On LMS - collected from yesterday's #lrnchat

Yesterday's #lrnchat was about Learning Management Systems. It was the so called "late" #lrnchat. It means that even though the times of the tweetree appl I used for following the below discussion show 09:30 PM, the time on my time zone was 04:30 AM. I was happy to just spot the sharply summarizing conversation between @courosa and @rmazar.

It crystallizes the situation were we seem to currently be on - actually everywhere LMS:s are in use. Nobody is really content. Nobody has a clear view of what we are doing about it. I feel the case being very similar with other systems like within quality or process management in general.

The following chat clip ends with thinking of a system being an aggregator, glue, container, but not any whole SYSTEM itself. -Aren't we used to think that a system is something brought and served us on a tray. We pick things up and add ourselves only what's absolutely necessary - e.g. for gaining course credits. When this is accepted throughout studies, how would the culture automatically change when graduates step into the working life?!

I think we have a wide, wide problem: We deeply disdain the capacity of thinking. Until we make helping each other to grow as thinkers as (one of) the main outcome(s) of what we want to gain by using an LMS - nothing is really going to happen. There's no concrete action without changing the opinions we keep saying aloud. That requires growing as a thinker. This is valid throughout the whole organization - any. Enjoy the chat of thinkers:

@rmazar 09:34 PM: @courosa Worthwhile learning can happen anywhere, including inside a "learning" management system. #lrnchat

@courosa 09:35 PM: @rmazar where's it more likely to happen? #lrnchat

@rmazar 09:35 PM: @courosa Of course, it can happen equally well in a corridor or on a subway... #lrnchat

@courosa 09:36 PM: @rmazar agreed - then what's the point of the LMS? #control #lrnchat

@rmazar 09:39 PM: @courosa Course management. Basic organization structure. Our students HATE it when one of their courses isn't in Bb.

@rmazar 09:40 PM: @courosa They don't love Bb...they just don't have to have to figure out where all these different courses are and how they work.

@courosa 09:41 PM: @rmazar then how do students adjust to learning in the real world, if they know only the LMS?

@rmazar 09:45 PM: @courosa The CMS is only the vehicle. The student doesn't learn in the CMS, they learn with docs, peers, instructor.

@courosa 09:42 PM: @rmazar maybe the problem is with "course" - expecting that there is a finite learning unit that they need to find.

@rmazar 09:44 PM: @courosa I agree!!! The "course" and the culture of grades as reward has created a very bizarre environment.

@courosa 09:43 PM: @rmazar the LMS only perpetuates these types of learning systems/units.

@rmazar 09:46 PM: @courosa Yes...but it can't change before the models change. The majority of instructors want it to be that restrictive.

@rmazar 09:47 PM: @courosa I'm not on their side, though, don't get me wrong. I haven't met a course management system I liked. :/

@rmazar 09:52 PM: The future of the LMS = no LMS; web spaces constructed by instructors built out of a bunch of tools all glued together. #lrnchat

@rmazar 09:53 PM: LMS as aggregator, glue, container, not system in itself. #lrnchat

Blogging Against Disablism Day will be on 1st May, 2009

"Blogging Against Disablism day will be on Friday, 1st May. This is the day where all around the world, disabled and non-disabled people will blog about their experiences, observations and thoughts about disability discrimination. In this way, we hope to raise awareness of inequality, promote equality and celebrate the progress we've made."

How to participate? -Please see instructions from the "Diary of a Goldfish"!

Photoblogging makes the new year look different... (Originally posted to Twitwall on Jan. 01, 2009)

I was wishing for a new kind of light for 2009... The new year introduced itself in form of a fabulously sunny day - and a special sunset. I've either lived, gone to school, worked or regularly visited (or a combination of the above) 'round these corners for my whole life. I never before recall having experienced this scene - frost, no snow, all calm, clear sky... the reflection of the tower in the frozen fountain.

Is it only because I've been photoblogging for 44 days - and I've started to see everything differently...

Photo: January 01, 2009 In Tapiola, Espoo, Finland (my Flickr)

Sharing my spirit of preparing for the New Year (Originally posted to Twitwall on Dec. 29, 2008)

May we learn to reflect new occasions back to our network members and nodes of knowledge in unexpected and surprising ways - to learn to see the light changing, transforming, emerging happiness...

All the best for the New Year 2009!!

