Following (and during) Dave Cormier’s Open Ed presentation: We Are Not Your %@! Resource:Sustainable Use of Established Communities, Jennifer Jones and I had some Twitter conversation that resulted in her sharing the points shown above.

Community becomes increasingly important as one realizes that open education (if not most education) uses content but involves community. And that was at the heart of Dave’s presentation—conversations about education too often speak about using community and people as if they were content resources.

Jen and I appear to differ in our understanding of community in a way that isn’t uncommon. Let me get the simple agreement out of the way first: I agree completely with her points #1, 2, 4 and 7.

But #3, 5 and 6 get right at our differences in approach. It’s true, though phrased very negatively, that a novel course community is “silo.” But what if it isn’t a silo, but an intentionally short-lived community? I don’t see that any of us belong to “a” community—we belong to many. Our community memberships and affiliations come and go. Some lost a long time, some last for a very short time, maybe only a few days. I not only don’t see a problem with that, I think it’s a positive characteristic of contemporary life… as it has been for as long as people have gathered in groups, but amplified and magnified by the availability of technology that removes some physical limitations to communities we can be part of.

Given that, then lack of sustainability of a course community isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And as I believe that trying on roles and experimenting with positions and philosophies is a critical part of learning, it might sometimes be a highly desirable attribute. Which isn’t to say that I don’t see clearly problematic issues from the simple (resources that are used while part of a community can be desirable long after the community itself no longer is) to the complex (community membership doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game where belonging to community A means withdrawing from—or negatively effects—community B, but it can happen). Learners don’t stop existing in their existing communities when they start existing in those inspired or required as part of an educational experience… a fact that is, in fact, implicit in point 5, which recognizes that learners already exist in multiple communities that co-exist just fine.

Underlying this is also a philosophy of community and education around which Darcy Norman and I were Twitter-debating at the same time: community requirements. If I thought all communities and community engagements operated at the same level, then I could see where requiring participation in a particular community (and thus requiring the same technology) would be much more problematic. But I don’t believe that’s the case. Requiring a student to participate in a particular community is artificial… but time and time again I see what starts as a requirement blossom into an authentic experience that is sustained, either exactly so (when taking part in existing communities outside the class) or in function (when participation in a class community—a flickr group, diigo community, group blog, ning community is continued by students in like form in other places, often using the same tools). This isn’t an unfamiliar practice nor is it limited to community—teaching the arts, for example, often starts with “artificial” assignments which turn out to be precisely what was needed for the learner to become “authentically” engaged.

And requirements—even those that can only be refused at the cost of a grade or whatever mechanism of assessment is being used—aren’t necessarily a bad thing. I don’t see requiring participation in a community (constrained, limited, or not) as being any different from other required activities and performances that are part of the teaching and learning process, whether those performances be writing, reading, interviewing, making, building, or what have you.

All that being said, point #7 is very true. When possible/conceivable and desirable—not just technologically, but pedagogically and in light of what I am trying to help students learn, discover, and achieve—taking advantage of the eduglu concept to weave preferred tools and existing communities into the experience is a wonderful thing to do. But I have to push back on the zero-sum approach to community and the idea that "real” (useful, authentic, etc) engagement can’t happen in a constrained and/or required experience.

shift our thinking away from the simple digital/analogue distinction of technology towards a less divisive and more nuanced context for work; a human context that focuses on the essence of our work rather than the appearance.

I suspect that the ideas in this paper inspired @injenuity’s question for Howard Rheingold:

Ask him what ed tech folks and "integrators" are going to do for a living when technology is assumed and invisible.

I pushed back a little on this concept because it seems to me that “technology” never becomes assumed and invisible… specific instances of it do. So the question is either irrelevant—because there will never be an “after”—or the definition of “technology” needs to be narrowed. My relentless prodding (it’s my lot to be the skeptic, which nets a lot of conversation but very few friends) lead to Jen’s clarification that poses a much more interesting question:

Not questioning advancement of tech. Hoping for age when ppl are curious, engaged and aware to explore without help from specialists.

Setting aside that the term “specialist” doesn’t feel like a good fit with many of the “ed tech folks” and “integrators” I know (perhaps they should be excluded anyway since most of them would love to work themselves out of that particular job, not only to open the door for richer activities, but because they know as well as anyone that the changes which demand their services just keep on coming), I can’t think of a technology that hasn’t involved specialists when it was new… and the more active and participatory a technology is, the more valuable such specialists are. For a while, anyway.

