Trying to participate in the Connectivism extravaganza along side attendance at ALT-C 2008 was a bit manic.  I have dodged about, skimming. occasionally diving into the Moodle discussion, missing the synchronous events, doing the readings late.

So what can I do in this blog post?  A partial reflection on my very partial participation, looking at three fairly random ideas

1. How to choose

Describing my participation as ‘partial’ is apt.  Confronted with the torrent of (mainly) words, I have adopted a grazing approach to reading and contributing.  That means my participation is partial in that I only look at part of what’s there, and partial in that I use my preferences/prejudices/chance to choose what I look at (someone I know, someone who looks ‘interesting’, what George and Stephen have to say).

2. Noise and Style

The Introductions thread started in a very friendly fashion, with international contributions, civility and charm.  I really felt that an inclusive yet challenging atmosphere was developing. In the Moodle forums, people started to engage in exploring their understandings of connectivism.  Then Catherine Fitzpatrick’s posts began to pop up with increasing frequency.  From what I can gather Catherine (Prokofy in SL) has been the centre of controversy elsewhere e.g. Linden Blogs.  Her posts were very interesting in that they expressed her views articulately and with force.  She attracted many responses, even a blog post from Stephen Downes.  What interested me was the impact of her dialogic style on her contribution to the discussion.  She was certainly critiquing connectivism (which I welcome) but her tendency to label (”techno-communism”) and misinterpret others really got in the way of any critical engagement with ideas.  For example (and there are many), Catherine made the statement “You act as if the university needs radical change” in the comment thread of Stephen Downes post (see link above).  I wondered who the ‘you’ was and how Catherine formed this view.  I didn’t spend long wondering this, though.   I quickly formed the resolution to avoid responding to her.

I do wonder what impact she is having on the participation of others.  It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

3. Visibility of networks

This quote from Bill Kerr’s critique caught my eye “Network based learning theories might be more visible because the network is more visible”.  I am not quite sure what it means but the visibility of knowledge networks is certainly something that I hope we look at in the coming weeks.  My initial thoughts are that the visibility of a network of knowledge might make it more useful (just as the visibility of a social network makes it more useful to more people) in that it focuses our attention on it.  On the other hand, this may privilege visible (usually online) networks at the expense of other, valuable yet less visible networks (e.g. ideas expressed in books not yet online).  This may be an argument for digitising but what do we do in the mean time?

I am going to post later about the conference but I wanted to get out the word that you still have time to vote on our Digital Divide.  Not surprisingly, and despite our best efforts the activity was limited to those associated with ALT-C 2008 (but including some who submitted ahead of the workshop).  Having said that,  serious fun was had by all.

Even if you missed it, you can still participate (up until midnight 14 September) by viewing the Slams and voting on your favourite http://digdivslam.wetpaint.com/page/View+Slams+and+vote+for+your+favourite (you might need to register, but it’s worth it as we’ll send out notifications of winners on Monday).

Currently in the lead is Digital Divide = Digital Boxes.

You can catch a flavour of it by looking at some of the video clips. My favourite clips are of the groups working – people happily engaged in thinking, talking, creating about the Digital Divide http://digdivslam.wetpaint.com/page/At+the+ALT-C+2008+workshop.

The picture (courtesy of Sam Easterby Smith) is of the workshop winners, James Clay and the Slam Virgins getting their digital dishcloth (knitted by my own fair hands). Overall winners get global recognition and a badge they can put on their web sites.

 I like to think that, even as I write this, James is cleaning his kitchen with that functional, meaningful and somehow beautiful artefact, the black and white hand-knitted dishcloth.

Have you got something to say about the Digital Divide? Now is your chance.

We would like to invite participation in a Digital Divide Slam in association with a workshop at ALT-C 2008.

If you aren’t attending the conference, you are welcome to participate as an individual or small group.  Can you produce a message about the Digital Divide (even better if it’s from your own experience) that can be viewed online in a few minutes (or less)?  Check out how you can do this at our wiki at http://digdivslam.wetpaint.com/  Deadline for submissions is Wednesday 10 September.

If you are attending the conference, you can come to the workshop and create your slams there. Those attending a similar workshop last year had great fun.  You might like to check out the wiki anyway.

 From Thursday 11 - Sunday 14 September, you can vote.  Why not register with the wiki at http://digdivslam.wetpaint.com/, and we’ll send you a reminder?

I don’t usually post stuff like this but here goes.  My adult sons returned from a camping trip today, and I was directed to their photos.  This one really made laugh. Relaxing after a trip to the pub, watching film on ipod (propped up against the Good Pub Guide), large nightcap and mobile phone at the ready.   Then upload the photos to Facebook.

Now that’s what I call 21st C camping.

I am currently at AMCIS 2008 in Toronto, and meeting lots of new people. I attended a Microsoft Popfly masup workshop and had limited success because I couldn’t get myself a Live-id password (some wireless problem in Sheraton hotel).

Once I did, I found it very easy to create a little mashup. Popfly has a visual interface that lets you connect and configure ready made blocks, then adapt them if you are feeling adventurous. Mark Frydenberg (@checkmark on twitter) from Bentley College not only gave the workshop but has also provided lots of lovely teaching resources at http://www.popflywiki.com/teachingpopfly.ashx - thanks Mark.

Here is my easy-peasy 3 block first attempt - choose your search term and click Show Images!

I had problems editing this blog post in Firefox once I had inserted the script reference, but the mashup does seem to work in Firefox.

AT the popfly site, there is also support for creation of games - probably worth a look!

Jack Schofield asks the question “Which women bloggers are worth a look?”

with regard to the current Blogher conference in San Francisco. He uses the term ‘influential’ that is an interesting one - Does it mean most significant influence? in terms of quality or quantity?

