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.