Irmeli

(Video: "Changing Light" by Kaija Saariaho)

Peace is a question of will - PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #17 (Originally posted to Twitwall on Dec. 12, 2008)

My today's Personal Learning Node is dedicated to the Nobel Lecture by Martti Ahtisaari, Oslo, 10 December 2008:

"If we work together, we can find solutions. We should not accept any excuses from those in power. ...Wars and conflicts are not inevitable. They are caused by human beings. There are always interests that are furthered by war. Therefore those who have power and influence can also stop them. Peace is a question of will. All conflicts can be settled, and there are no excuses for allowing them to become eternal. It is simply intolerable that violent conflicts defy resolution for decades causing immeasurable human suffering, and preventing economic and social development. The passivity and impotence of the international community make it more difficult for us to place our faith in jointly built security structures. ...the real work only starts after a peace agreement has been concluded.

We must all be able to contribute to our own future and to the future of our communities. ....If nothing is done, we will be creating an effective breeding ground for crime, instability and war as young people lose all hope. I believe that the fight against poverty is also the most effective measure of countering terrorism in the long term. ...Attracting private-sector investment into war-torn areas is not easy. It requires innovation. A mix of non-economic and economic incentives will have to be devised. Similarly, involvement of the private sector in the larger work of formulating strategies for post-war recovery will require innovative thinking.

For many people, tensions between religions have provided an easy explanation for the intractability of the Middle East crisis. I cannot accept this view. During my career I have seen many crises in which religion has been used as a weapon or as an instrument for prolonging the conflict. Religions themselves are, however, peace-loving. They can also be a constructive force in peace-building, and this also applies to the Middle East. Peace is a question of will."

(Photo: CC my Flickr)

Connectivism in one minute - PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #16 (Originally posted to Twitwall on Dec. 11, 2008)

When beginning the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge course #cck08 in last September I had the following phone conversation with a colleague. HIM: So, what's connectivism? Put it in one minute. ME: Well, eh... HIM: Ten seconds gone! ME: But, eh... you can't... HIM: Almost half of the time gone...

At this stage my one minute definition for the question "What is connectivism" is:

Connectivism is a learning method which gives an answer to all your questions. All you need to do is to a) Ask all the required questions by yourself and b) Find out all the answers by yourself. This is headline for my #cck08 Final Project!

In my prevoius TwitWall posts I've come to a conclusion that connectivism equals transformative learning - but unevitably added with social web networking elements. The 2.0 ways of learning are necessary because it's impossible to proceed with asking the questions alone - and even more impossible: giving the right answers to oneself, alone. Today's visualization (CC my Flickr):

Connective transformation model - PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #15 (Originally posted to Twitwall on Dec. 10, 2008)

Continuing from yesterday's reflection.. ..having ended up with the idea that connective learning in practice is transformative learning added with - or actually experienced, made real, accomplished with help of - using (micro/photo)blogging as a means of proceeding.

This leads me into the need of defining, what transformative learning means in practice. My theoretical background - summarised a year ago when studying ELECTRA online course for intercultural understanding - is the following:

1) My approach: Learning according to Holistic Cultural Competence Assessment (HCCA) Learning Model (Copyright Lic.Educ. Venla Varis); HCCA Model teaches transformation based on four validated learning objects: Diversity orientation, Team skills orientation, Value competence and Learning strategies.

2) HCCA Model = Change management model

3) In transformative – renewing – learning conscious off-learning is essential. In emergent learning it is significant that all participants understand their responsibility of building confidence and committing to the learning process. Knowledge building is a way to externalize one’s transformative and emergent learning. The process proceeds from individual towards collective – the learning process helps the learner to integrate to new communities by increasing her/his cultural self-awareness. Authentic learning is a way to bind the before mentioned theories to practical working occasions. Meaning and knowledge intensiveness in facilitating for learning takes into account all the above.

4) HCCA Model conducts the learner through the above steps of learning. It starts several simultaneous cognitive processes.

==> I've got the theory. I've got the competence: I've completed the Teacher's Certificate for HCCA Model learning issued by the coordinating partner of the EU Socrates Minerva Programme during which the HCCA model was developed to the first prototype level

==> Before starting the #cck08 course I planned to use HCCA Model as the context and the frame of reference for a case study belonging to my Master's Thesis on industrial management during next spring. I've explored outlines - and a number of details - of connective knowledge in order to understand: Is HCCA Model a connective learning tool?

I've come to and end of one of my personal learning => knowledge building cycles. In addition to the theory and competence, #cck08 course has taught me the 2.0 way of externalizing and sharing my learning.

==> My series of Personal Learning Nodes #1-15 is a practical, reflective case study on my thinking, learning and sharing process for finding the answer to the above question. My approach has 100% based on the HCCA Model way of learning. For the first time I've proceeded in a 2.0 way. The difference in and meaning for my personal learning has been huge.

