Openness versus being open and closed

This discussion made me reflect on the term openness in terms of degree.

Simply, everyone should have the freedom to use any type of license that is available – I typically refrain from judging which creative license is “better” than another.  Each type of license provides different degrees of openness and I don’t see this changing anytime in the future (if ever); that is, an open educational resource under a Creative Commons License typically falls along an open and closed continuum.  There are many types of teaching and learning contexts that exist and it is unfair to generalize the importance of any particular type of license over any other.  When I see groups develop a licensing policy (that usually singles out one or a few acceptable licenses), I am quickly reminded of how my own learning is networked based (i.e., connective) as opposed to group based (i.e., collective).

Is it a PLN, PLE, VLE, LMS, CMS, or something else?

” The only question I have is whether the LMS could be the complete PLN for you or anyone.”

Good question.  In fact, this is a question that everyone should ask and be able to answer when choosing the different technologies and social, f2f contacts that ultimately become one’s PLN.  In my blog post I say, ” If I choose and determine that an LMS is the best way for me to learn, then the LMS is my PLN”.  My point was that if a person can justify why an LMS best serves the individual’s learning needs, interests, and learning preferences, then who am I to judge.  I also say this because many people are for or against an LMS; I think this is the wrong conversation to be having.  We should be addressing the question you pose that forwards this notion of articulating a learner’s rationale in developing a PLN.  A learner’s rationale for using any tool will also depend greatly on how the tool is being used.

Clearly for me, an LMS is never my PLN.  For this MOOC (and for the first time), I am completely staying away from Moodle and it’s made all the difference!  I weave in-and-out of blogs, tweet, and read The Daily in order to interact with individuals and content for the course.  This part of my PLN works for me and I can explain why it works for me…but I cannot judge others if they can explain an alternative way that works best for them, including using only an LMS.

If someone says the only place they learn anything worthwhile is through some Moodle course, online community, etc., who am I to argue.  Technologies today are so integrated anyway that everything really is just varying degrees of a PLN.  Think of all the different ways online content can be brought into Moodle for example.

#PLENK2010: Five points about PLNs

Dave’s five points about PLEs PLNs for PLENK2010

Here is my adaptation…

• Point #1:  I use the term personal learning network (PLN) to refer to all of the following: professional learning network, personal learning environment, learning management system, course management system, etc.  A node that makes up a PLN can be a person, group, institution, online community, software program, etc.  And it’s personal if the learner (and not a teacher, trainer, expert, etc.)  has control over which nodes to connect with and what type of interaction the learner prefers to have with each node.
• Point #2:  Judging a PLN should come from the learner who cultivates the PLN.  If I choose and determine that an LMS is the best way for me to learn, then the LMS is my PLN.  It is not the responsibility of someone else (nor their place) to judge whether my PLN (e.g., an LMS) is right or not for me.  I decide this for myself.
• Point #3: “[PLNs] need not be supported by educational institutions”, but educational institutions will lose out if they continue to create obstacles for students to access websites.  In fact, it would be to the institution’s advantage to support PLNs in any way they can.  As more individuals gain the capacity to develop a PLN, institutions will need to be more competitive, which means to incorporate a more open approach to teaching and learning.
• Point #4: Ownership(personal) and Time(network) are critical impediments to implementing PLNs in both formal and informal education.  Cultivating a PLN is an ongoing endeavor that requires time for the busy professional as well as for the busy student.  Taking ownership in one’s learning can be a novel idea for a professional as well, especially if the individual is used to having been taught in a linear, more traditional fashion (e.g., similar to Freirian’s banking concept of education).
• Point #5: Cultivating a PLN requires ongoing facilitative support from a variety of sources: teachers, trainers, colleagues, students, administrators, basically all stakeholders.  Even in formal education, there is no starting or ending point when it comes to developing a PLN.  There is no minimum or maximum set of nodes and no right or wrong way to interact with those nodes per se.  What is more important is the impact the PLN has on the learner both in how the learning process unfolds and how the learner communicates with others.

Is Teaching a “Class” a Big Mistake?

Learning is social.

