#CCK11 Are you going with network flow or personal flow?

I have been pondering on this basic question since I was young:

Are you going with the flow (following the herd, or the system, or networks etc.) or growing with your own soul (personal flow)?  Or both.

Why am I concerned these days? Have I been locked up with the social and connective “networks”?  How often do I reflect on the meaning of immersion in different social media?  Do I use my own customized PLE or just rely on the mass social media?

George shared his views about the social and connective lock-ins where he states:

As Stephen noted in our discussion, we should have control of our own connections. We shouldn’t offload the knowledge that exists in our connections to a mediating software service that then mines those connections to generate economic value. An important part of PLE/Ns is giving individuals the skills and technology to control our connections. And in the process, own our own knowledge. Unfortunately, open connection-forming protocols that allow us to connect with others and share content are not as developed as the Facebook Connect/Twitter models.

We should have control of our own connections.  Would that align with the autonomous learner’s principle?  In the course of connections, especially through mediating service and tools, it is no surprise that there are economic values generated, when artifacts are produced through interactions or discourse, or research.  This also offers opportunities for the exploitation of those service provided through the news publishers, research publishers or educational providers etc. But isn’t that a by-product of the connections, that is inherent with the social media development?  Are we manipulating these connections to achieve our goals?

What are the issues?  Despite the open educational resources widely available on Google and wikipedia etc., we often found it difficult to access the more “accurate” and reliable resources for free.

For many of us, would connections be also influenced by the notion of: should I go with the flow?  What it means is that going with flow is often easier, as there are well established software or media platforms for people to dwell upon.  Facebook and Twitter provide that sort of connections that are tempting and engaging.   Rapid set-up of account with a soon to-become famous or glory may be the mindset of some ambitious networkers.  Isn’t it simple?  Just join the FB or twitter group and you would be connected to others!  But is that really enough to support one’s connection?   Far from reality!

Twitter does provide many avenues for connection, with whatever that interests those Twitterers.  However, does it mean that connection of those sources of information (via Twitterers) would generate “conversation”?  May be a casual chat only with the followers, especially if one is a “novice Twitterer”.  What is of more value likely would be the links one could follow to tracing to the information sources – like an important artifact, a breaking news, or an update of a conference on air.  How do you know the information that one is referred to contain accurate, up-to-date information?  As shared here on churnalism or news

The website, churnalism.com, created by charity the Media Standards Trust, allows readers to paste press releases into a “churn engine”. It then compares the text with a constantly updated database of more than 3m articles. The results, which give articles a “churn rating”, show the percentage of any given article that has been reproduced from publicity material.

It revealed how all media organisations are at times simply republishing, verbatim, material sent to them by marketing companies and campaign groups.

How do we know a diversity of opinions is the best way of learning?  This is also raised here

This reminds me of Bouchard’s views here Network Promises and their implications 960-1513-2-PB[1]:

Interactive networks have been represented as somewhat “ideal” environments where nodes are equally dispersed and connected in an environment devoid of the constraints of space or time. While it is certainly true that P2P interactivity offers immense new possibilities for learners, we must strive to understand the dialectical nature of the new environment. What appears to be an ideally democratic social space can in fact be subjected to hidden power distribution and arcane control.  The newly evolving world of easily accessible multi-media and social resources carries with it a corresponding challenge for learners.  If knowledge is to be freely constructed by the individual rather than by an external authority such as an instructor or a managed learning system, then the individual must develop the capacity to attribute value to various competing subjective realities,while cautiously remaining wary of inaccuracy and manipulation. Putting information and inference to the test of inherent validity requires specific skills without which the navigation of blogs and wikis might be a journey towards futility or worse, towards falsehood and superstition.

Besides, how would people un-lock those resources that are not yet open?  By blogging about it, or by summarising their views in their own words, based on the aggregation, remixing, repurposing, and feedforwarding it through different network media or educational networks, news, etc.  Such an approach poses a number of opportunities and challenges:

Opportunities include the connection with ideas and people, opening up new avenues of learning through the networks, webs, and internet.

However, there are plenty of challenges, like the power and influence issue, the complexity of way finding, and the information abundance overload, which may also lead to filter failures.

One of the key challenges include the crap detection – the critical literacy one must have in filtering information based on accuracy and reliability.

Here Howard provides a great summary of Crap detection.

How would these impact on the 21 st century learning?  Does it mean that education is going with the flow (LMS) or growing with the soul (our own connections via PLE/N)?  Or may be the soul said “yes” and so but the flow said no?

Do we need transformation before PLE/N could take roots? Can LMS & PLE/N be resolved in individual life long learning journey? Tension & power struggle!

May be we need to have the personal flow and learning power to succeed in the quest for life long learning.

Reference:

BOUCHARD, Paul (2011). “Network Promises and Their Implications”. In: “The Impact of Social Networkson Teaching and Learning” [online monograph]. Revista de Universidad y Sociedad del Conocimiento(RUSC). Vol. 8, No 1, pp. 288-302. UOC. [Accessed: dd/mm/yy].ISSN 1698-580X

Fractals II

Thanks also for Matthias great encouragement in exploring this parable.  Someone said Fractal was even the thumb print of God (see the video of my previous post), I don’t know if that is the case, though I think this might be one of the greatest discovery in history of mankind.  Aren’t we now living in an era of Chaos and Fractals?  Both may be a reflection of the birth and development of all forms of life and physical objects, both physically and sensationally (visually) – from the growing of plants, trees, to human, to animal’s skin pattern, to the clouds, and shapes of mountain etc.  Even the lightning and thunders are patterns of fractals, as I would conceive, down to the conversations we have, where the uttering could simply be “fractals” formed in our mind, when I am now putting them into words, and typing them character by character here on the keyboard.  Every single keyboarding is a form of fractal reflective of thoughts in mind.   We are just repeating these actions without such consciousness, and may be not too many people would think about it this way.

How did fractal happen in my mind?

For me, I would utter such words ” in a silent mode” in my brain, whilst pressing the keys to type out the words.  So such mapping of utterance and keyboarding seems to be repeating its iteration throughout the whole process of thinking, and reflection.  I would then imagine myself to be the reader, and re-read the message to check my comprehension.  This sort of fractal patterning is also quite obvious in writing or typing.  I would be searching through the right pattern of words while writing or typing words of a message.  How would all these relate to Stephen’s conceptions here of the Hebbian Associationism, Accidental, or proximity-based, Associationism, Backward propagation and Boltzman Associationism?

I am more interested in practising the actual connections making, whether with ideas or people. I don’t care much about what that is called, or the pedagogy, which might sound too superior for educators and intimidating for others.

So, parables, I like what you would call them.  As you are a Christian too, we are under the same roof, and the same “language” per se.  It is not the fame we should seek, but the love through connection.  But I am not trying to open up the Bible, because we have it in our hearts – the Words of God, if we are truly living out our life through and with HIM.

John

Education around the world – Who is the best?

I read Heyjude’s post on thinking about teaching with great interests.  She shared the highlights of meeting which was designed to provide  input and feedback to the 22 draft elaborations of the Graduate standards required for proficiency in the National Professional Standards for Teachers in Australia.  Very informative.

She has a special reference to Finland’s education.

Here is Finland’s education at a glimpse.

I am impressed with Finland’s emphasis on education and teaching.

How about China? Here is the news.

How about the role of parents in education? Aren’t parents also the educators of their children?

Do you think parents also have a role in the education and learning of their children?

Here is my post on Academic achievement, personalization of education and learning.

I think it’s time to reflect on what education and learning means for our children and next generation.