Online survey for the participants of MOOCs

After experiencing an overwhelming participation in two Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC); PLENK2010 and EC&I831  from September 2010 to December 2010, and getting more understanding into the nature of open, social and networked learning which helped me make my research focused I conducted an online survey ( and here)to the participants of these two courses.

My intention was to get more insights into the experiences and perceptions of the course participants of such open and unusual courses in terms of using different technologies and digital tools, involving in online learning networks, making their personal learning environments and getting sense of being a connected learner.

However, this survey is not a main data source for my research and nonetheless, not so many people responded to it but, it was useful for obtaining some preliminary information about the topics related to open and networked learning and PLE. It somehow revealed that which technologies and how much they have been using during the course, how they have been engaged in the course activities etc.  

 I used GoogleDocs for making the survey but for some weird reason it didn’t accept the responses and I had to use another online survey maker: www.surveygizmo.com  which was also good. The survey is still underway and participants of MOOCs can respond to it.

In the survey I asked the participant if they are willing to take part in an an online interview for further elaboration on the themes and topics of the survey. I am hoping to have at least 6 people for interviewing. 

What Wordle could say about your writing and thinking?!

I just created a "word cloud" by Wordle from my blog today and found this:



It highlights what I am more thinking and writing about in my blog. Here is a fancy analysis of this Wordle: "Learning" is my big concern as it shows in the picture. Just right underneath it is saying that I am researching and enjoying kind of "Open" ( education & learning ) mediated by  " Technology"  and various "Social" ( media) in a “Networked” way by joining " free education" and focusing on "Informal" (learning). 

That's true; however, there is a big "conference" there as well which, perhaps shouldn't be that big (just because of some posts about different conferences!). The other bigger ones are “social” and “online” which make sense and are my concerns too but, I am wondering how small “theories” or learning theories is! Maybe the smallest one!  It makes me a bit more think about it.

The highlighted terms show my focus and the scope of my dissertation research somehow. 

This post was just for fun but, it is also worth mentioning that even a fun tool like Wordle can tell us something about our thinking and its directions. I think it is useful sometimes we put our text into Wordle to get some ideas. 

PLENK2010; Fostering Open and Networked Learning!

 picture source: Global Education

    Formally, the PLENK2010 ( Personal Learning Environments, Networks and Knowledge) which was kind of massive open online course (MOOC) finished last week but, informally it will be continuing through the networks of the participants which have been created during the course across various latforms.                     

    PLENK2010 covered various topics and issues from learning theories (e.g. comparing connectivism with other learning theories such as constructivism and cognitivism), PLE & PLN, self-directed informal learning, the role of educator in open education, the issues concerning the learner’s autonomy in open learning and many more relevant topics. 

   There was a ground for all participants with different learning styles and preferences to find out their ways in the context of this course in which, how they can learn, how to interact with others; just to be a lurker and stalking what is happening there or being an active participant to benefit from collaboration with other people in the course, creating and sharing the contents and being engaged in various forms to enrich the learning experiences. 

    For me, the MOOCs I have attended this autumn ( PLENK2010 & eci831) were exciting and very insightful. I enjoyed them and learned a lot as a participant and I got so many insights for my research on open education and networked learning. It was a great opportunity to encourage and keep me motivated to create and develop my PLE, also joining so many open online learning networks (OLNs) which have great potential for enhancing connectivity and networking in today’s connected world. 

   The big issue which makes me pondering is that: what these kinds of open online course add to education and learning?  What are the values of open education and networked social learning which challenge the structure of formal learning? And how the conventional formal education systems could cope with the needs of self-directed informal learning? Undoubtedly, these challenges are resulted from the evolutionary advancement of new social media and collaborative technologies which provide the infrastructure for putting more value on open education and informal social learning. 

Global Education Conference ( free & online)

Last week from 15 - 19 Nov. 2010, the "2010 Global Education Conference" was held online and free! It was  totally an online conference and all sessions were presented on Elluminate platform. I participated in some sessions ( as many as my schedule allowed me) which I enjoyed some of them.

I personally like the idea of having such a worldwide online conference which brings all interested people from all over the world together in such an online environment to discuss about global education issues. The organizers explained the conference "collaborative and world-wide community effort to significantly increase opportunities for globally-connecting education activities. Our goal is to help you make connections with other educators and students, and for this reason the conference is very inclusive and also is provides broad opportunities for participating and presenting."

