Microgrids and Education

Posted on January 31, 2019 by admin

I have been spending a lot of time recently thinking about and researching the role that networks and networking plays in learning environments. Mostly, I have been working at ways to promote, support, and foster what Paul Baran called distributed networks in schools and classrooms. This article talks about energy/power microgrids, which due to their decentralized nature, can survive the breakdowns associated with larger, more centralized power grids. It left me wondering about analogues in ...

E-Learning 3.0 So Far

Posted on November 22, 2018 by admin

For the past few weeks, I have been participating in Stephen Downes' cMOOC, E Learning 3.0. So far, the course has addressed some really interesting and, I think, important topics, such as Data, Cloud, Graphs, and Identity. And Stephen has been addressing them in ways that are surprising and provocative. For instance, he discussed Identity as a philosophical issue. But it was embedded (all puns intended) in issues of trust and security from a technological perspective (encryption and block chai...

Identity – Mine (at least partially)

Posted on November 22, 2018 by admin

This week in the #EL30 course with Stephen Downes, we are looking at identity. Stephen really surprised me by connecting graphs (which I thought I understood) with trust (as in trusted networks and connections -- and BitCoin) and identity. This week's task (really, it was the task was last week or the week before, but I am working on it), was to create a identity graph for ourselves. Here is mine. Thanks to Mattias for his tool Thought Condensr.

Stranger Things, Season 1 in Graphs

Posted on November 8, 2018 by admin

This week in the #EL30 course with Stephen Downes, we are looking at graphs. First, two passages from his recent draft monograph on graphs. "In connectivism we have explored the idea of thinking of knowledge as a graph, and of learning as the growth and manipulation of a graph. It helps learners understand that each idea connects to another, and its not the individual idea thats important, but rather how the entire graph grows and develops." and "So where does this knowledge come from? It hel...

Taking a Course by Following a Course

Posted on October 31, 2018 by admin

My brain isn't very happy with the paradigm shift (yet), but I am taking Stephen Downes's cMOOC E Learning 3.0 by following it in my feed reader (Feedspot). When I say my brain isn't very happy I mean that the part of my brain that is used to a course having one specific path and medium. I am thrilled to be so challenged.

What is Learning Design, anyway?

Posted on October 31, 2018 by admin

For the past couple of weeks, I have been engaged in a cMOOC with Stephen Downes, ELearning 3.0. Of course, engagement is a tricky thing. I fully intended to be on top of everything, every day, but I have had to dip in and out. This afternoon, I read through Stephen's description of designing the course (the series starts here). It was fascinating at so many different levels. One the surface, this series looks like nothing more than a technical description of the tool he built for this cMOOC, g...

NYPD’s COMSAT and Ed Tech

Posted on October 13, 2018 by admin

I spent some time this morning listening to the great Reply All podcast two-part series called The Crime Machine. You should listen to both parts. Part 1 and Part 2. This series told the story of CompStat, a system built by the NYPD in the 90's in order to help make crime and crime patterns visible in actionable ways and which evolved to end up eating and dominating the system that built it. To my mind, it's a story of good intentions, positive outcomes, and unintended consequences. Ed Tech an...

Emerging Tech Panel – Learning in Commons

Posted on March 30, 2018 by admin

Here is the video of a panel I was part of at SITE 2018 this week. https://youtu.be/ldCabGp3FRQ The panel was discussing uses of Emerging Technologies in Teacher Education. My portion (the first chunk of the video) discussed the use of an Elgg based social networking learning platform I developed called Pace Commons.

Presentation – “Learning Computational Thinking Together”

Posted on March 27, 2018 by admin

I gave a presentation today at SITE 2018 called "Learning Computational Thinking Together." It focuses on research I have done on participants in a sixth grade robotics program and how they talked about problem solving, building, and coding. [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/421101384" params="color=#ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&show_teaser=true" width="100%" height="166" iframe="tru...

Emerging Learning Networks

Posted on January 22, 2018 by admin

I was inspired by a project that Rhizomatic Learning Man Dave Cormier posted this morning. He is working on developing a worksheet to support the development of an arduino project with K-12 students. I have been working for some time now to investigate the types of learning environments and activities that foster/support/promote the emergence of self-directed learning. One experience that has been a touchstone for me is teaching Scratch and Arduino (in separate settings). We saw what I started...

Inventing Learning

Author: admin