All this put together is my reasoning for completing my Final Project of #cck08 on evaluating HCCA learning toward the 12 themes of the 12 weeks of #cck08. Both HCCA Model and #cck08 are huge clouds formulated by cognitive nodes split in a mesh like construction. Collecting the Personal Learning Nodes #1-15 has made visible the particular nodes I needed for completing the remaining assignments of the #cck08. As #cck08 was meant to be a living experiment of experiencing connectivism - I consider my learning process so far a success.

How big is your key area of learning..? - PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #14 (Originally posted to Twitwall on Dec. 09, 2008)

One fundamental milestone in my learning toward connective thinking was my first personal learning report portfolio I completed in May 2004 when participating the last pilot course belonging to the European Union Socrates Programme Minerva Project "Intercultural Learning in the Internet". Holistic Cultural Competence Assessment (HCCA) Learning Model (Copyright Lic.Educ. Venla Varis) was built into the first protype level during that course.

An essential part of finalizing the HCCA Learning course was creating a Personal Development Plan. HCCA Learning Model is fully based on transformative learning. I was describing connectivism in my earlier Twitwall post that connectivism and connective learning equals transformative learning, added with the social elements created by the use of web 2.0 collaboration, network building and sharing.

Us participating the HCCA04 were like us participating the CCK08 this autumn. There were no previous courses - meaning no examples of previous outcomes of learning according to the emerging new model.

When creating my transformative personal development plan from scratch - it was as follows:

"My key areas of development (in May 2004, learning according to the HCCA Model): Self management – from the point of view of the group I collaborate with. Methods: Deepening my understanding of my impact by consciously paying attention to it, self-assessment tools. Development themes from around the world - Related with my studies I’ve recently familiarized with the development themes of the European Union: Europe to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based society in the world by the end of this decade. – I intend to learn the corresponding themes regarding the Asia-Pacific, the Americas, Africa. Method: Collecting and analyzing information from the media. The meaning of the spirit - Learning more about, what was the theme of the chapter 8 of the module 1.2 of the HCCA Model: Harmony exists in many collective cultures - Holy Spirit in Christian cultures - Internal energy. Method: Collecting and analyzing information from books."

And this is what I called KEY AREAS...?!! Realizing my personal development plan was tightly bound with my further learning, project work - and especially with a heavy and long bureaucratic fight in order to arrange for proper care for my differently abled son. I really truly was fully learning all the above areas - non stop.

Reflections originated by the CCK08 course have made me realize that I've managed to follow my personal development plan quite thoroughly, no exceptions on the way. Now I realize as well that us CCK08 participants - quite many of us I believe - face the same situation as us when completing the HCCA04. Loading more and more objectives for further learning - and no previous practical examples existing of how to start to complete it?!

When I compare HCCA04 and CCK08 - there's one significant difference. And that's the successfulness of the network building during the course. The network with whom to proceed was lacking after HCCA04 - although it otherwise included a convincing amount of connective elements. Writing this post is an evidence of a supporting learning network existing - increasing my self-confidence enough for continuing. Day by day.

I realize I've been somewhat afraid of facing - what's waiting after starting the real emergent learning phase after the scheduled theme weeks of the CCK08 course. I just couldn't have taken another four years of the kind of learning HCCA04 caused - no matter if the transformation started by it was for me a point of no return in a most positive sense. Two weeks of sharing my personal learning node construction has clarified the case - this time my emergent learning is / will be different. (Micro/photo)blogging cuts it into manageable pieces. And there's always someone who - if not already created a solution - struggles/creates/enjoys/innovates/wins/looses => learns facing similar occasions. My today's visualization (CC my Flickr):

Less predicting - more collaborating.. - PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #13 (Originally posted to Twitwall on Dec. 08, 2008)

I'm clearing some old notes and here's one I want to share for further reflection. I've written it down while listening to a presentation by Josephine Green (Manager Trends and Strategy, Philips Design) during the International Conference of Finland Futures Research Centre and Finland Futures Academy, Helsinki in June 2005. (The conference website seems not to be available any more.)

-Organizations are living organisms. They adapt to the ecosystem.

-The culture of a living organization = Every member's responsibility includes a role of an innovator:

* every member is responsible for renewing her/himself => this leads into the renewal of the organization

* thinking and acting are duties of each and every member of the organization

-Developing the creative knowledge capital requires systematic models:

1) In order to recognize innovations

2) In order to bring the recognized innovations into practice

In future - managing the future is less prognoses or predicting. It's more and more creating the future as a collaborative learning process.

