@Harold I am not even sure what knowledge means in context of knowledge artifact but then again I am not sure that matters. I like the pragmatic tone of Dave’s blog post. So we are sitting in a room at something that we call a table and we acknowledge that this table means something different to all of us but we can somehow suspend these differences and have a worthwhile conversation about the table that increases our personal knowledge of the table as long as we acknowledge the differences and are listening to each other.
In the part of the recent MOOc discussion I saw, this was not always happening.
My reflections whipped me straight back to my own personal contrasting experiences of CCK08.
1.Once the disrupter had left, there was some great discussion on the (disapproved) Moodle forums where I was learning and observing others (appearing to be) learning. There was a great tolerance for different views and pragmatism of approach.
2. External speaker sessions where new ideas could be introduced and these may have sparked discussions in the chat window on blogs or in forums (suggesting learning).
3. Friday sessions (I think you moderated these Dave) which tended to be broadcast only by George Siemens GS and Stephen Downes SD, slightly quizzical moderation from Dave) with a bit of lively chat window interaction often strangely disconnected from the monologues (at least in the ones I observed before giving up on the Friday sessions).
I think that 1,2,3 are in order of greatest to least learning taking place.
If we look at each in terms of who was (apparently) learning: in 1 participants learned frequently in 1, GS sometimes, SD rarely; in 2 participants sometimes particularly if followed up, GS and SD more likely than in forums, presenter very little if at all; in 3 if learning was taking place here I couldn’t see it except in chat window interaction.
OK, these are my own very personal views that are probably highly influenced by my own reactions to the different environments, and by my own growing certainty that connectivism was something to be tossed around and critiqued not ‘learned’. MOOCs and connectivism are organic phenomena that are not ready for being tied down and ‘judged’. Useful questions are:
How are they like and not like other phenomena X Y Z?
How do people make effective use of them?
What can the protoganists learn?
I think that Dave’s pragmatic approach might help – that OK we know knowledge isn’t really ‘transferred’ but sometimes that simplification of what is really happening can move things forward a bit. Attempting for precision of definition of things that are still a bit fuzzy for everyone doesn’t always help matters.
It was interesting that Dave referred to parent/child intereactions where provisional/revisional approaches to ‘knowledge’ are most helpful for learning.
I would question every letter of the MOOC acronym with the possible exception of online but that’s not to say I think they are a bad thing – I am just not yet sure what they are going to be.
I think they can really maximise learning when participants can tolerate different philosophies of learning (including “I don’t have a philosophy of learning”), be good-humoured and willing to learn.