A massive detour this week as I stall, and read forward. My attention has been captured by the social network theory readings yet to come, and I have jumped (with promises to return and be more methodical) forwards. This invites a comment about the design of the CCK08 course and my difficulty in making sense of it, as I rediscover what I have known before, that I am a big picture person, needing a destination and a map of possible routes before embarking on my own journey. The lack of definition is what has stumped me until now. Having browsed all of the papers (for content and context only) I am now ready to return to the start again because I have a context now, and a reading agenda.
There is a converegence of purpose here, as I re-examine the Advanced LIcence community and find I am answering my own questions of last week. Our goal was to create a learning community online. Our goal is also to examine learning theory and ICT in classrooms and PD with some emphasis on constructivism and connectivism. On reflection now, I feel I can find neither in our Community, and this requires massive restructuring now before next year. Feedback from previous cohorts demonstrates repeatedly that the connectedness is what participants value. And the connections and networks that are created during the weeks of the community activities are maintained. I believe we need to re-examine our community building activities, and rather than our current ice-breaker activities we need to focus on networking strategies – the result of which will sustain the discourse over the subsequent weeks.
And again, on reading (which needs to be deepened) I believe that our activities need to commence with a reflection on what participants are currently doing, rather than inviting them to learn new information with which to interpret their current practice. On reflection that appears to be back to front!
So back to the books and papers now, with a map and a purpose…