2/19 Class

MY TWO LEARNING WIKI EXAMPLES:
- Language Learning Wikis - Knowledge section
http://www.italki.com/knowledge/

- Permaculture
http://permaculture.wikia.com/wiki/Permaculture_Wiki

CLASS NOTES/REFLECTION:

- Blog lurkers (Hai)
- Information doesn't really belong to you, once it gets on the blogosphere (Hai)
- Blogs are very limited forms of communication (Various)
- The communication purpose of blogs depends on how you use them (Kim)
- Be careful what you share (David)
- Proliferation of tools, it's gradually simplifying (Kim)
- "Reduce the chain of pain" (Marc, Steve Jobs)

This class was good. I liked the presentation by the blog/wiki/twitter group. Had some good information that I didn't know. Also, what I realize is that the knowledge gained in this class comes through the unique/shared ideas of individuals who are questioning how ideas come about, processes work, etc. The thing I wonder though is how much of it is retained. Our human minds are so precarious I think. That's why something like wikipedia is great. Sometime in the future, people may still be editing wiks. Nice RSS presentation by Ethan. Love that Data + Lor page!

Blogs/Wiki/Twitter Review
- Uses: Journaling, expression
- How to use Twitter academically: academhack.outsidethetext.com/home/2008/twitter-for-academia/
- Blog/Wiki/Twitter mashups

COMMENTS ON "Emerging Technologies in E-learning":

I thought this was a great overview of Web2.0 and it's application in education and learning. An example of using cell-phones for learning was a game that was showcased at the 2008 NextFest. You would speak into your phone to make an avatar move on a screen, and you would fight/combat with ours. It was exhilirating yelling "walk, walk, walk" and "fire, fire, fire". Okay, that's actually not learning, but it has lots of potential for it. I could imagine people creating a list of brainstorming words, or sharing pictures of an assignment, etc. This is an example of just-in-time learning.

I think a big tool that will be used in the near future (next 2-10 years +) will be voice recogition. Voice to text will get a lot better, and also, computers will be able to recognize more complex voice commands. (Right now, help lines and car gps systems are the most popular utilizations). Ultimately, we'll be able to say something like: "Launch Google" "Search Web 2.0 + learning" and then "Find Instructional Design, and be able to find information quickly. We might even be able to say "Find users who play guitar, etc." I think the future of technnology is in video and audio.

Lastly, I loved the part where they draw from fiction: Star Trek, Star Wars, etc. I'd love to write more on that topic.

2/5 Class

Discussion: Connectivism

Summary/Observations on Siemens article:

Connectivism, as a learning theory, takes into account the radical changes occurring in the modern world: the availability of vast amounts of information, knowledge living outside of humans, a focus on how to access information versus what the information is, increasing multinodal and globalized collaboration, and much more. People are learning in ways that seem difficult to describe in the language of behaviorism and other older learning theories. My take on these changes are that they are part of an evolutionary trend of survival. Humans are constantly finding ways to survive in the world. Now, however, human beings have not only learned how to survive in the external world of nature, but also the human-made world of information. Connectivism belie a human need to adapt to change, to be human. As humans once developed social groupings in the past, so now today have our technologies created new social networks.

One of the most fascinating ideas is that one day, human knowledge and thought will live entirely in a non-human form.

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Interesting things from class:
- George Siemens
- Knowledge residing in an object.
- Danger of sharing personal information with the world. What if GoogleDocs were to go down one day? Honey bee virus?
- Globalizing trend - human race becoming closer? oneness? loss of individual identity? (identity theft)
- Ty: Technology compared to magic. People are learning spells on a mass-scale. It has a normalizing effect on what once was thought of as spectacular. Connectivism is a "force", the "pattern", the "chaos theory", "entropy".
- Interesting Blog: Information Aesthetics
- Ty: Connectivism sounds like Borg collectivism, hive-mentality culture/operation/connections
- Ty: Why do we learn? Progression from Survival to Enjoyment to ???? (Control? Mastery? Godliness?)
- Ty: What happens when: all of learning resides in non-human appliances? The matrix and virtual worlds powered by Dyson Spheres! =D
- Ty/'s Group: Biological analogy: virus is replicated (bee virus), incorrect or malicious information can be replicated. People can create this too: genetically modified. $-making: Biotech, Monsanto "terminator" seed that die after they are planted once so must be bought again.
- Jeff's group: Knowledge validity: Wiki's self-filtering/verifying ability
- Jeff's group: Competency, how do you involve everyone? You don't. It's all about "capacity to know more than what is known".
- Angie's group: Death of experts? Everyone is an expert, no one is an expert.
- Angie's group: Who sets boundaries?
- Blogs as natural extension of human desire to communicate/talk/chat/gossip. Some bloggers have more accurate information than others. Just as certain villagers are more credible than others.
- Ty: Is advanced technology allowing us to become more human across geography/distance?
- Ty: The more collective we become the more individual we feel.
- Ty: Truth VS human imperfection. Are the borg the villified versions of humans... becoming too "truth-obsessed", science is the embodiment of truth, and the Borg are certainly scientific.

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Note: THU 4/2 1-5pm Web 2.0 EXPO Meet up with Class. You are registered.