That conference was the first time when I personally experienced the strong trend of organizational management practice beginning to equal the contents and methods of a learning process i.e. development of a business organization = developing ways of learning, teaching and coaching. Today's reflection showed me, that I've been studying connectivism already several years before I last summer for the first time heard the term. I visualised this in the beginning of the #cck08 course as follows (CC my Flickr). The picture is still valid.

Microblogging = Learning to mark by optimism - PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #12 (Originally posted to Twitwall on Dec. 07, 2008)

I became very fond of the Buddhist Philosopher site I found for my yesterday's Personal Learning Node. I tried it today as well:

1) Ultimately, our battle is with ourselves. Whether in our activities in society, or in historical, political or economic developments, everything essentially boils down to a struggle between positive and negative forces.

2) What kind of future do I envision for myself? What kind of self am I trying to develop? What do I want to accomplish in my life?" The thing is to paint this vision of your life in your heart as specifically as possible. That "painting" itself becomes the design of your future. The power of the heart enables us to actually create with our lives a wonderful masterpiece in accordance with that design.

I like to reflect the over 2000 year old thinking, because it sets the overwhelming amount of virtual infomation surrounding us into a perspective and a scale of a realistic size. It culminates in: Learning to know and understand what has a positive effect on our bigger and smaller desicions and the actions following them.

I found through Flickr comments my CCK08 fellow learner Heli's idea related to shadows of seedlings - tiny little spruces' reflections on white snow. That just as the seedlings, us learners have a shadow. Each one has a unique kind of a shadow. And Heli's idea most hitting: Wherever a web-teacher walks, s/he sees metaphors for pedagogic solutions...

This returns my thinking to learning recognizing which desicions and actions have a positive effect and impact. Positive (acc. to one Merriam-Webster Online definion) = Marked by optimism. Mircoblogging is exactly about learning how to mark things with optimism. Before the CCK08 course I highlighted the competence to understand and manage wholes. (Micro/photo)blogging has made me see that paying attention to very little things at a time - and consentrating, focusing - really is the most essential skill to practice. Throughout the CCK08 course we've tried to formulate definitions for what is connectivism. Today, for me, it is a learning experiment to unlearn old habits for needing to always first to know and understand goals and objectives. During digital age it's quite seldom possible. Again - the way you plan how to use you impact is what counts. And how you make it visible, real and happen through little accomplisments. Walking around seeking little things to use as metaphors in blog-teaching/sharing is a very productive practical way.

Buddhist Philosophy + Microblogging = Transformative Learning + Connectivism - PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #11 (Orig. posted to Twitwall on Dec. 06, 2008)

Today is the 91st Independence Day of Finland. I captured the Finnish flag hanging all calm - after the several heavy storms we've recently experienced in Finland. The setting December sun coloured the wall. The building is the Tapiola Church is Espoo, Finland. It's 02.50 p.m. - a moment right before the sunset this time of the year in the South Coast.

I browsed the website: Words of Wisdom by Buddhist Philosopher Daisaku Ikeda:

1) Ideal love is fostered only between two sincere, mature and independent people. It is the inner struggle to polish these attributes that is the key. Real love is not two people clinging to each other; it can only be fostered between two strong people secure in their individuality.

2) Every person, no matter how accomplished, has shortcomings. Conversely, no matter how bad someone's negative tendencies, that person definitely has strong points. The key is to identify an individual's strengths and give him or her the opportunity to succeed.

These two quotes knit together ideas currently actual to me:

I) Different phases of learning and management processes constantly include opposite poles. The steps or targets are difficult to reach if the opposite stage or condition of the process phases are not repeatedly: a) Monitored / observed, b) The process adjusted accordingly and the most important c) Practical new ways of action taken in to practice.

2) The iterative process ...c => a => b => c => a => b... easily starts to seem as something complicated, something requiring a special quality project, training or at least dedicated hours. They are impossible to arrange for - the process itself needs pruning and speeding up.

1 + 2 is what I've most experienced myself during recent years and that's what I keep hearing so many others to repeatedly complain. I discussed mircoblogging - HOW and WHY - in my previous Twitwall post. Trying to put simple the answer to the question: HOW and WHY is mircoblogging a way out of stuck projects? -Based on my own experince of several years of participating quality trainings => working / consulting in development projects => studying at a Technical University (+ Uni. of Appl. Sciences) I believe in microblogging => sharing through thinking 2.0 because: It's the first practical tool to understand and control processes from one's own point of view => take care of the whole in pieces of a realistic size. One piece at a time.

BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY + MICROBLOGGING = TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING + CONNECTIVISM

Participating #oeb08 through microblogging - PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #10 (Originally posted to Twitwall on Dec. 05, 2008)

I've listened to Online Educa Berlin Sounds of the bazaar live broadcast through a Facebook Event and tweeted and followed the tweets. What's been special in this particular conference is the feeling of participating - instead of following only. I've got the point that microblogging is one of THE ISSUES this year. I'm quite happy, well fascinated - because there's anyway quite a lot of "what's mircoblogging" etc. questions still in the air - that I've been participating #oeb08 exactly through microblogging.

What microblogging is and how it can be utilized can only be discovered - by starting microblogging. You'll get a lot of nice-to-know information through reading blogs and links included in them - and scientific papers in near future as well - but no theoretical explanation of microblogging will reveal the practical benefits of it. I'll complete the actual survey "Twitter in Conferences" as well - but the following two are the key issues how I became a microblogger and microblogging for me a way to control everyday life.

* HOW I BECAME A MICROBLOGGER? I participated the #cck08 online-course by University of Manitoba: I started to actively use my existing Facebook account (The Wall) as a microblog. I started to actively use my until then stillstanding Twitter account => especially through Twitwall. This has proceeded node by node by sharing learning through blogs of the #cck08 participants and #cck08 Google Groups and Moodle forums. The sharing means in tweet-language "following" and "being followed". In my personal shared learning the process has culminated in using this Twitwall and Flickr in a daily basis = my microblogging main channels.

* HOW MICROBLOGGING HELPS TO CONTROL EVERYDAY LIFE? This is the most important part and also the most difficult to explain - microblogging should simply be started in practice in order to learn it(s benefits). In my personal case I can give the following two examples:

1) I admit that I have had some difficulties in completing projects, and now I don't mean like Big Official Work Projects but the whole of the things necessary to accomplish: Home => work => studying => etc. There always seems to be something undone. This is tiring out. Makes feel like - as there's that much to do, I'll start tomorrow... The above described #cck08 learning process (this particular PART of the whole of it!!) lead into me mircoblogging in form of writing one Personal Learning Node a day and taking One Photo a Day. It may sound very simple. It is. It has though taken me several years to find this simple solution. The Twitwall and the daily photo was a result of trying a number of alternatives learned and discovered by experiencing the #cck08 process. It's a suitably small enough - and some days a suitably big enough effort to be completed every day.

2) I'm following the above described daily writing and photographing process the first weeks now. Already now I've - to my own surprise - started to realize that the daily microblogging forms a continuum I've been lacking in my self-management. The stress in my life is caused by studies performed mostly as distance learning, distirbuted into too small pieces and work which at present is divided into too short projects. Microblogging forms nodes - mesh like construction in my thinking. The consciousness of the node-constructiong process in my thinking is what gives the daily boost of energy. This is a skill that can be learned by practicing. And I'll stop writing this post into this now. Because otherwise I'll get into too theoretical explaining. Microblogging just is something for everyone to DO by oneself.

Having chosen from approx. 5000 pieces of connectivism - PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #9 (Originally posted to Twitwall on Dec. 04, 2008)

This artwork by Finnish Janna Syväoja is located at EMMA Museum of Modern Art. It consists of approx. 5000 pieces of jigsaw puzzle, hanging from the ceiling. This visualizes exactly, how the content of the #cck08 course seemed to me in the beginning - well, throughout the course actually. The meaning of the #cck08 revealed to me is that there existed one planned selected frame of reference - where to start to pick up themes and details from and to form new wholes, piece by piece. Otherwise all the pieces would have remained hanging in the air, in the virtual and non-virtual space. CCK08 built the threads binding the pieces together, to a whole - a new kind of whole.

And what's most important: I learned to process the aspired whole piece by piece, one piece at a time. Choosing, keeping and occasionally checking the direction of learning, managing and living is what counts. The amount of pieces processed at one time does not. For this thinking process photoblogging => microblogging and => blogging are excellent ways of action. It can only be learned and discovered by trying, doing, writing, visualizing, chatting, by oneself - and one piece at a time.

(The book I photographed the above picture from: The Saastamoinen Foundation Art Collection: Finnish Art. Edition: Päivi Karttunen. Photography: Ari Karttunen, Matti Ruotsalainen. Saastamoinen Foundation, 2006 (Lönnberg Print).)

Parallel culture and connectivism? - PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #8 (Originally posted to Twitwall on Dec. 08, 2008)

I was perceiving in my PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #5 that ...my main goal re. connectivism after the #cck08 course will be ..to share the experience, understanding and feeling gained and learned during the course. Kind of let it go on, continue and expand - become a shared continuum.. As I'm a very goal oriented person - an that characteristic being the one I do not wish to unlearn ;) - I'm wondering, what do I want to achieve by acting and behaving in a connective way?!

