I’ve been reading George Siemens blog for a year or so and it’s often one of the most interesting in the educational blogosphere.
I missed the Connectivism online conference, I see.
But it looks like he’s got a book together, not coming out, but congealed and connected. It’s online; it’s got a Wiki, and a photoset on Flickr.
Cool…
Groups require unity, networks require diversity. Groups require coherence, networks require autonomy. Groups require privacy or segregation, networks require openness. Groups require focus of voice, networks require interaction.
From Stephen Downs via George Siemens. I get alot from their thinking, from being a part of their distributed network and as much as I don’t reap benefits from grouping. I’d add though that I think groups do require interaction and well developed groups know how to orchestrate that.
When I think of the people I work with from various entities, we are in fact a network and function like one. I still have a sense of wanting to unite sometimes. I think it’s in fact a longing the things groups provide–coherence, privacy and focus of voice. These are comforting and the same time often stultifying.
When I think of the ways in which I function best, they are in networks. Groups often feel emcumbered.
CiteULike is a free service to help academics to share, store, and organise the academic papers they are reading. When you see a paper on the web that interests you, you can click one button and have it added to your personal library. I haven’t tried it out yet, but sounds interesting
CogDog and others had some interesting thoughts on online-community building. It got me to thinkin’ and to add a bit too. In the process I started reflecting about this community, the blogosphere, I’m now hoping to actively enter. So to continue with my thoughts…. I did a lit review 2 years ago on social presence in online courses. My position was that the term “lurker” suggests a negative or unwanted behavior and that there may be both social/personal benefits and positive learning outcomes associated with this kind of engagement. There’s more to this of course, particularly in crosscultural settings where learners’ language skills vary. The underlying assumptions are based in Bandura’s social learning theory and a western orientation to social presence.
So I got to thinking about the blogosphere, what a blog is and how we use them. Does the term “lurker” apply? Or is it outdated or not relevant? Do tools like trackingback, counters, technocrati facilitate another kind of social presense? In an online course, communicating via talking/posting is perceived to build social capital, how is that different in the blogosphere?
