George Siemens has produced this summary of the first six weeks of CCK08 online course (I was alerted to this by OLDaily). I have been sharing the course with many of my colleagues and I am posting George’s video here as an important marker for me in the course.
[blip.tv ?posts_id=1368176&dest=-1]
I have found this course an enormously exciting and powerful catalyst for reflection on, in and about education. George’s mid-course summary triggered my memories of Olive Banks and Phillida Salmon (and recalled Lisa’s post about Networks of Dead People). Olive and Phillida were wayfinders for me and helped me make sense of my emerging thoughts about teaching and learning (I was interested to read Robin’ reflection on Wayfinding on Mount Manadnock). Tom Whyte’s post about Swampy Ground exemplified for me the powerful reflection that can go on about education as did Dave Pollard’s post.
Olive helped me understand the implications of undertaking research at first, second, third and fourth hand. She wrote at a time before the digital connections we are discussing in the CCK08 but her insights pervade my involvement in CCK08.
Phillida wrote passionately about Coming to Know and helped me understand that “we all learn and develop through experiencing jointly with others the possibility that we could develop”. Her use of stories and storying emboldened me to explore the role of narrative in sharing experience.
In reading the CCK08 blogs this week I have been reminded about the quote in the film Shadowlands:

We all read to know that we are not alone.

I visited Mike Bogle’s blog for the first time and read this post. This encouraged me to follow up on Mike’s professional background. George, Olive, Phillida and Mike were joined and I knew I was not alone! I had accessed Mike’s blog through Jenny Mackness‘ post about connective defeat. Olive would be pointing out to me that I am using Jenny at three removes from the action. Jenny and Mike offer great insights into (un)connectedness. Phillida would affirm, I think, that my coming to know was about an interconnectedness with others albeit vicarious and empathetic. (Even more so after this more recent post from Jenny and this post from Sia.)
Google alerts brought me to Tom Whyte’s post about course design and I was delighted to watch his video link. Lisa resurrected some more dead people this week and sent me scurrying for my copy of Locke and my memories of Rousseau. Olive would assure me that I had gone to a prime source (Locke), read at two removes (Lisa’s summary chart) and then at three removes blogged about it! Kenkat reappeared and as usual made me work hard to deal with the theorising perspective adopted. I read Jason’s musings on Design and he helped me think more about social objects and permanence. Ariel continued his prodigious output and through him I was led to Morse’s post on social objects and on to Gina‘s post on social objects. She added to my interest in the ‘social’ in connected networks, groups and communities.
I read Ariel’s conjecture about the non-appearance of teachers and commented on his post. Bits n Bites took me back to Valdis Krebs. Adrian Hill’s post encouraged me to find and read my copy of The Inner Game of Tennis and re-peruse The Act of Creation and in doing so encouraged me to make my own bisociative leap. In the process I recalled my reading of the Hegelian dialectic and historical materialism. This led me on to Matthias Melcher’s post on Humboldt and created a real desire to disentangle the semantics and meanings of rich German language. This is Matthias’s concept map and his Synonymen-“Landkarte”.
Thinking out Loud had a fascinating post on Complexity 101. Phillida would have approved of the experiential focus of the story presented. Wendy’s post and her graphic on Instructional Design encouraged me to revisit personal learning environments (this is becoming an important quest for me). Just as George was posting his midcourse summary, Shel22 posted a first post about the course. I am looking forward to Shel’s ‘Diary of a wanna-be Connectivist’. I think Anne’s post from the woodlands would be of great interest to Shel. (I did not see Pat’s seascape model until after posting the first Coming to Know post. I am fascinated by cartography and wondered if Pat would be another companion for Shel.) Once again I think Phillida would have enjoyed Anne’s story and her openness. I liked her final sentence “I still have so much to learn but one thing I will keep doing is thinking about the possibilities”. I am an optimist by nature and I believed that Sisyphus would reach the top of the mountain! I think Anne voiced the relief of many participants that week 7 had seen a turn in the course content. George notes this turn in his video presentation.
I finished my reading this week with Jocene’s post. I feel very strongly that we can support each other in changing our contexts. (I realise that whilst I have a long engagement with Action Research I do need to address agency in approaches such as Actor-Network Theory and look at the impact the theory has on the stories we tell.) This feeling became even stronger after participation in the second Elluminate session (Thursday morning Australian time). This session turned into a talkfest. I was delighted that even though the session recording ended the talking continued.
I am profoundly attracted to Stephen’s arguments and perspectives and George’s synoptic vision. I do feel excited by what is emerging in the course. I have an absolutely naive belief in the role of the educator and the possibilities that change can bring. However I do not have to teach daily to standards or a core curriculum.
I sense that the pragmatic turn in the course will be of great interest to course participants. (I noted Bradleyshoebottom’s post shortly after posting Coming to Know and Inez’s post too.) I am conscious that I must now deal with the gaps in my practice … Moodle, Pageflakes, Second Life, Twitter and then on to infinity and beyond. I think I owe this to Olive and Phillida.
Postscript: I missed Rodd’s post on 18 October about his review of the first six weeks of the course. I have been an occasional visitor to his blog (via Stephen) and my oversight is a good example of how selective connections work and as Jason points out in his post “…we need a connection” (Seth Goodwin). (I missed too Dave’s post about social networks bridging communities and generations.) Viplav has provided a summary review of connectivism and design.  Frances’ post came to me via Google and The Daily (I have forsaken The Daily Prophet) and prompted me to think about practice (verb) and practices (noun) and their connection with praxis. John Mak’s post added to my interest in meta-reflection and co-learning. Jcrom wrote about ‘connectivism ecology‘ and the transition to social learning and provided another perspective on connectivism and design. Ruth’s post makes a very interesting point about course participation and Ed (via a link in Sia’s post) makes a strong point about the rich network remaining with whom to discuss and explore ideas.