I recall a text written by author and president Vaclav Havel - a different point of view, but somehow I see the volume of the need for change in learning and management currently required to equal what happens in a totalitarian society, before the end of the totalitarianism. Havel describes in a first issue of a newly established Czechoslovakian cultural magazine in 1985, what parallel culture means. “Parallel culture is nothing more and nothing less than a culture which for various reasons will not, cannot, or may not reach out to the public through the media which fall under state control. In a totalitarian state, this includes all publishing houses, presses, exhibition halls, theatres and concert halls, scholarly institutes, and so on. Such a culture, therefore, can make us only what is left – typewriters, private studios, apartments, barns, etc. Evidently the parallel nature of this culture is defined wholly externally and implies nothing directly about its quality, aesthetics, or eventual ideology. The counterpart in solving the conflict of parallel cultural conditions is not an alternative political idea but the autonomous, free humanity of man and with it necessarily also art – PRECISELY AS ART! – as one of the most important expressions of this autonomous humanity. Can we separate the awakening human soul from what it always is – an awakening human community?"

Connectivism is a tool for accomplishing the change. But - is there "a parallel culture" that may remain hidden by connectivism? Or does it exist yet / at all? What keeps it hidden? What encourages it to become visible?

My first concrete question along the path of beginning to find out what is "the parallel culture" at the age of connective learning is: What comes after web, learning, organization and networks 2.0? What if it's something totally different than all that 3.0?? And the second question, maybe: Is connectivism itself actually the parallel culture of the knowledge age??

The referred book: Havel, V. 1991. Six Asides About Culture in Wilson, P. (eds) Vaclav Havel. Open Letters. Selected Prose 1965-1990. London: Faber and Faber Ltd. My todays visualization:

#cck08 Learning diversity at school and a male Saint Lucy - PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #7 (Originally posted to Twitwall on Dec. 02, 2008)

During the #cck08 course there's quite a lot been discussed how connective learning can be utilized in K-12 learning. This area is not very familiar to me. My interests in near future as well relate to business organization training. Today I got a surprising reminder how far one event created by one particular high school teacher can affect.

The Saint Lucy's day approaches. At one school in Sweden the pupils had elected a boy to act as the Saint Lucy (who wears a white dress and a candle crown and spreads peace and joy). The school principal heard of this and absolutely forbid the plan to choose a boy to become the Saint Lucy of the school of the year. This made headlines in Sweden and Finland. The newspaper Helsingin Sanomat (Finnish) and Svenska Dagbladet (Swedish) arranged a gallup: Can a male act as the Saint Lucy? Over 14000 people voted and 62,6% said NO.

When reading that today I initially thought NO!! No way can this tradition be violated like that. Immediately though did I recall: When I was going the first year to the senior high scool in Finland - we had a minor Saint Lucy celebration within our class (in Finnish schools there's not that strong tradition as in Sweden and Swedish schools in Finland - to elect the Saint Lucy to represent the whole school in a common celebration). This happened during a Swedish class and was a part of learning the Swedish culture. Our teacher - an older Finnish-Swedish lady - said, without leaving any room for any objections, that this year we'll elect a male Saint Lucy. So we did and a guy called Veikko acted as the Saint Lucy.

This memory very strongly hit against my today's objection to the idea of a male Saint Lucy: I've seen it happen once. It was OK, fun and memorable. So why not?! After some reflection - I've got the opinion that I'm absolutely for protecting the tradition - but if the pupils wanted to experiment something different this year, then WHY NOT! Just go ahead!

It was striking for me to understand that this little event had such a strong effect on my opinions over 20 years later. I got a healthy reminder of how huge effect it has what kind of examples we as adults show to the kids and youth around us. Ability to think, rspond and act in a totally different and unexpected way - which is required by connectivism - can be due only one occasion only once created by one teacher.

(The following picture visualizing my thinkin today belongs to my set: One photo a day. Every day.)

#cck08 Three steps toward a connective organization - PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #6 (Originally posted to Twitwall on Dec. 01, 2008)

I browsed presentations of the Ground Handling International Conference (in Dublin Nov. 18-19, 2008) - nicely available through GHI website. I bookmarked two of them my Diigo.

1) Acc. to the presentation of Emirates SkyCargo: It's necessary to ask whether the current business model thrives on chaos. Focus should be towards tripartite engagement in which THE AIRLINE, THE HANDLER AND THE CUSTOMER are equal, bring a stable input to the cooperation process => the cooperation process forms an iterative circle and vice versa.

