Week 4 Progress

Week 4 was a mix of individual research on my midterm topic and more group discussions on how to facilitate our collaboration for our final.

My individual research is a mix of positives and negatives.  Online research is continuing to improve and be more user friendly.  I was disappointed when I found an abstract for an article that would be very useful, but I couldn't get ahold of a librarian either by phone or chat.  We'll see if they respond by email if there's a way to get the full article.

The group collaboration proves to be tricky.  I had set up a Google site, which everyone has used at my work, virtually without a hitch, but 2 of the 3 other group members couldn't edit it.  So, Mark found a different collaborative tool that we can use.  We all just feel so overwhelmed by the amount of discussion boards, chats, emails, wikis, blogs, and other sites that we have to keep track of. 

Community Building Across Cultural Divides

Our group has varied interests, and decided upon the topic of Community Building across Cultural Divides.  We each will take a different angle to research.  Mine is still in the beginning stages, but will deal with how online classes can bridge the socio-economic divide. 

Our group is making progress.  We were all quite fuzzy on the direction of the papers.  Anne and I met for dinner, which was fun to see a fellow online student in person.  We were able to begin our discussions, and then moved to a variety of other mediums to discuss with Chris and Mark.  We are finding that there are too many blogs, wikis, emails, discussion boards, etc. and that we can't find one that works for us and our needs.  We had a group chat Sat. night, which helped move us along, but we are still struggling with finding a medium to collaborate through where we can collect all of our information and communication. 

So, that's where we stand at this point.

Who is George Schultz?

I hadn't heard that name for a long time. Regan's Sec. of State. I wasn't in the US then, so I heard his name a lot.  The other Schultz was more fun.

“All the loves in the strip are unrequited;

all the baseball games are lost;

all the test scores are D-minuses;

the Great Pumpkin never comes;

and the football is always pulled away.”

EMVERGEONING

Good communication tonight

Thanks for a very good conversation this evening on the development of our group project. I am really glad we have such a good group. Look forward to seeing you again in person

Learning Webs - 1970

Recently I've been re-reading Ivan Illich's short book, Deschooling Society. The penultimate chapter of this book contains a blueprint for what Illich considers we should do instead of school.

A good educational system should have three purposes: it should provide all who want to learn with access to available resources at any time in their lives; empower all who want to share what they know to find those who want to learn it from them; and, finally, furnish all who want to present an issue to the public with the opportunity to make their challenge known. Such a system would require the application of constitutional guarantees to education. Learners should not be forced to submit to an obligatory curriculum, or to discrimination based on whether they possess a certificate or a diploma. Nor should the public be forced to support, through a regressive taxation, a huge professional apparatus of educators and buildings which in fact restricts the public's chances for learning to the services the profession is willing to put on the market. It should use modern technology to make free speech, free assembly, and a free press truly universal and, therefore, fully educational.

Illich, Ivan (1970) Deschooling Society, pp 75-76.

Writing in the late 60s and early 70s, Illich, though prescient, did not anticipate the emergence of a cheap and dirty world wide communications network. Nevertheless, this description of post institutionalized, decentralized, learner directed education built around real needs and real interests and independent of endorsement by a cabal of self-selected and self-important "experts" is strongly suggestive of emerging social networks.

Illich refers to the work of Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) and points out that "leadership also does not depend on being right... Charlatans, demagogues, proselytizers, corrupt masters, and simoniacal priests, tricksters, miracle workers, and messiahs have proven capable of assuming leadership roles and thus show the dangers of any dependence of a disciple on the master."

The so-called blogging revolution is a case in point. News bloggers, coalescing into a massively distributed network, have demonstrated that they can react more quickly, move closer to the sources, and collectively offer a depth of analysis, thoroughness of observation, and an understanding of political and social contexts that puts corporate news producers to shame, despite commanding massive budgets and armies of professional journalists.

I dislike the term "social capital". People make and people do but they are not value and they are not capital. The internet is only a communications tool. It does not create, invent, or transform anymore than does a hammer, a club, or a sharpened stick. The curse of a people without history is to forever invent the wheel.

Joining the discussion

With luck and diligence, this will be my last quarter in the program. The only difficulty I see with that is balancing being a good team member for this project with giving enough time to complete my capstone project.

I am really interested in the issue of community whether online or not. I contemplate the conflicting American myths of the lone cowboy or mountain man and the settlers circling the wagons or raising the barn together. The New Deal was a settlers barn raising era. Since Reagan, the cowboys have been on the ascendancy. How do we create community online, when the computer seems to be one of the tools that facilitates cocooning and shutting ourselves away. But when we shut ourselves carefully into our houses away from interaction with our neighbors, we rush to our computers to see what's happening on our FaceBook pages. (Seems a little odd, no?)

Initial Ideas for how social capital and online community research can benefit my "real world"

My initial ideas for this project include:

• requiring an introductory slideshow or video (with pictures, text, and audio optional) before enrolling in the first online course of a program.  Students would spend more time creating and personalizing this project, but could re-use it in later course ice breakers.  I think that the visual pictures, fonts, etc. used would help me to better remember information about my classmates.  Ideas for slides could be: where you grew up, family, pets, favorite movies/books/music/food, ideal travel destinations, hobbies, schooling, and career.
• researching the size of online classes and its effect on online community
• what web 2.0 apps best enhance and promote online community
  

Reflections on creating an Online Partnership

This is my 3rd quarter in the OTL program and I am getting the hang of starting a new online course.  Read the Announcements?  Check.  Read the syllabus?  Check.  Read the Weekly Assignments?  Check.  Scan the Discussion Board?  Check.  Post on the Ice Breaker thread?

This time the Ice Breaker was a little more complicated.  I liked the interview prompt and was happy to answer the questions and summarize the answers of my partner.  Finding a partner on the other hand was a little like waiting to be chosen for the recess kickball game.  It was a mad frenzy of checking the discussion board forum, sending out emails, sending out mass emails and rejection (if that person had already found a partner.)  While that part is done, now we have to find another partnership to join up with.  Geez, I hope I'm not the last kid on the sideline waiting to be picked!