 It was free and just on your desktop to join and no travel or money were needed! With the fact that it is not easy to organize such a big online conference but, in my opinion, it was well-organized  with good moderators and all sessions were on time except few which presenters didn't show up!

All presentations were recorded which are available here.

Here is the  "The Global Education Collaborative",  the official social network of the Global Education Conference if anybody interested in joining the network.

AECT Conference 2010 in Anaheim, California

In late October ( 25-30) I attended AECT "Association for Educational Communications and Technology" conference in Anaheim, California, US. 

This year's conference theme was:  Cyber Change: Learning in Our Connected World. It was very related to what I am researching in my dissertation which is about open and networked learning in a networked world. The conference covered various topics and themes regarding new technology applications in education and learning. 

The conference was very well-organized and I enjoyed the whole programs. It was a great experience for me to develop my professional networking.  In addition to attending some good sessions about researching on social media and web 2.0, social networks, personal learning environments,  learning networks , I  found some people who are working and researching in my area of research whose comments to my research were very helpful.  

There were different types of presentations and very useful workshops of which I really enjoyed the workshop about " using cutting-edge technology to improve qualitative research and evaluation" by Rick West ( Brigham Young University). This presentations was also great: " social leaning linkage model for open network learning environment (ONLE) and PLE" by Chih-Hsiung Tu & Michael Blocher ( Northern Arizona University). 

I also attended a workshop by David Merrill where he was talking about new approaches in instructional design and some principles of instruction "e^3 (effective, efficient, engaging) Instruction."  

   

There were also such good programs for graduate students ( faculty/student mentor program, intern program) which of course, I  would have wished to be in one the them!

AECT is a prominent association for promotion technology in education and learning. It has published some books of which two are more important: Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology  and Educational Technology: A Definition with Commentary. 

It is also publishing several journals including: Educational Technology Research and Development , TechTrends - Linking Research and Practice to Improve Learning, Instructional Science and Quarterly Review of Distance Education. Here is the list of its publications. 

The 2011 AECT international conference 'Celebrate 3.0: Design.Learn.Community' will be in Jacksonville, Florida , on November 8-12.

There are some few photos of  the conference here in my Flickr.  

 

Educational Technology Journal Survey Research

University of Florida is conducting a survey about educational technology journals. The purposes of this research are to:
(1) advance the field of educational technology by determining the most academically prestigious publication venues in the field;
(2) determine most important factors relating to the choice of publishing in a journal in the field of educational technology; and
(3) connect research interests to specific journals in the field of educational technology.

This is a short survey (e.g., 15 minutes) that will evaluate several dimensions of the peer-reviewed journals in educational technology. Results will be shared with AECT and other educational technology groups.

 Interested to participate in this research go here and fill in the survey.

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms , Ken Robinson

A 'Networked Student' in 21st Centruy, #PLENk2010

  In this video you can see how a 'connected student' in the 21st century learn and make his/her own learning networks. A student of 'Connectivism'  basically without a specific textbook or assigned lectur hours by teacher. Connectivist approach assumes that learning occures by making different social connections using tecgnology and tools and creating 'personal learning environment'. Using different social media and collaborative tools, a networked student is able to find relevant contents on the web, organize them in the way needed, reproduce and share them by social bookmarking tools like Delicious and Diigo and getting feedback from different people.

100 Inspiring Ways to Use Social Media In the Classroom

Social media may have started out as a fun way to connect with friends, but it has evolved to become a powerful tool for education and business. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter and tools such as Skype are connecting students to learning opportunities in new and exciting ways. Whether you teach an elementary class, a traditional college class, or at an online university, you will find inspirational ways to incorporate social media in your classroom with this list.

Theories of Learning

Web 3.0 (Semantic Web)

Revolution after revolution or revolution in revolution?! When the WWW was invented by Berners-Lee in early 90s it was so called the biggest human evolution after industrial revolution. Later on, by emerging  web 2.0 technologies and social media and different social networks like Facebook, Myspace, Twitter etc. there was a  big argumentation around it that how this evolution has changed human lives. Now it is all about the openness and connectedness of new generation of emerging social web tools which make it difficult for people to select and adopt them in appropriate ways. How one can manage very many different web applications and the information could be retrieved from them and how these huge sources of information could semantically be of help. That's the issue now that web 3.0 or semantic web is all about!