2) University of Bath School of Management has completed a research on development requirements of the ground handling industry. In brief - one core focus area includes: Investing in IT, training and increasing competences of the staff. A quote: "Senior managers should identify and build core competencies, with inputs from lower levels of the organisation (McIvor, 1997)".

@cristinacost tweeted the link to: Radiowaves reporters interviewed Sir Ken Robinson at the Liverpool ICT Conference. He says that the most important thing in developing (schools) is finding out what works. It very very seldom happens the first time. The most important skill of the teachers (and managers! I add here) is to learn to encourage the students (everyone in an organization!) to get their ideas through.

This all leads me into a conclusion that the key ideas covered during the #cck08 are more than suitable to be taken into immediate practice in organizational development and training. The key issues are:

1) Learning from successes instead of failures

2) Starting to test, do, accomplish, walk, explore new virtual networks => create, share, get help, increase understanding of self => increase competence on communication and cooperation - all this instead of learning new theories by reading, listening to lectures and completing tests or exams only. And especially not - only the management level performing and only the latter.

3) Paying a huge attention to setting personal goals and common organizational goals => following, sharing and re-evaluating => setting adapted new personal goals and common organizational goals. This process iterates in circles of time and in circles of the process phases.

Prior to #cck08 I wrote: "I consider this course a success when I’m able to define how randomness in learning is created in practice. I’m perceiving that process in the following picture "Innovative Leadership and Learning towards 2020". I've been testing that process through my own learning throughout the #cck08. I start to be quite positive that it works! If it worked for me - why not for a whole organization!!!

#cck08 Connectivism makes transformation social - PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #5 (Originally posted to Twitwall on Nov. 30, 2008)

Before the #cck08 I strongly believed that transformative learning => transformation is:

1) The only truth

2) Covers everything needed in management education toward 2020

I wanted to give myself un ultimate possibility to with help of the #cck08 understand where I'm wrong => I've use quite a lot of forcing myself to accept to deny transformation being an answer to all requirements of changing behaviour, methods, communicating etc. re. arranging for learning. The experience has been much tougher than I expected.

The answers I - after the tough times during last 12 weeks - started to find I'm currently putting in practice. And will continue to do so. Without the help of the sharing of the whole #cck08 community this would not - ever maybe!?? - have become real: I'm sharing my learning - one snapshot and one node day.

The following quotation (translated from by Bachelor's Thesis) shows how my transformative understanding looked like before #cck08. I still believe in it. I just begin to find practical ways to ease the pain. And this will be the main goal for me after the #cck08 - to share this experience, understanding and feeling.

"When working together in a learning organization each individual and the organization as a whole should have concrete development tasks. Commitment and systematic proceeding bind the learning and work together. A teacher’s work is traditionally based on the feeling of control and authority. It is relatively easy for a teacher to accept and adopt changes related to classroom practices or learning materials. One’s own beliefs related to social, ethical and pedagogic questions are more difficult to handle and change – they are deeply bound with one’s own identity. Starting to change oneself may seem too difficult and demanding. Transformative – renewing – learning requires a perspective change. The true change – intellectual growth and widening one’s own perspectives – requires rebuilding of one’s own thinking and one’s own inner world. It means a difficult journey of mixed feelings like guilty, inadequacy and loss, failures and even depression. Daring to take this journey and giving it time and effort guarantees new energy – experiences of success and growth, increased sensibleness of learning and work and individual and collective feelings of empowerment."

Source: Järvelä, M-L. 2002. Tavoitteena interkulttuurinen opettajankoulutus. Orientaatioperusta ja epistemologia. In Räsänen, R, Jokikokko, K, Järvelä, M-L & Lamminmäki-Kärkkäinen T. Interkulttuurinen opettajankoulutus. Utopiasta todellisuudeksi toimintatutkimuksen avulla. University of Oulu. Acta Universitatis Ouluensis E 55. http://herkules.oulu.fi/isbn9514268075/isbn9514268075.pdf

#cck08 Blogging as bringing distributed cognition into practice - PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #4 (Originally posted to Twitwall on Nov. 29, 2008)

I recalled an Australian blog. It was the first one I ever used as source information for an essay. This happened when I participated the ELECTRA online course for intercultural understanding 2006-2007. I wasn't yet using social bookmarks. A key post of that blog has remained copy/pasted - waiting to be used later on.

In addition to sorting out and thinning and thinning the #cck08 block of information, I used some randomness in information search - one key thing I learned from utilizing a connective way of picking up source material during #cck08. The above blog post was part of my today's randomness.

