(Bridge Building over the Mongarlowe River)
I joined in the second of the two Elluminate sessions hosted by George and Stephen. It was a great time for me in Australia … 10a.m.. It was my first Elluminate session and rather like my first seminar at the University of York in September 1970 I chose not to talk! I had a USB microphone hooked up just in case!
Thanks to the post on The Daily with the link to the recording of the session I have been able to re-visit the exchanges that were occurring. In real-time it was quite a challenge to monitor the range of narratives that were underway: I recall people writing messages to say hello, news of a baby, wonderful exchanges of links and advice, statements about the (un) connectedness of personal interaction and questions about comments on blogs. At the same time I listened to George’s facilitation and the orderly taking of the microphone.
I had to leave my computer half way through the session to do some domestic tasks but turned up my audio to hear the voices of contributors (continuous partial attention!). Away from the computer I thought about some of the exchanges about about connectivism as a theory and noted that The Daily drew a distinction between the two Elluminate sessions in this regard.
The thoughts that were running through my head were:
1. It was 11 September in Australia and people from all over the world were connected by a mutual interest that had intrinsic value.
2. Does each of us have a different (relative) sense of the necessary and sufficient conditions of theorising and a theory? I will follow up on Stephen’s slides to see what he has to say about absolutes and universals in a postmodern world.
3. Connectivism attracts remarkable people. As George indicated in one of his contributions during Session Two, we ‘know’ of each other in a virtual sense. This knowing is phenomenally rich in possibilities (and depth). In one of my few posts in the written exchanges in Session Two I mentioned anthropologists’ use of the term ‘polysemic’. (This is a good example, I think.)
4. I shared a lot of the experiences of other participants in the session! I have failed miserably to join Second Life. I wonder if I should add a comment on all the blogs appearing in the CCK08 space to affirm each writer’s commitment to sharing ideas, thoughts and reflections. Should I have asked questions about the baby’s weight?
5. Most of all I thought myself very fortunate to spend an hour in the company of fifty colleagues from around the world. (I was interested to learn that on the same day as our conversation there was a presentation at the Alt-C conference in the UK entitled ‘What if learning technologists ruled the world?’)
Now where is that Buntine Oration I should be reading (it is 00.30 a.m. 12 September and unable to sleep)?
Afternote: Clive Shepherd posted this about Webcasting at another conference on the same day.
Hi Keith,
Like you I’m optimistic and excited about the depth of expertise and interactivity in this course. Adding to that a population of 2,000 students I think there are enormous possibilities for networked learning in all this.
As far as SecondLife goes, I hadn’t thought to log in and check it out but I probably should. Perhaps I’ll do that next week. If you’re in world next week I’m Zapp Aeon in SL.
I’m in Sydney by the way 🙂
Now back to the readings LOL
Talk to you later,
Mike