 

Above is a fascinating video by Kate Ray who has interviewd some experts in web technologies including: Tim Berners-Lee, Clay Shirky, Chris Dixon, David Weinberger, Nova Spivack, Jason Shellen, Lee Feigenbaum, John Hebeler, Alon Halevy, David Karger and Abraham Bernstein.

A video by Dr. Skip Ward about MOOC and #PLENK2010

Above is a video of one of the #PLENK2010 participants, Dr. Skip Ward, commented on my previous post about MOOC ( Massive Open Online Course).

As he expalins, how such an example of a learning experience is successful because of  forming a huge virtual community of learners. In fact, PLENK2010 brings together a diverse group of people wiht different aspects of expertise, tied together and participants come together to share their experiences and knowledge. It is grounded in Connectivist approach which sees learning as networked and connective.


Skip also created a Ning group " Moving Social Media into the Classroom"  .

Constructivist and Connectivist Learning and Knowledge

In #PLENK2010 (Personal Learning Environments, Networks and Knowledge), one of the topics of discussion in Elluminate live session was about the distinct between Constructivism and Connectivism learning and knowledge.

George Siemens and Stephen Downes, the developers of Connectivism, discussed some issues there. A 15 minutes audio clip excerpt from that conversation is available here.

Further details about 'what is Connectivism?' and 'what Connectivism is not'  in Downes' website.

By D'Arcy Norman

Viplav Baxi, one of the #PLENK2010 participants,  in his blog has a post discussing  Connectivist and Constructivist PLEs. There, he discusses that is the PLE ( Personal Learning Environment) a connectivist construct or a constructivist construct? Or both? Or neither, just influenced by many theories? It could be worthwhile to consider two interpretations :

1. PLEs are some combination of constructivist as well as connectivist ideas/principles, or
2. There exist two unique types of PLEs – constructivist and connectivist.

MOOC ( Massive Open Online Courses)

Started two weeks ago, I am participating in a massive online course: #PLENK2010: Personal Learning Environments, Networks, and Knowledge sponsored and organized by the Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute (TEKRI) at Athabasca University. Stephen Downes and Rita Kop from the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) Learning and Collaborative technologies group, Dave Cormier from University of Prince Edward Island, and George Siemens (Connectivism Theory: a learning theory for digital age!) from TEKRI are course facilitators.  

It is based on connectivist approach and a great open learning environment which promotes collaboration with more tham a thousand of participants from all around the world exploring the nature of distributed networked knowledge and social learning by immersing in different social media and web 2.0 tools. 

The way it is run is absolutely great; it is less structured unlike other courses, #PLENK2010 is an unusual course which does not consist of a body of content participants are supposed to remember rather, the learning in the course results from the activities participants undertake, and will be different for each person.

In addition, this course is not conducted in a single place or environment. It is distributed across the web and  participants are expected to do activities taking place all over the internet using different social media such as Twitter, Blogs, Wikis, Moodle, delicious, discussion forums.... . Participants are asked to visit other people's web pages, and  to create their own. 

Everyday, all participants receive ' The Daily' consists of some readings, information regarding the course and the aggregated contents from participants' blogs and twitters. There are also live sessions mediated by Elluminate where the topic of the week is discussed with facilitators.  

Campus Technology Virtual Conference 2010

  Campus Technology Virtual Conference 2010, November 18, 10:30am - 6:00pm ET:  Explore the latest Technologies Impacting Higher Education at Campus Technology Virtual 2010.  Free registration!

• Discover how top institutions, like USC, Santa Clara and Virginia Tech, are using innovative social networking and distance learning technologies to provide enhanced teaching and learning environments on campuses around the country
• Learn from expert speakers with hands-on experience in the newest, most revolutionary ideas in education technology
• Spend time in the real-time virtual lounge for the best peer-to-peer networking
• Explore online product and service demos from leading solution-providers presented in the virtual exhibit hall
• Take away free content downloads and presentations-to-go

Keynote Presentation - New IT Strategies for a Digital Society

 Susan E. Metros, Associate Vice Provost and Deputy CIO for Technology-Enhanced Learning and Professor of Visual Design and Clinical Education, University of Southern California

CICE-2011( Canada International Conference on Education )

The Canada International Conference on Education (CICE) is an international refereed conference dedicated to the advancement of the theory and practices in education. The CICE promotes collaborative excellence between academicians and professionals from Education.