The content of the particular post was still: valid, accurate, sharp - everything why I had kept it. At the time when I deleted most of the most - after having finalized my Bachelors Thesis on transformative learning. Some lines quoted:

"Teaching as presenting is dead. Teaching is transferring information from one brain into another is dead. Teaching as exercising authority over a group of students is dead. But teaching, genuine teaching, living what it is you want the next generation to see and emulate, is necessary.

It takes a conscious effort to be the sort of person you are trying to get your students to be. How often have we heard, ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’ But of course the lesson is in what we do. Which is why the main lesson from school is obedience and punctuality. It doesn’t matter what you say, you are what you want the world to become.

To teach is to be the sort of thing you want your students to be."

Some core pieces of my #cck08 puzzle found their place again today. I was with enthusiasm describing #cck08 to a former colleague in the end of last summer. He asked if I discovered connectivism already during my Thesis research. I said no. -Not at all.

Today I recognized the name of the researcher the above blogger had quoted. Recognized the style before reading the name - Stephen Downes.

The chain: Studying online => googling => keywords linking to a blog => finding a blog of meaning = = => returning to the blog when mircoblogging myself a couple of years later - shows a practical example of what distributed cognition and learning with the help of it means in practice. I'm relieved, extremely relieved due to today's finding - the holistic feeling of the correct direction my life-wide learning.

Source of the referred blog post by Michael Nelson: http://liveandletlearn.net/live-what-you-teach/ Source of the picture on the top visualizing my thinking: http://sdwaventures.com/media/image/networks.jpg

#cck08 Looking into the brain - PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #3 (Originally posted to Twitwall on Nov. 28, 2008)

Source: Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research

"Scientists from Maastricht University have developed a method to look into the brain of a person and read out who has spoken to him or her and what was said. With the help of neuroimaging and data mining techniques the researchers mapped the brain activity associated with the recognition of speech sounds and voices. In their Science article ”Who” is Saying “What”? Brain-Based Decoding of Human Voice and Speech the four authors demonstrate that speech sounds and voices can be identified by means of a unique 'neural fingerprint' in the listener's brain. In the future this new knowledge could be used to improve computer systems for automatic speech and speaker recognition."

..could be used to improve computer systems.. Yes, most probably. But what I see striking in the above news is the fact that - said now by me in a very plain non-scientific way - our brain visualizes, builds, creates different images based on who's talking. How far can this be imagined further - the behaviour of the teacher affecting the direction of the image building in our brain??!

I see this a fascinating snapshot toward including some neuroscience in our learning life after the #cck08.

Some more food for imagination:

"People have long envisaged the brain as being like a computer on standby, lying dormant until called upon to do a task, such as solving a Sudoku, reading a newspaper, or looking for a face in a crowd. Sokoloff's experiment (1953) provided the first glimpse of a different truth: that the brain enjoys a rich private life. This amazing organ, which accounts for only 2 per cent of our body mass but devours 20 per cent of the calories we eat, fritters away much of that energy doing, as far as we can tell, absolutely nothing.

--All of this has been a long time coming since Sokoloff's surprising observation 55 years ago. Watching the brain at rest, rather than constantly prodding it to do tricks, is now revealing the rich inner world of our private moments. So the next time you're mooching around doing nothing much, take a moment to remind yourself that your brain is still beavering away - if you can tear yourself away from your daydreams, that is."

Source of the above quote and the following picture: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026811.500-the-secret-life-of-the-brain.html?full=true

#CCK08 Avatars from other lives than SL?? - PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #2 (Originally posted to Twitwall on Nov. 27, 2008)

Today's snapshot of my learning: I'm confused of what to think of avatar(s) appearing to #cck08 Moodle forums. I mean avatars from other "lives" than Second Life. SL avatars of the #cck08 participants were introduced in the google forums in the very beginning of the course. They have become familiar to other participants beside the live learning personalities - even to participants not currently active in SL like myself.

My today's confusion was caused by me noticing an avatar recently having appeared in #cck08 Moodle forums. A participant using a commercial logo - the Linux Penguin - as an avatar??! Why I'm irritated is that this person is referring to a home location as Finland/ Vaasa and as being a well known in the "corresponding field of research". The blog link leads to nowhere though - re. references, background info etc.

I know I'm not very good in understanding jokes needing an extreme extension of thinking - what the joke part in the story really is. Maybe in this case as well - I should just leave my irritation aside. Or would some kind of reaction/moderation be required? The waste of time caused by someone feeding nonexisting references to threads gathering valid information - is not a welcomed phenomenon. Is it an unevitable phenomenon in open learning forums though??