Break Down the Walls

Break Down the WallsHow Social Networks & Openness AreTransforming Teaching & LearningDr. Alec Couros - June 13, 2012University of Victoria

#tietalk

Last Updated 2006

The Blur

Visualizing Learning

“Web 2.0 tools exist that might allow academics to reﬂectand reimagine what they do as scholars. Such tools might positively affect -- even transform - research, teaching, and service responsibilities - only if scholars choose to build serious academic lives online, presenting semi-public selves and becoming invested in and connected to the work of their peers and students.” (Greenhow, Robelia, & Hughes, 2009)

Open Teaching

Open Tenure/Promotion App.

Open Journal

“The Open Scholar is someone who makes theirintellectual processes digitally visible and who invites andencourages ongoing criticism of their work and secondary uses of any or all parts of it -- at any stage of its development.” (Burton, G., 2009)

“People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it.” (2010)@simonsinek

early inspirations

knowledge• what is k?• how is k acquired?• how do we know what we know?• why do we know what we know?• what do humans know?• who controls k?• how is k controlled?

human thought/ideas human language source codehigh-level language (e.g. C++, Java, PERL) low-level language (assembly language) code irretrievable machine code (binary)

“Linux is subversive. Who would have thought even ﬁve years ago that a world-class operating system couldcoalesce as if by magic out of part-time hacking by several thousand developers scattered all over the planet, connected by only tenuous strands of the Internet.” (Raymond, 1997)

“Gift cultures are adaptations not to scarcity but to abundance .... Abundance makes command relationships difﬁcult to sustain and exchange relationships an almost pointless game. In gift cultures, social status is determined not by what you control, but by what you give away. (1997)@esrtweet

changes

media/content convergence

“60 hours of video are uploaded every minute, or one hour of video is uploaded to Youtube every second.” “Over 4 billion videos are viewed a day.”“Over 800 million unique users visit Youtube every month.” “More video is uploaded to YouTube in one month that the 3 major US networks created in 60 years.”

Free/Open Content “describes any kind of creative work in a format that explicitly allows copying and modifying of its information by anyone, notexclusively by a closed organization, ﬁrm, or individual.” (Wikipedia)

“Today knowledge is free. It’s like air, it’s like water... There’s no competitive advantage in knowing more than the person next to you. The world doesn’t care what you know. What the world cares about is what you can do with what you know.” (2012)@drtonywagner

open access

From NAGPS (2011) via h4p://bit.ly/oIwVut

“Publishing is not evolving. Publishing is going away. Because the word “publishing” means a cadre of professionals who are taking on the incredible difﬁculty and complexity and expense of makingsomething public. That’s not a job anymore. That’s abutton. There a button that says “publish”, and when you press it, it’s done.” (Shirky, C.., 2012)

networks

Network Literacies • “Understanding how networks work is one of the most important literacies of the 21st century.” (2010)Howard Rheingold

Everyday Networks

Politicshttp://www.anduro.com/calgary-mayor-race.html

Community

Crowdsourcing

Kutiman-Thru-you - 01 - Mother of All Funk Chordshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tprMEs-zfQA

Meaningful Projects“Dear Photograph:Thank you for everything we had.”

@shareski

memes“The gene has it’s cultural analog too: the meme. In cultural evolution, a meme is a replicator and propagator - an idea, a fashion, a chain letter, or a conspiracy theory. On a bad day, a meme is a virus” Lowenstein, 1999

http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/will-lion/3601144842/sizes/l/in/photostream/

“...for all the money, tax revenue and intelligence that Westerngovernments have at their disposal (they) seemingly cannot gettheir heads around a simple enough concept that wherever one is, someone is watching and recording.” Zack Whitaker

changes in learning

MYOB Learning

shifts in edtech Group growth Individual growthObjectivism Cognitivism Constructivism(Leinonen) (Schwier) Social Learning

@jonmott

“A key to transformation is for the teaching profession to establish innovation networks that capture the spirit and culture of hackers -the passion, the can-do, collective sharing.” ~ Hargreaves, 2003

“To answer your question, I did use Youtube to learn how to dance. I consider it my ‘main’ teacher.” “10 years ago, street dance was very exclusive, especially rare dances like popping (the one I teach and do). You either had to learn it from a friend that knew it or get VHS tapes which were hard to get. Now with Youtube, anyone, anywhere in the world can learn previously ‘exclusive’ dance styles.”

Matt KirkNick

how are you making learning visible?

how are you contributing to the learning of others?

Thinning WallsPrivate PublicClosed Open

#eci831

open teaching

network mentors

non-credit students

student-controlled spaces

aggregation

microblogging

shared resources

social curation

“I was able to go out and learn throughout the entire week, the entire year, and I’m still learning with everyone.” “The best part of the course is that it’s not ending. With the connections we’ve built, it never has to end.”

What We Learned• Open access, low-cost, high impact.• Courses become shared, global, learning events.• Students immersed in a greater learning community.• Value in open spaces vs. walled gardens.• Learning spaces controlled and/or owned by students.• Pedagogy focused on connecting & interactions.• Development of sustainable, long-term, learning connections.

conclusion

“The developed world is in the midst of a paradigm shift both in the ways in which people and institutions are connected. It is a shift from being bound up in homogenous “little boxes” to surﬁng life through diffuse, variegated@barrywellman social networks.” (2002)

ﬁxed to place ﬁxed to person

“The person hasbecome the portal.” Wellman (2002)

Don’t limit a child to yourown learning, for he was born in another time. ~Tagore http://couros.ca couros@gmail.com @courosa

extras

@dlnorman

@giuliaforsythe

@noiseprofessor @noiseprofessor

@noiseprofessor

@timlauer

http://www.scoop.it	2221
http://www.weebly.com	5
http://dawsonite.dawsoncollege.qc.ca	4
http://www.linkedin.com	4
http://jsalinasi.tumblr.com	2
http://ciberespiral.org	2
http://www.onlydoo.com	1
http://tweetedtimes.com	1
https://twitter.com	1

Break Down the Walls

by Alec Couros on Jun 13, 2012

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