Welcome to
What's this going to be about?
"It is only by abandonning all notion of 'getting things clear' that it is possible to progress in this strange eworld :-)"
- Elizabeth Ann in her profile at http://tinyurl.com/mlit2011edit, January, 2011.
This course will be taught again in September 2011 as a TESOL PPOT course, and yet again in January 2012 for EVO. The course will be based more overtly than it is now on MOOC precepts, where the M stands not for massive but for miniscule, in an attempt to show that the concept can be adapted successfully on a smaller scale. Accordingly, I plan to replace the video below with one where Howard Reingold interviews George Siemens: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMfipxhT_Co&feature=related. Here, George articulates well the rationale that I've been trying to communicate to previous participants in this course; e.g. "I’m not aware of any research actually that says linear structure produces better outcomes than more chaotic meandering structure. Our intent, based on our theories of learning is to argue that the experience of learning, making sense of that chaos, is actually the heart of the learning experience, but if an instructor makes sense of that chaos for you and gives you all the readings and sets the full path in place for you then to a degree you are eviscerating the learner’s experience because now you’ve made sense of them and all you’ve told them is walk the path that I’ve formed. When it comes to complexity I’m a great fan of letting learner’s hack their way through that path and getting the value of that learning experience and that sense-making process.”
For more on this see http://tinyurl.com/meportfolios
Guess what? SnipURL deleted the URL I gave in this video of my presentation. That's never happened with TinyURL. Arghh!
Why not read a book or two while participating in this session?
If you'd like to enjoy a good book we have some suggestions at our Berry Bush Bookstore.
It's not a bookstore really, just a page at this wiki. But you'll find there some of our suggestions for good ebook reading. (Tip: Download a pdf and email it to yourself and you can read it on your iPhone.)
Here's the recommended list so far.
- Blogs and Bombs by Mark Pegrum (first chapter available in pdf format)
- Mediactive by Dan Gillmore
- The Future of the Internet and How to Stop it by Jonathan Zittrain
- Knowing Knowledge by George Siemens
If you have more suggestions, please leave a comment on the BerryBush Books page.
Let's start the session
Please join our
Our interaction will take place through Yahoo Group email and Ning forums.
If you don't have Yahoo and Ning IDs, get them : both are free and easy to obtain following the instructions at the respective sites. Please check our tutorials on the sidebar for more information on how to create your Yahoo and Ning IDs.
You might benefit from having a GMAIL account too. You might not be able to collaborate with participants here using Google Docs if you don't have at least a Google ID.
How will we communicate?
There are two main communication modes throughout this workshop: asynchronous and synchronous.
The synchronous mode (live, in-real-time sessions)
We will have live sessions, with guest speakers, which will take place at a fixed date, time and place.
There is a calendar at the Ning: http://multiliteracies.ning.com/
Our regular weekly live online meetings take place from noon to 14:00 GMT and are announced and archived at http://learning2gether.pbworks.com
The asynchronous mode (not live or in real time)
- Yahoo group (YG): This might be our initial means of communication to be in permanent contact with all members through a distribution list. You can edit your membership and choose the e-mail address that you would like group messages be sent to and if you want to receive a daily digest or individual messages.
- The Yahoo Group is also accessible through http://multilit.grouply.com/. The Yahoo Group and Grouply interfaces each offer particular affordances, and choice of access is up to the individual.
- Ning: This will likely be our communication tool once everyone is signed up and the course gets effectively under way.
- Archive of live recordings at http://learning2gether.pbworks.com
- Twitter: hash tags - #evomlit and for matters specific just to this rendition of the course #evomlit11
IMPORTANT:
The time for the sessions will be given in GMT (Greenwich Mean Time). There is a clock with GMT time in the Front Page or on the right of your window of this wiki for you to check the time where you are located.
Methodology
There are Weekly Activities to be completed and/or shared with the other participants.
YOU ARE NOT MEANT TO DO EVERYTHING. There are more activities listed than anyone can be expected do and still hold down a job, raise a family, etc. Just do what you can, keep a blog or journal of some kind, TAG your posts evomlit, and let us know where you are writing so that we can add your feed to our readers. Interact with us in our forums, let us know what you are reading, especially if you find it particularly useful.
If you have questions about the tasks, you are encouraged to post your queries to the YG, from your own e-mail, or through the POST function of the YahooGroup. Or create or contribute to a forum in the Ning.
This course is not a "massively" open online course, but it is run on the MOOC philosophy. That is, it caters not only to present EVO participants, but also a (somewhat less than) 'massive' cohort who have either taken the course before or are just interested in the topic. This allows the participants to benefit from a wider network of participants than the relatively smaller group of registrants for the EVO sessions. This method has worked well in the past. Normally we achieve a handful of interactants to work with the registered participants in the course. For more on this philosophy:
IMPORTANT URLS for this session:
Check the sidebar
Links to tools and activities for the session can be found in our Syllabus
IMPORTANT note on TAGGING !!
Please tag all artifacts created for this course evomlit to flag it as 'of general interest'
and evomlit11 to make it pertain to just the Jan-Feb 2011
(using both these tags is best :-)
You can tag:
- Blog and wiki posts
- Photos posted to Flickr and similar sites
- Tweets using hash tags i.e. #evomlit and #evomlit11
- Delicious and Diigo links
p.s. a tag is the same as a 'label' or 'category' in some tag systems
This page revised January 8, 2011
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.