EDDE 806 - Post V - The final one of the spring 2016 season

A couple of weeks after the last session of 806 for this spring aired I had an opportunity to observe the proceedings from across time and space (aren't recordings grand?).  Looking at the (small) crowd that attended the live session maybe I should have attended!  Anyway! It does should like next fall, or perhaps next spring once I am formally in 806, there might be a ton of people attending, so the check-ins might only be for people who are done with 805.  I like the check-ins as it provides me with a sense of what others are going through (the whole "suffering together" bit), but I also don't want an 806 session that goes on for 2 hours (or more).  I would almost prefer to have more sessions but have them seriously capped at 90 minutes rather than have marathon sessions.  Something for pedagogical planning I guess :-)  I plan on attending 806 sessions (at least some of them) while I am in 805, so we'll see how that goes.

In any case, this session had presentations by Lynn Farquhar (cohort 5) and Shamini Ramanujan (also cohort 5), along with a small research interlude.  I think I'll start with the interlude and then give you a quick "aha!" from the presentations.

So Lisa & Peggy Lynn shared some interesting time-related things for us to keep in mind.  They said that brevity matters, which reminds me a lot of Pat Fahy and his favorite topic: parsimony! :-)  Lisa & Peggy Lynn told us that it takes:

• 540 minutes to read a dissertation
• 20 minutes to defend our dissertation
• 3 minutes to present our dissertation in the 3 minute thesis
• 15 seconds (1/4 minute) to articulate your elevator speech about your research

The last three items I sort of knew, but the 9 hours (540 minutes) to read a dissertation...wow! I assume that this is a "deep read" because I don't have any intent to write a 9 hour long dissertation.  Of course, I say this now before I've started the process, let's see how things shape up in the next 18 months...  Anyway, the key take-away here is that you have a message, and an audience, and context in which that message is heard.  You need to learn how to present that message appropriately for the audience and the context.

Another activity that Lisa & Peggy Lynn had for us was to consider the following questions with regard to research and our dissertation.  Since I am not at the proposal stage yet, I am going to write about a topic that I am considering on proposing.  Here are the questions:

1. Who are you?
2. What do you do?
3. Who do you do it for?
4. What do those people want or need?
5. How they will be changed by what you do?

And here are my answers:

1. I go by many names. Apostolos, AK, Aποστόλης, φοβερός, AdmiralAK...and a few others.  Depends on the context.  For our purposes let's call me AK
2. I research how learners form their identity and process their learning through blogs
3. I do this research for the learners; so that instructors can help learners be public, connected, networked scholars that are ready for lifelong learning
4. These students need to know that they aren't the only weirdo out there learning openly in public spaces, and that learning in the open is a safe environment. They also need to learn how to develop thick skin against internet trolls.
5. This research will show learners that they should take the leap and be public learners, and it will show instructors some traits of learners that they might want to foster as they get an opportunity to learn how public/open learning processes work.

In terms of the presentations for this recording, I'll try to be brief :-)


Lynn Farquhar's presentation was about her dissertation research. The dissertation is looking at wisdom development within online learning communities. She is using the WisCom Instructional Design Model (new to me, need to look into this, pictured partly above). This reminds me a little bit of my knowledge management course, back when I was an MBA student, but it also reminds me of EDDE 802 and 806!  Lynn mentioned looking at a shared learning space between successive cohorts of learners. So, when a new group of learners comes the work of previous groups is still there and it can be built upon by the new learners.  The previous learners can also come back and continue to contribute to the learning.  This is how 802 is setup in a sense.  While Moodle exists, and that can change from term to term, the Landing page for 802 where a lot of the course action happens is additive in nature.  This seems like an interesting project :-)

Shamini Ramanujan's project, the second presentation, is titled "Promoting self-regulation in online religious education: An ethnographic case study of Himalayan Academy" and it's looking at the educational wing of a monastery.  The educational wing's sole focus is on educating, and everything is distance education. These monks design, develop, and deliver online training, and they also create OER.  I had never thought of educator monks before, but it makes sense!  This project is looking at self-regulation in the learners and the findings are significant for anyone who learns (or teaches!) online.  Shamini said that there were two schools of thought on self-reg, one being that learners need to already have developed self-reg before they join online courses; so self-reg as a pre-req.  The other school of thought is that teachers need to support self-reg, and help students further develop and hone those skills; so instructors can't wash their hands of a responsibility to foster development of self-reg skills.

Interesting session overall. Looking forward to next fall!