I think most would agree that learning occurs through social interaction, but I see this as being different than learning being social.  One can intuitively see how this is the case when considering how one learns how to play a musical instrument.  If I study from the same music teacher, the same number of hours, the exact same instrument, under all the same conditions as my friend, the two of us would still not play music in the same way, with the same musical style, etc.  Learning is personal.

A problem with class sizes of 25 – 30 is the peer group is often too small to be functional. Not everyone is ready to give feedback when a learner needs it. Larger group sizes are needed for peer review to work. From our experience groups of around 50 – 60 students should be considered as a minimum, groups of 90 – 120 or more is even better.

This really depends on how one defines a group.  Since “virtual learning enviroments” is being considered, I would argue that we are really looking at a network as opposed to a group whereby peers become not only the classmates within the same school, but peers that extend beyond the classroom.  Regardless, it’s the type of interaction between the students that counts, and not the number of students that make up the learner’s network. 

Teachers (and schools) have the obligation to find innovative ways to connect students and experts in ways that bring about multiple perspectives.  Teaching a class is not a mistake, teaching a finite group is.

To Use or Not to Use an LMS

Below are responses to a post regarding Moodle and the audience of a classroom.

“[When using Moodle], why would you say the target audience is the teacher?”

When educators (in mainly formal institutions where grades matter) set up a learning management system (LMS), such as Moodle, they are the target audience as a rule. Those who participate within the LMS are more of a group than a network (Downes, 2006, slide 8) where teachers tend to have more control over the content and degree of openness. And yes, external web tools can and are being used but they are being “siphoned” through an LMS because the intended audience is still the teacher. Students can interact with each other in an LMS but it is still within a contained atmosphere that requires anyone to see this interaction to join “the group”. Each teacher then must evaluate the type of course to be given, the maturity level of the students, etc. to determine which type of LMS is best suited for their teaching context or whether they will use an LMS at all.

As an alternative to an LMS, think of the entire Internet as an “LMS”. Imagine using Google Wave, blogs, wikis, twitter, multimedia tools, etc. in absence of any particular LMS to conduct a class. Now the audience begins to shift away from the teacher, and learning becomes more open. Learners as part of a formal class begin to interact more with the global society as opposed to mainly interacting with those within the LMS group. I recently saw a TED talk with Sir Ken Robinson where he discussed the importance of creating “organic” learning environments for students, and I see learning in a non-LMS environment in the same vein.

What are your thoughts?

———-

Subsequent response…

…the teacher may relinquish full control to the learner and allow the learner to drive and control the content and learning environment.

I agree with you as I suspect most would. The question becomes is this surrender of power best served within or outside a LMS. If my teacher were to give me full rights over the content and learning environment, I could then choose whether or not to use the LMS in the first place (I’m thinking CCK08, CCK09, Edfutures, etc.). And as a learner, I would still have this perception that even though I’m using outside web tools and that I’m in control of the learning environment (however one wishes to define “control”) that the main audience is still my teacher because all the content was being channelled through an LMS.

Can you envision what it would look like in an EFL/ETL class?

Yes, I can envision it becoming more common in the future through the ongoing development of a personal learning network (PLN). My current research, in fact, addresses PLNs and professional development among EFL/ESL educators. In developing a PLN, I see an LMS as a “stepping stone” in facilitating EFL educators (i.e., learners) to become more interdependent.

CCK09 – PLN

In getting geared up for the next CCK09 course on connectivism and connected knowledge, I plan to use primarily blogs as a means for exchanging ideas. My hope is to find a variety of interesting blogs that share common and interesting perspectives that for me are more likely to extend beyond the course itself. There will also be a Moodle site for the course where many discussions take place, so I may “dip in” there from time-to-time as well. There also is a course wiki and a Facebook group where the former is definely useful whereas the latter not so much as far as my own PLN goes.

I also will be feeding my blog to my twitter and friendfeed but am not sure really how helpful these two will be yet. Time will tell.

Oh, and I will use NetVibes as my main aggregator as well as the The Daily in order to attempt to organize the huge amounts of information that this type of course generates.

Well, this is what I have in mind at this point.

Here is how someone else plans to develop their PLN for the upcoming course.