It has been a different tempo week for me this week. After I posted the Not an Island post I discovered at first hand the power of networks.

The spike in visits to this blog reflects Stephen’s mention of the post in The Daily. The tempo reflects too that I have been getting the garden ready for our daughter’s wedding on Saturday.
Early in the week I read Jenny’s post on slow blogging and took my lead from the ideas she discussed. I noticed too Chris Lott’s comments on Jenny’s post. I wonder if there is a ‘smouldering’ category in connectedness that lies between ‘rapid-fire and off’?
Stephen’s post about Adrian Hill’s posts was another impetus to slow blogging this week.
Robin Heyden’s post on the qualities of connected people and Pierfranco Ravotto’s posting of his grandmother’s photograph and his subsequent post about Complexity, Chaos and Research provided a very gentle read and reaffirmed for me the importance of transparency in writing.
I was further distracted by the ABC’s Not Quite Art program Culture Shock broadcast on 14 October. The program includes an interview with Ben Croshaw. The creator of the Arthur Yahtzee character has some 4 million visits to his website for his reviews of adventure games. Here are some of his YouTube links.The Not Quite Art program has a MPEG4 and WMV downloads of the program here.

Not Quite Art traces how our culture is shifting from the hierarchical, local and parochial structures to a global and networked world where Australian artists have audiences around the world, yet often remain relatively unknown in their local community.

After CCK08 tag-surfing on WordPress and following up most of the Google CCK08 alerts I read this week’s sources including George’s recent post on Complexity, Chaos and Emergence and the additional paper by Cynthia Kurz and David Snowden on  sense-making in a complex and complicated world. I have been following up on course members’ reviews of these articles.
I was struck by the C words in the sources (complexity, chaos, Cynefin) and the D words in Stephen’s SlideShare presentation.

I have been thinking about Chaos for some time. Back in 1996 the New Scientist published this article about some work I was doing in football (soccer). I had come to think about chaotic behaviour after the publicity given to James Gleick‘s book and to thinking about some of the ideas in figurational sociology identified in one of the earliest readers in the Sociology of Sport (1971). I had read a little about Rene Thom’s catastrophe theory too. The Rules of Disorder had encouraged me to think about apparently random behaviour.
This week’s readings in CCK08 have reawakened those early musings. I have to be very honest though… I do not have the mathematical capabilities to address the ‘phase space‘ characteristics of chaotic behaviour nor do I have any clear understanding of the mechanisms of strange attraction (other than being attracted intuitively to the concept). As a result of Gleick’s work I am interested in perturbation and equilibrium and was interested to see Seth Bullock’s slides in this regard.
I joined the second Elluminate session on Thursday morning (Australian time). Alec Couros’ presentation provided an excellent addition to the discussion about course design and gave me an opportunity to re-read Renata Phelps’ paper Going with the Flow of Non-Linear Learning.
I noted that George has posted a mid-course review. This week has seemed like a catching of breath for me. I have not visited Moodle for some time but am keen to join Second Life given Fleep Tuque’s work. I am finding that the richness of the blogs, the stimulus of The Daily and the emerging themes of the course are enabling me to link biography and the practice of connecting. I enjoyed Kenkat’s return this week as another part of ordering the complexity of a connected commitment to learning.
Now it is off to the wedding with some First Life connecting to do!