Blogher demonstrates that there are plenty of women bloggers, most of whom couldn’t care less about whether or not they are deemed to be influential in terms of an award. They probably do care about their audience (whatever its size) however.

Here are a few women bloggers who have influenced me (and reinforced their paid work along the way):

1. Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne http://www.masondixonknitting.com/ who met on knitting forums, got together via blogs, have a blog and a funny/useful book on knitting (new one out soon) and a large and faithful following. If you don’t believe me google or search flickr.com for Mason-Dixon. You are in for a visual treat and an object lesson in media convergence - not to mention some inspiring images of colourful and functional dishcloths.


2. Josie Fraser http://fraser.typepad.com/socialtech/ who blogs about digital literacy, digizens and other important issues for young people and those who care about them.


3. danah boyd http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/ whose blog ranges around her current interests – recently health, politics, but mainly the use of social networking by youth (her PhD topic).


4. Kath Sierra http://headrush.typepad.com/ whose immensely popular and influential blog ceased as of 7 April 2007, as a result of nasty personal attacks.

On a personal note, what I find encouraging is that women are being effective in using emerging technologies to organize themselves, communicate and even make a little money (cf mommyblogs, ebay and etsy.com). However, women’s voice in public discourse is open to question – an issue that cannot rely on technology alone. People ….. society ……. history …..

Congratulations to Mark van Harmelen on his recent appointment as ALT Director of Development

see http://www.alt.ac.uk/team.html

I am really looking forward to working with him in my capacity as ALT-J co-editor, and it's good news for the Learning Tehnology community in general.

I hope that our friends networks export seamlessly and I'll see you all there, and you can come to visit my new blog.

.

 
Time Space taxonomy, Johansen (1988)

Taxonomies such as this, particularly when used to classify technologies, seem a long way away from what people do with their inventive and flexible use of technologies, defying the dead hand of classification.  And yet, classification of technologies, as opposed to people’s multiplexity of use of technology, persists.

Something happened this morning that was a delightful puzzle, and then made me think about time and space more generally.
Bird 1, Cat 0, Dog ?

My husband Terry called me out to the garden to see some tracks in the snow on a low wall outside our kitchen door.  We thought the paw marks were from a cat and there were no feathers or blood so we imagined the scene of next door's cat pouncing on a bird that flew off and escaped. I had some fun taking pictures of the tracks and then taking more pictures around the garden.  I called the image Bird 1 Cat 0 to indicate the bird’s triumph: an image (digital and in my mind) that was the trace of an event. 

Later, whilst I was sorting and uploading the pictures to Flickr, Terry called me back to show me that the paw marks were exactly where our dog Billy touches the wall as he leaps over it on his way from the kitchen to try, in vain, to catch a squirrel.  So …. the bird probably walked along the wall and flew off early this morning, then the dog jumped over the wall at a later time. We do not really know what happened but we did learn, that there was not necessarily one event, and that the traces were probably of two separate unrelated events, separated in time but coincidentally co-located in space.  Snowfall was the only reason that this co-location was evident. In any other weather, unless I had seen the event, I would never have imagined that it took place.

Of course, our experiences do not fit neatly into conceptual boxes. On a family holiday to Iceland this year, we saw a statue on a volcanic sand beach at Vik in South Iceland, of a man leaning out towards the sea, its plaque inscribed with “Those who go down to the sea in ships and do business in great waters share a mutual respect and understanding with fellow seafarers.”

The statue is one of a pair, ‘For’ at Vik, the other being ‘Journey’ in Hull, as part of a fascinating project to symbolize the bond between people in Hull and South Iceland, in contrast to the usual ‘Cod War’ linkage between these people and places.  The statue at Hull leans out to sea, its eyes following the route of trawlers to the Icelandic fishing grounds.

“Like I in italics, this bowsprit figure,
clean as a sloping drift of snow,
looks out and shows how close we are,
how far, how cold, the last sea goes.” Angela Leighton

In each of those two examples, there are contradictions in their location in time and space.  The links are conceptual (as well as the practical links within the project to commission and position the statues); primarily the links between the seafarers, their helpers and those who long for their return. Secondary are the links imagined by those who stand and look at one statue, located firmly in one time and space, and imagine the other statue (that they may or may not see, in the past or the future).

Such contradictions also exist in so-called synchronous and asynchronous information and communication technologies.  Imagining is a powerful force both for enriching and hampering online communication (and face to face, come to that).  ‘Literate’ users of media can employ multiple channels to enrich their communications:
•    Text or email message requesting someone to phone them
•    ‘Back-channel’ communication, online chat or texting whilst in audience of conference session e.g. at Moodlemoot 2005
•    ‘whispering’ in a group chat
•    BCC (blind copying), printing and forwarding of email
•    Noticing someone is online and prompting them (by instant message) to participate in an ‘asynchronous’ forum e.g. in Moodle where online users are chosen with link to message them.
These examples confound the taxonomy above, e.g. the backchannel communication example was both same time same place for the audience and presenter on one channel, but also same time different place for those in the audience and elsewhere on the chat channel.  Because the audience got to talk in the chat channel, the (text) chat could seem as engaging as watching multimedia presentation.

Johansen, R. (1988) Groupware. Computer-Support for Business Teams, The Free
Press, New York and London.

I wanted to test the feed from this blog, so I thought that I would share this joke with you.  It is by Gregory from a New Yorker cartoon in a calendar that I bought in the January sales.

One dog says to another "I had my own blog for a while, but I decided to go back to just pointless, incessant barking" .

Well it made me laugh ;-)