after

Enjoy these

Photos: from Flickr

#PLENK2010 History of Social Media

This History of Social Media is cool! A great overview on the history of social media.

#PLENK2010 On the Research into the Design and Delivery of MOOC (III)

This is my response to the posting on forum relating to research

Hi Rita and all,

As I have participated in previous MOOC -CCK08, CCK09, and CritLit2010, I was deeply interested in how the MOOC had evolved throughout the years since 2008. I  thought research into this massive open online course teaching and learning and user/participant experience would benefit researchers, course organisers, facilitators and participants in their future course design, delivery and learning.

I noted that many participants have been very concerned about the ethical issues relating to research in PLENK2010, especially at the start of the course here. I also noted that participants were curious about how the research would be carried out in an open learning environment, where personal learning may be subject to the critical lens of research, and so they would like to know how such research data  might be collected.  A research forum has been set up to foster discussion on research.

Here is the link to researches on PLENK2010.

I posted my initial research proposal (and here on my blog) in week 1, with the suggestion to conduct research based on openness principles, through different social media spaces/tools, so as to allow participants to choose to participate in public/private spaces that they prefer. I have also posted some open questions relating to the research here.

I have finally used the typical survey questionnaire for the research.  I think that will assure the privacy and confidentiality of the participants’ responses in the research.

“PLENK2010 participants are invited to fill out a short survey on the Research into the Design and Delivery of MOOC - PLENK2010. This survey is anonymous and voluntary and should take no more than 10 minutes to complete. Sui Fai John Mak, a participant of PLENK2010 would like to thank you in advance for your time and contribution to the research. The survey can be accessed here http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/K3JDXD3 for two weeks and will close on November 26th 2010 at 12:00 AM Pacific Standard Time.” as posted on this Tuesday 16 Nov 2010.

I didn’t attend much forum discussion or engage into discourse here in forum, though I read the postings.  This allowed me to have more time to understand and learn the interactions between the participants in the forum, in blogs and other media, and to focus on research.  Also I would like to experience learning as a blogger and researcher this time, to better understand the impact of such learner/action researcher role on my learning in PLENK.

Thank you very much to those of you who have completed the survey. The responses so far have been highly favorable. For those others who haven’t participated as yet, you are warmly invited to participate in the survey.

The survey can be accessed here http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/K3JDXD3 for this coming week and will close on November 26th 2010 at 12:00 AM Pacific Standard Time.

Here is the Research wiki : Research into the Design and Delivery of MOOC PLENK2010

John