The biggest question might be what happens in a “postdigital” age, but the more productive question is smaller: what happens in a post-current-technology age, when those few technologies and applications (literally and functionally) that survive have become common and commonly-understood enough that specialists aren’t needed (for that set of technologies at least)? To circle back to the reason Dave’s paper is important: nothing. Or at least nothing good. Not unless the actions and states of mind that allow one to be engaged and aware are actively and consciously promoted and reinforced. The lack of curiosity, engagement and awareness that typifies our environment (not just in the single sphere of education) has nothing to do with the complexity of technology. Quite the opposite: it’s reinforced by the affordances of that technology which make it easier than ever to satisfy our need for engagement with the equivalent of junk food.

By analogy: no one really disputes that modern agricultural methods and food production techniques, which have resulted in a greatly higher caloric availability to the average instinctually survival-minded human being, has resulted in an increase in those humans’ average weight. In some countries– like the US– obesity is commonly considered an epidemic and it’s clear from research over the past decade that, in fact, this increase in consumption is directly at odds with our natural instinct to live a longer life. For we lucky ones who live in this environment of plenty rather than scarcity, survival instinct– to eat what you can when you can because you can’t be sure when you will have the opportunity to eat as much (or at all) again– is, in fact, working against our survival.

This doesn’t make me a caloric determinist… in the end we are what we choose to eat. But the effect of the affordances of the technological apparatus that is our food industry does have an effect and it is decidedly not neutral (in any useful sense of the term). In the same way, while we can choose sustained engagement and deep attention, more and more we choose not to. The technology doesn’t make us that way, but the functional result isn’t much different than it would be if it did.

For the most part, people don’t exhibit a lack of curiosity because their natural curiosity is being thwarted by technology any more than they eat poorly because their desire to eat healthy is thwarted by difficulty in finding, obtaining or preparing healthy food.

Dave’s paper is, I think, going in the right direction, reframing the picture in terms of personal, authentic experience—and I’m sure I’ll have more to say about the details later—but it doesn’t go far enough in examining the same assumption that inquisitive activity and exploration are natural activities that informs Jen’s question and the damage that has resulted from those assumptions. If anything, I’d guess that biologically it’s the opposite, and culturally our institutions of education and the edifice of many families and peer groups don’t go very far in instantiation/facilitating that mindset when they don’t outright punish people who go in that direction.

Among other things she pointed out the SUNY TLT cooperative which provides online faculty development courses in a 4-course sequence, various 1hr webinars and an annual workshop at their Conference for Instructional Technologies (for example, the 2007 CIT conference). Also mentioned: the Course Redesign Initiative and their Faculty Development Program.

Information to be found in the MERLOT Pedagogy Portal could be quite useful in our own faculty development efforts.

Although we are not particularly into MERLOT, the SUNY TLT also shares planning and production materials to help others who want to put on Faculty Development workshops, and I suspect there will be much there that is broadly accessible.

Phil Moss stepped in for a presenter who could not make it and shared another interesting MERLOT subject area, the Developing and Delivering Online Courses Portal, sponsored by McGraw-Hill.

Outcomes based curriculum development? Fuggedaboutit says George "The Godfather" Siemens. I’m not so sure. George’s point– that adherence to a structure or sequence can become rigid and counterproductive is well taken. But at what point (and for whom) is this straitjacket a problem?

I think the primary issue really is organization– which has a bearing on effectiveness of course– not directly being more "effective" in the sense that "outcomes-based inherently education makes better learning." The more important question is "for who?" and "at what level?"

Let me draw a parallel: when first learning how to write in a particular mode, writing with models and structures is usually good– jumping right into intuitive approaches to the overall production is effective for only a very small number of people. Which is why there’s nothing wrong with things like 5-paragraph essays and news articles structured using the inverted pyramid. Most will benefit from having that structure… those who could easily leap ahead are unlikely to be damaged (though they might get frustrated, as George’s point could be extended to). But, of course, that approach isn’t intended to last forever, or directly inform all instances of that kind of writing. Ultimately the framework either becomes one tool among many or– as is often the case with the particular development model we use with faculty– becomes a tool for introducing the concept of having some approach and a way to expose areas that may not be considered with other models or having no model at all. 

To further the parallel: the above is discussing form… what of the important matter of form and content that is intermixed, intertwingled, and symbiotic? People who have learned to write poems in forms will almost unanimously share the apparently paradoxical experience that at some point writing in a form with all the attendant rules leads to the experience of being able to express with a freedom never felt with free verse. I say "apparently" because we also have the concept that simple rules allow for complex, emergent behaviors, something that is far less often true of complex rules or no rules at all. Of course "mastering" a form then allows a writer, artist, or educator to tweak that very form into new and interesting "forms" of his or her own!