CICE-2011 will be held from the 4th to 7th of April, 2011 in Toronto, Canada.

Some topics of my interests are:
Educational Technology 
ICT Education
Internet technologies
Mobile Applications
Multi-Virtual Environment
Ubiquitous Computing
Virtual Reality


Important Dates:

Research Paper, Case Study, Work in Progress and Report Submission Deadline	December 15, 2010
Notification of Paper, Case Study, Work in Progress and Report Acceptance Date	December 28, 2010
Final Paper Submission Deadline for Conference Proceedings Publication	March 1, 2011

The Future of Cloud Computing: The Big 25 in the Next 25 , #PLENK2010

I came across with an article by Eric Boyce about the promising potential of the future internet applications which can change the human life dramatically.  

 He wrote: the past 25 years have brought a digital age of Internet, massive computing power, high-speed data transmission, mobile communication, and more recently, the cloud, which brings it all together. Over the next 25 years, as technology advances and infrastructure increases, cloud computing will continue to change our world.

According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, about 70% of Americans will be using cloud-based applications as their primary tools by 2020—both at work and in their free time. It’s already happening, of course—people accessing cloud-based applications like email and social media from their smart phones, streaming movies from Netflix®, and hosting their family pictures online—but just imagine what is on the horizon.

Below are some features of the future of cloud computing  which the writer pointed out but how they really could be dreamed! For reading the whole article go HERE

-The Internet is everywhere. Really. 

-No more software updates.

-Hardware optional. 

-Education for the world. 

-No more wallets! No more purses! 

-Where am I? 

-Digital media—movies, music, books, magazines. 

-A viable standard of living for all.

-Oh, and we will all be driving flying cars!

But, then a question for us in education and learning; how and in what ways we could get most out of it to enhance the teaching-studying-learning processes? what should we do and what kind of research we need to do to better exploit technologies in the service of education?

 

 

 

 

 

The future of research? one day seminar by JISC

 JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee which supports UK post-16 and higher education and research by providing leadership in the use of ICT  in support of learning, teaching, research and administration  announced one day conference on 'The Future of Research Conference' : Meeting the challenges facing research today and strategic role of technologies supported by Universities UK¹ to be held on Tuesday 19 October at the Congress Centre London.

This exciting one day conference will look at the strategic role technologies can play in helping institutions overcome the challenges in supporting the research lifecycle today. Delegates are offered a range of ‘here and now’ advice and guidance and will have plenty of opportunity to discuss, and listen to, key issues within the sector. Delegates will also have the chance to take part in discussions based around the recommendations of the UUK report ‘The Future of Research’.

For those who cannot attend personally the conference could be followed online here.

Twitter tag: #jiscres10

Massive Open Online Courses for Network Creation, #plenk2010

Roots of Connectivism

Gorge Siemense, the author of "Connectivism Theory" , a learning theory for digital age in this slides discusses about the roots of Connectivism starting from Behaviorism and Cognitivism to Constructivism and then elaborating on his theory.

Roots of Connectivism

View more presentations from gsiemens.

Finland is ranked fourth in digital economy rankings

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual rankings put Finland among the world’s leading countries for using ICT for economic and social benefit.

Finland has been ranked fourth in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual assessment of the ability of the world’s 70 largest economies to absorb information and communications technology (ICT) and use it for economic and social benefit. Last year Finland was ranked in tenth place.

The digital economy rankings assess the quality of a country’s ICT infrastructure and the ability of its consumers, businesses and governments to use ICT to their benefit. The rankings also provide companies that wish to invest or trade internationally with an overview of the world’s most promising business locations from an ICT perspective.
Finland is singled out in the report for enshrining Internet access as a basic human right and for its high level of utilizing radio frequency identification (RFID), a wireless data identification and capturing technology. Finnish companies are among the world’s earliest adopters of RFID technology, with a 8% utilisation rate compared to 3% in the EU27 countries. Finland also scored highly for its business and legal environment, consumer and business adoption, and social and cultural environment. Overall, Finland improved its ranking significantly from 10th.
Economist Intelligence Unit’s examined more than 100 separate criteria within the wider categories of connectivity and technology infrastructure, business environment, social and cultural environment, legal environment, government policy and vision, and consumer and business adoption.
Source: EIU digital economy rankings 2010