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Why Networked Learning Matters
This document summarizes key ideas from a presentation by Dr. Alec Couros on networked learning. In 3 sentences: Couros discusses how Web 2.0 tools can transform research, teaching and service if academics build serious online presences. He advocates for innovation networks among educators that embrace open principles like those of open source communities. Couros shares lessons on knowledge, connections, openness and teaching from his experience participating in online networks and using open educational practices.
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Why Networked Learning Matters
- 1. Why Networked LearningMatters Dr. Alec Couros University of Regina July 2011
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- 14. “Web 2.0 toolsexist 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, Robelia, & Hughes, 2009)
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- 17. 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?
- 18. human thought/ideas humanlanguage source code high-level language (e.g. C++, Java, PERL) low-level language (assembly language) code irretrievable machine code (binary)
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- 22. “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow” (Linusʼ Law, Raymond 1997)
- 23. “A key totransformation 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
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- 27. “Open Education isthe simple and powerful idea that the worldʼs knowledge is a public good and that technology in general and the Worldwide Web in particular provide an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share, use, and reuse knowledge.” (William & Flora Hewlett Foundation)
- 28. 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 scholarship open accreditation
- 29. • pedagogical affordance. • knowledge exchange, connected curation, wayfinding, crowdsourcing, (ness) collaboration, problem (short version) solving • facilitated through personal learning networks/environments (PLNs/PLEs)
- 30. Free/Open Content “describes any kind of creative work in a format that explicitly allows copying and modifying of its information by anyone, not exclusively by a closed organization, firm, or individual.” (Wikipedia)
- 32. Why Do StudentsGo to University? Content Degrees Social Life Support Services (Wiley, 2010)
- 33. Why Do StudentsGo to University? PLoS GCT Wikipedia MCSE Google Scholar ACT OCW Content Degrees Flatworld K arXiv.org CNE CCNA Open Courses Facebook Twitter Skype Social Life Support Services MySpace Yahoo! Answers MMOGs Quora ChaCha (Wiley, 2010)
- 34. early lessons • knowledge needs to be free. • relationships trump content. • transparency & openness are powerful conditions for knowledge building. • distributed, weak-tie communities can help to solve complex problems. • education can greatly benefit from the experiences of open (source) communities (i.e., networked communities of practice).
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- 36. Changes Early Day ofPC in Schools Todayʼs Social/Mobile Reality
- 38. media stats (2010) • 107 trillion emails (89% spam), from 1.04 billion users. • 255 million websites • 1.97 billion Internet users • 152 millions blogs • 600 million Facebook users (sharing 30 billion pieces of content per month) • 2 billion videos watched on Youtube daily • 5 billion photos hosted on Flickr Stats as of January 2011 via Royal Pingdom
- 44. “The average digitalbirth of children happens at about 6 months.”
- 45. “The average digitalbirth of children happens at about 6 months.” “In Canada, US, UK, France Italy, Germany & Spain ... 81% of children under the age of two have some kind of digital profile or footprint.”
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- 48. Easily Copied Instantly Shared Easily Edited Viewable by Millions
- 49. PRIVATE by DEFAULT PUBLIC with EFFORT
- 50. PUBLIC by DEFAULT PRIVATE with EFFORT
- 51. Best Job inthe World
- 52. On Digital Video • “Ten years ago, not one student in a hundred, nay, one in a thousand, could have produced videos like this. It’s a whole new skill, a vital and important skill, and one utterly necessary not simply from the perspective of creating but also of comprehending video Stephen Downes communication today.
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- 60. “Dear Photograph:Thank youfor everything we had.”
- 62. Informal Learning • “Informal learning is a significant aspect of our learning experience. Formal education no longer comprises the majority of our learning.” • George Siemens http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm
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- 69. Crowdsourcing Content
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- 76. “To answer yourquestion, I did use Youtube to learn how to dance. I consider it my ʻmainʼ teacher.”
- 77. “To answer yourquestion, I did use Youtube to learn how to dance. I consider it my ʻmainʼ 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 ʻexclusiveʼ dance styles.”
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- 79. additional lessons • growing modes of access and the ability to publish & disseminate to wide audiences are key affordances. • (digital) citizenship & (digital) identity are emerging content areas that heavily implicate emerging pedagogies. • crowdsourcing & social curation of content will prove transformational for learning experiences.
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- 95. What We Learned • Open access, low-cost, high impact. • Courses become shared, non-local, learning events. • Students immersed in a greater learning community. • Rethinking of space/interaction (walled gardens, open spaces) • Learning spaces controlled and/or owned by students. • Development of emerging literacies, relevant for other courses. • Pedagogy focused more on connecting & interactions; content important, but secondary. • Development of sustainable, long-term, learning connections.
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- 97. Sharing http://www.flickr.com/photos/dolmansaxlil/4802611949/
- 98. On Sharing ... “itʼs about overcoming the inner 2 year old in you that screams mine, mine, itʼs mine.” (Wiley, TEDxNYED, 2010)
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- 115. “My student wasdelighted by the attention her blog post had received; it gave her confidence in her writing and bolstered her enthusiasm for our class.... We were no longer studying an important work of 20th century literature within the narrow context of my syllabus; instead we had become part of a conversation that involved the broader reading public. As a professor, I was displaced from the centre of the conversation, which became more open, distributed and student-driven than it had been before.”
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- 117. Don’t limit achild to your own learning, for he was born in another time. ~Tagore http://couros.ca couros@gmail.com @courosa