CCKO8: Connectivism and Connective Knowledge

This has been a busy week, catching up on readings and becoming acquainted with CCK08. Mostly that’s meant connecting with People from different Places who are all here in class for different Reasons to learn new Things using a variety of Tools. One of those tools is the CMAP tool, which connects concepts using mapping. Here is my first attempt at pulling together this week’s process using the tool:

Maybe it’s the hundreds of e-mails flooding my mailbox (now switched to digest—hope that helps!) Maybe it’s getting an overdose of being connected after being disconnected for almost three weeks. In any case, getting to know everyone in a class of 1,600 participants is not a reasonable or achievable goal. Even to attempt to read each person’s introduction during the PreWeek session would probably burn me out before I even start.

So I am dabbling here and there, targeting the three important activities outlined by George in his presentation (which was a great assist in keeping me focused). I’ve bookmarked a few student blogs that I’d like to follow.  What would help me in connecting with others is to be able to “filter” participants for example, by areas of interest/research, country, industry, etc.—as well as be able to create communities within the larger community. But perhaps I am jumping the gun…and I will wait and see what George and Stephen have planned for us.

In the meantime, I could use a quiet place to recover from the first two days of class.

This is my first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) — and I am looking forward to the experience! I signed up for the course because I want to 1) further explore connectivism and its practical application and realization in e-learning environments, and 2) see how the experts orchestrate a MOOC such as this one.

For the course to be a success for me personally, I would need to come out of the course with:

1. A clear understanding of connectivism, and
2. The ability to apply connectivist principles within learning environments

I live in Germany near the kleine Odenwald, working as a communications consultant within the software industry; I also teach a distance education course within the Master of Distance Education program. Within each of these roles, I have been dabbling extensively in various web 2.0 technologies and basically any technology that helps people learn and collaborate more effectively online.

Looking forward for class to start!

Lisa

P.S. The picture shown in the header above is the view of the Odenwald from my home.