In general I’d rather err on the side of some initial confinement and less reliance on intuition than the muddle of haphazard activities that characterize much of the learning design we see coming in– particularly when it comes to technologically enhanced teaching when the temptation to use bright shiny tools is ever present. In the end, when working with groups or writing generally, we have to adopt approaches that we think will do good for the most people (or do the least harm), which makes a structured approach desirable. In the individual case that framework will usually give way– sometimes sooner, sometimes later– to an amenable compromise or an approach of informed and enlightened intuition.

Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.

A few years ago a friend sent me a version of this ‘Being Poor’ list via email. "Really makes you think, doesn’t it?" he said, "Can you imagine?" 

Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won’t hear you say “I get free lunch” when you get to the cashier.

I could more than imagine… many of the items in the list I could remember.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you’re not actually lazy.

I can remember a lot of the feelings and experiences from that list and add a few more of my own: claiming apathy to avoid field trips that would cost even a few dollars, paying for a meal out with the class using change (not to mention the concept of "small" change), simply not eating at all on a sports trip, working from 3:30a-6:3a before two-a-day practices and homework until 11p, blocks of free cheese, the looks you get bringing out food stamps (and, worse, when you are loudly informed that "welfare doesn’t cover" an item and asked if you want it put back), having someone in school recognize the grab-bag shirt you are wearing that used to be theirs…

But the worst part by a mile is the cultural claustrophobia and aspirational myopia that come with material poverty which, after all, is quite often accompanied by– if it doesn’t necessitate– intellectual poverty. I can tell you how it feels to be the first in the family to make it through high school; among other things it’s the feeling of thinking "that’s it! I did it!" and being absolutely clueless about the next step. I can tell you how it feels to discover years into an undergraduate degree at the only place I thought I could afford, after feigning disinterest in a flood of offers based on high test scores and straight-A high school grades, that when tuition is advertised as X dollars per year you can still get that education even if you don’t have X dollars in your pocket in cash when you arrive; it’s nauseating. I can share with you to this moment how a profound lack of understanding of handling money and credit can perpetuate a cycle of constant fiscal near-drowning the same way academic knowledge of swimming leaves you (if you are lucky) barely able to keep your head above water when you go overboard.

Physical hunger gnaws at the stomach and chest, intellectual hunger gnaws at the head and heart, and in both cases too much desire, too much necessity, too much static in the form of the whispering "need, need, need" makes them inordinately important and ultimately, no matter what you achieve or receive, turns them into demands that can never be met. The insatiable need and the inability to believe in achievement and self-worth– the constant perception of being a fraud– is a constant static, a kind of psychological tinnitus that one can learn to ignore but is always on, waiting to be noticed– and intruding– at the worst possible times.

Last night, a friend Twittered about a book she was reading, The Price of Privilege, which is:

A critical look at America’s culture of affluence explores the epidemic of emotional and psychological problems crippling America’s privileged youth

I don’t doubt her judgment. I don’t doubt that the book is discussing real problems. But I really can’t comprehend it. More importantly, I can’t feel it. I’m sure there’s a price for privilege… I just haven’t been privileged enough to get a chance to pay it.

A few weeks ago I was reading a voyeuristic profile of George Clooney in the New Yorker in which, at one point, he warns the interviewer after discussion of some recent troubling incident that he has to keep it in perspective and that he’s aware how ridiculous and outlandish it can be to hear celebrities complaining about their miserable lives. Even George Clooney suffers! I know it’s true, but it’s more fantastic than quantum mechanics and harder to really internalize than 6th and 7th dimensions.

But it made me think about educators… in particular "my circle" of friends and colleagues and influential acquaintances. How many of them, I wonder, have experienced poverty themselves? For how many of them would the Being Poor post strike a resonant, uninvited chord? And what does that mean to our efforts? "We" are already a select group in this context: college educated, most teaching college undergraduates or higher, working with or in academic institutions. But many of us are teaching or influencing the teaching of students who are struggling to escape circumstances of poverty and lack of privilege. Do we allow for that? Can we? If someone who comes from  relative privilege is as clueless about the needy as I am about the wealthy classes, how do we teach? 

At the same time, it’s clear that despite the volume there is considerable disagreement, misunderstanding, and misapprehension about what these two theories do and do not mean. Alan’s recent post talking about the role of memory is a good case in point. My understanding of Connectivism doesn’t suggest that memory isn’t or shouldn’t be an important part of learning, but that it has a potentially different, additional role when what we remember is also information potentially accessible to other "network nodes" in a connected environment– each of which have their own memory as well– and that the primacy of some kinds of memorization in some kinds of operating situations is open to question, memorization sometimes being an artificial constraint that is just accepted as a prior practice. That’s just my take; these kinds of questions and ruminations being considered by a large group of interested, but not all Confirmed Connectivismists will probably be the single greatest outcome of this Massively Open Online Course.

