Multilitteratus Incognitus

This week has been rough in the office.  We learned that our colleague - and my former professor - Pepi Leistyna passed away. Details are scant at the moment and everyone in the department is in a state of shock as his death was quite sudden and unexpected.  I was going to write a blog post about about my history with him, how I knew him as a person when I worked in Media Services (good ol' AV department) where he used to pick up VHS players on carts to show clips of films in his courses; how he influenced my development as a learner and a scholar; and finally as a valued colleague when I started working in the department of Applied Linguistics.  While I think this is valuable, and certainly part of the process, I think there is another area to home in on, thanks to this week on #HumanMOOC: Social Presence! Social Presence is defined as : ...the ability of learners to project their personal characteristics into the community of inquiry, thereby presenting themselves...

Τις περασμένες δύο εβδομάδες είχαμε ως θέμα μας, στην ενότητα του connected courses, το τον ιστό, και συγκεκριμένα τον ιστό ως πλατφόρμα, και ως κουλτούρα . Τα κείμενα που μας έδωσαν ως αρχική ύλη ήταν πολύ βασικά για εμένα.  Πριν από αυτή την ενότητα δεν το είχα σκεφτεί πως είμαι στο ίντερνετ σχεδόν είκοσι χρόνια.  Όταν επέστρεψα στην Αμερική κάποιος φίλος τις οικογενείας, βλέποντας πως είχα αφίσει όλα τα φιλαράκια στην Ελλάδα, μου πρότεινε να τους βρω στο ίντερνετ. Κάπου τότε άρχισα να μαθαίνω τι σημάνει διαδίκτυο, και τα έμαθα χωρίς βιβλίο. Έτσι την κουλτούρα του ιστού, και την τεχνογνωσία που χρειάζεται κάποιος, την έμαθα μέσα σε 20 χρόνια, γνωρίζοντας πολλούς και διάφορους ανθρώπους από όλο τον κόσμο. Τώρα το θέμα μας είναι πως μπορούμε να διδάξουμε εμείς αυτά τα πράγματα σε λιγότερο χρονικό διάστημα στους φοιτητές μας, έτσι ώστε να μπορούν να χρησιμοποιήσουν αυτές τις γνώσεις, αυτή την τεχνογνωσία, και να μπορούν άνετα να κινηθούν στον χώρο αυτής της νέας κουλτ...

On the web, not one knows you are a ____________ (fill in the blank).   Connecting with the previous elements of trust , I am continuing my opening exploration of this module's second topic: Network Fluency.  The introductory chat is available as a YouTube video, and the discussion is on the topic of Social Capital and Personal Learning Networks . This subject of Network Fluency (or Network Literacy as was discussed on Rhizo14†) has come up many times, both in various MOOCs I've been a part of (mostly cMOOCs as it turns out), and in the contexts of instructional design. There is some desire by faculty to include more networked (dare I say "connected") elements in their courses, however the biggest concern is access. Will learners have access to the required technology? Will they want to use this mode of learning? Will they have the skills to use what they need to use? And, when skills come into question, it's been my observation that the skills that pop into m...

Here we are, module 2 of Connected Courses, and the focal topics for these next two weeks are Trust and Network Fluency . This module we have a few webinars to watch, and there are a number of book recommendations. Truthfully I cannot make it through these books, as much as I would love to read some of them at the moment.  Too many other things happening to focus meaningfully on them. I guess I will focus on the (free) audiovisual media provided, and the information posted by other participants (225 connected blogs thus far!). I've decided to break down a (potentially) bigger post to two smaller ones.  This one will focus on Trust, and the subsequent one on network fluency. Trust is an odd concept and it's not easy to pin down. We might think that we  know what trust is, however many of us tend to default to the US Supreme Court's definition of  "I know it when I see it" which is quite subjective.  In the introductory reading for this module, is " my d...

This week's topic, as I mentioned in my initial post, is learning in times of abundance. Eric Duval, in his definition of abundance, goes for the digital element, but I wanted to focus on something  a little more mundane - the "disconnected" world of the library.  The fact of the matter is that our abundance of information is no new thing. Some may go back as far back as the invention of the printing press, but I won't since buying books still costs money to the individual and thus, while there is an abundance in materials, it's not abundant to you because you've got limited money.  Instead I want to focus on something quaint - the library. The library has provided us with a lot of abundant information, for both learning and pleasure.  Through various consortia, if your own town library (or libraries) don't carry the item you want, they can get it for you, usually for no extra charge, so you can have access to whatever material you need. I...