CCK08: Thank You!

I have waited to write my final post of the CCK08 course. My alerts are still bringing me news of course members and I am fascinated by the connections they are making and the reflections they are offering.
This final post is a note of thanks and celebration.
I was delighted to be involved in the course. I leave it with enormous admiration for and a sense of awe about George and Stephen‘s vision, energy and delivery. I think it was an inspired move to have Dave Cormier involved in a third party role. It was a wonderfully intense experience for me that ranged from the hedonism of personal discovery to exegesis induced fatigue. For some of the course other parts of my life were put on hold and I was fortunate to have the time to pursue ‘teachable moments‘. CCK08 gave me so many of those moments. The course gave me access to remarkable people too and the opportunity to marvel at their creativity.
I joined the course as a ‘voluntary inpatient‘ and was free from the demands of credit assignments. I was surprised to learn about ‘lurkers‘. I had not heard this term before. When I first (mis)heard it I thought there were ‘lurchers‘ in the course and I was excited by how much energy they would bring to discussions.
My engagement in CCK08 was limited to a small number of tools. It was very interesting participating in an on-line course in Australia. I used the course wiki as a web page. I visited the course blog when alerted to it but missed the 18 comment discussion on participation. I made no synchronous use of Ustream but was delighted that there was a second Elluminate session (Thursday morning in Australia). My participation in Elluminate was limited to posts on the chat board and asynchronous revisiting of presentations. I thought the range of guests were outstanding during the course and regret that I did not get to hear Nancy White in real time. I thought the timing of the Elluminate sessions in the course week was excellent and provided a focus for emerging ideas and a catalyst for bisociative leaps of the imagination. I lament that I failed miserably to contribute to the Moodle forums and bandwidth in rural NSW did very strange things to Pageflakes and made any Second Life participation impossible. I did not tweet and had minimal input to Facebook. I missed the Connectivism Memetracker completely. I considered developing concept and mind maps for my experience of CCK08 and had been attracted to CMaps some time ago (via The Knowledge Tree). However I found it impossible to develop a 2D representation of my experiences in the context of my non-linear learning. Perhaps I should have developed a time-lapsed presentation of my thinking or a right-brain approach to sharing.
I did luxuriate in the wonderful richness and diversity of CCK08 blog posts and it was here that I felt most at ease. I spent considerable time each week visiting blog posts and enjoyed the opportunity to synthesise some of these posts in ‘slow blogs’. I was keen to comment on blog posts but realise that my own alerts (WordPress and Google) missed some important posts.
The Daily became essential reading for me and because of time differences I accessed this either late at night or early morning. I enjoyed those days when The Daily and OLDaily arrived together particularly when a post in the latter enriched discussion in the former. It was interesting to read Stephen and George’s input into The Daily and throughout the course I contemplated how ‘voice’ is managed and mediated. At present I am reflecting on The Daily as a delightful a cappella Renaissance polyphony.
An overwhelming metaphor for me in the CCK08 course has been connectivism and connective knowledge as a garden. I have had a delightful morning writing this post and am wonderfully fortunate to look out at a physical garden. It is Summer here in Mogarlowe and I trust that wherever you read this post that your garden (metaphrical and physical) is flourishing too.
Thank you all for the opportunity to spend twelve weeks with you.