Inevitably, too, there is the question of the scope of these theories. As I see it, Stephen is positing a wider epistemological theory that is intended to supplant, rehabilitate, and colonize more than George’s theory, which to my mind builds on– but is less exclusive of– other and previous theory. Stephen is clearly more politically radical (in terms of being a break from existing theory). The difference is non-trivial, with ramifications for addressing issues like the role of memory that Alan brings up. I’ve always seen Connectivism as adding to a variety of other theories and their resulting practices that are not eclipsed but remain useful; any one of them alone leading to at least insufficiency, if not outright educational travesty.

Except for a disagreement about Marc Prensky (I think he’s a polemicist/provocateur/gadfly who deserves a tip of the hat in passing; I suspect George would happily put him in a head crusher) I found that most of what George presented to and discussed with us resonated with my evolving view of education, teaching and learning. That’s no surprise given that I’ve been talking about Connectivism and Connected Knowledge since their early days (this dialogue between George and Stephen Downes is another part of the puzzle, as are some of the conversations that took place during the online Connectivism Conference, such as this Challenge to Connectivism thread). If nothing else I knew it had to be a good thing for faculty and staff to hear some of these ideas from someone other than me!

Despite all that, and it being my suggestion that we try to bring George up, I was a bit skeptical. I’m naturally suspicious of all good ideas that are not my own, particularly when they come under the umbrella of a clever coinage, and George is a seemingly tireless presenter. Frankly, I was concerned that he might be more salesman and sophist than educator and theorist.

My concerns were for naught. I’m sympathetic to Bill Kerr’s continued questioning of Connectivism, particularly these three basic queries (as I would rank them in ascending order of importance):

1. is Connectivism really a learning theory
2. have the important parts of Connectivism already been covered (and possibly covered better) by earlier thinkers such as Papert and Vygotsky
3. does Connectivism misrepresent constructivism and other earlier pedagogical theories

But I’m not sure that resolving those questions matters as much to me as the productivity of Connectivism as a lens for examining and transforming educational practice. George made regular, accurate references to those that had come before (his ability to do so on the fly while making relevant points without just throwing citations around and name-dropping as some do was impressive) and I see what he is promoting as building upon– not throwing away– earlier theories. All I can do is continue my own investigations and if something dissonant comes up I’ll ask him about it.

Connectivism in practice is the key question. As I said, the theory/model resonates with me and fits with my experience not just as teacher, but also as a learner. The latter might even be more important. I see Connectivism as an essential part of a fabric that includes social networks, learning communities, information fluency, and Third Places. But what does it mean to a faculty member on the ground teaching class X to a diverse group of students? How specifically can they engage (or take into account) Connectivist theory? What will students be doing and how will they be assessed?

We’re working towards answers to these questions with individual course development efforts and it might be that generalized answers aren’t possible beyond those many of us are already promoting: educational conversation, collaboration, network resource building, etc. Educational blogging (the practice encapsulating micro-publishing, syndication, and subscription)– for learner and educator alike– is certainly a fundamental practice, a platform upon which we can share the answers we discover…

I realize there’s a theoretical and logical argument for video as a means to allow for personal expressiveness, body language, facial cues, etc., but in the real world those benefits are lost because of video size, lighting, positioning, resolution, network congestion… all the non-theoretical, real-world technological issues that inevitable spring up when you don’t have the means to create the artful illusion that there is no production going on at all.

And if you work around those obstacles? Then you have to face the reality that effective non-verbal communication when you have only a monitor view of the audience (if that) and a (usually awkwardly placed) camera that you can’t look into while looking at your own materials or video feed (is there anything worse than being on the receiving end of the presenter who is constantly looking slightly away from you all the time) is a talent limited to the very, very few.

Creating an effective video presentation– regardless of the technology– demands skills not much different from those possessed by good actors. Good video presentation is a lot harder to do than it looks as a viewer and there aren’t very many who are good at it. The worst result isn’t just an ineffective presentation that could have been better, but potentially a negative association on the part of the viewer conflating this poor experience with distance learning in general. That is a bad taste in the mouth of participants that takes an inordinate amount of effort to overcome later.

I’m not picking on David Warlick here. He might be a master at stagecraft and makes the transition to video that so few seem able to do, or he might be optimistic that the video stream is doing something for his audience that it actually isn’t. I tend to assume the latter not because of David Warlick, who I have never seen in any medium, but because I’ve seen so many video presentations now– including some that have pretty extensive production and speakers who I know to be engaging face-to-face– where that turns out to be the case. The simple video feed is an illusory solution to the very real problems of being expressive and engaging while teaching at a distance. It’s a mirage borne of hopefulness (or desperation), leeching away energy that would be better spent transforming educational interactions than trying to replicate face-to-face experiences.