The document discusses the potential of networked learning and open educational resources. It notes that tools like social media may transform research, teaching, and service for academics if they build serious lives online. Key ideas discussed include openness, connections, crowdsourcing content, and real-time collaboration. The document suggests moving learning spaces online and focusing pedagogy on interactions over content. Educators are encouraged to explore social tools, personal learning networks, and take charge of their own ongoing development.

1. Online Learning in a Networked Age
NWeLearn 2010
Vancouver, WA
By Dr. Alec Couros
University of Regina

2. #nwelearn

3. me

6. The Blur

9. “Web 2.0 tools exist that might allow academics to reflect and
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, Robella, & Hughes, 2009)

10. influences

11. “given enough eyeballs,
all bugs are shallow”
(Linusʼ Law, Raymond 1997)

12. “Open source software
communities are one of the most
successful -- and least
understood -- examples of high
performance collaboration and
community building on the
Internet today.”
(Kim, 2003)

13. “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)

14. • philosophical stance
• power & control
• access
open(ness) • design attributes
(short version)
- privacy/publics
- audience
- transparency
- accountability

15. open(ness)
(short version)
open education
free software
open source software
open educational resources
open content
open access publication
open access courses
open teaching
open accreditation

16. • pedagogical & pragmatic
stance
connected • knowledge exchange,
curating, wayfinding,
(ness) crowdsourcing,
(short version) collaboration, problem
solving
• personal learning
network/environment
(PLN/PLE)

19. context

20. “Tell me ... what it is I am
educating and what sort of world
we live in, and I will tell you what I
am aiming at.”
(Garforth, 1962)

21. David Weinberger
The Web is “a world of
pure connection, free
of the arbitrary
constraints of matter,
distance and time.”
@dweinberger

22. connected reality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImAD8BOBOhw

23. conditions ...

24. Social Tools
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9119028@N05/591163479/

25. @jonmott

26. Free/Open
Content

29. Access

32. Age of
Networks
http://www.flowtown.com/blog/the-2010-social-networking-map

33. http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/2699829038/sizes/l/

34. http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/2699829038/sizes/l/

35. quick stats (2009)
• 90 trillion emails sent annually from 1.4 billion email
users
• 234 million websites
• 1.73 billion Internet users
• 126 millions blogs
• 350 million Facebook users
• 4 billion images on Flickr
• 1 billion Youtube videos served daily.
Stats as of Jan 22/10 via Royal Pingdom

36. Michael Wesch
Youtube & other social media
mitigate “connection without
constraint”. Often, this leads to the
development of “tremendously
deep communities”.
@mwesch

41. possibilities ...

42. Networked
Learning

46. Personalization

48. http://www.flickr.com/photos/will-lion/3974469907/

49. Owing a domain name is
about claiming your piece
of the internet. You’re no
longer renting, you’re a
home owner.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/35723943@N00/2379057597/

50. Visitors vs. Residents

51. Shifting Roles

55. Private Public
Closed Open

56. “Understanding how networks
work is one of the most important
literacies of the 21st century.”
(Rheingold, 2010)

57. Ze Frank
“any individual entity
that pretends to
understand the rules
that guide this space is
under an illusion”
@zefrank

61. crowd sourcing content

62. real time collaboration

63. practice

66. Guiding Principles
• Open access, low-cost.
• Rethink space/interaction (walled gardens, open
spaces)
• Learning spaces controlled and/or owned by students.
• Tagging, aggregation, & other info literacies.
• Advocacy/integration/use/creation of/for FOSS & open
content wherever possible & when beneficial to
learning.
• Pedagogy focused more on connecting & interactions;
content important, but secondary.
• Development of sustainable, long-term, learning
connections.

71. location of
mentors

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

78. “The course ... has been the most profound pd
experience Iʼve ever had. It forced me to critique & review
my practice. I never knew how important social networks
were. Now, I couldnʼt be a teacher without being
connected. Itʼs drastically changed my view of education.”

79. moving forward

80. Suggestions
• Begin or continue to explore social tools that can replace or
augment the CMS/LMS experience.
• Explore the concept/implications of PLE/PLN - dive in.
• Find online learning opportunities that are right for you. If there
arenʼt any, create them.
• Understand, promote, teach Creative Commons.
• Learn about OER/Openness initiatives in your state - participate,
advocate, create, share.
• Take charge of your own learning - and get your institutions to
support self-directed PD.
• Continue to reinvent, reshape, retool your role as educator.

82. “We need to move beyond the
idea that education is something
that is provided for us, and
toward the idea that an education
is something that we create
ourselves.”
(Downes, 2010)

83. couros.wikispaces.com/nwelearn
web: couros.ca
twitter: courosa
google: couros
couros@gmail.com
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