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):

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.

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).)

#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

As an outcome of #CCK08 - microblogging PERSONAL LEARNING NODES #1 (Originally posted to Twitwall on Nov. 26, 2009)

I belong to a group of - what.. crazy.. NO! ..just.. passionate!! - people having used last 12 weeks of their learning and life in clarifying themselves - and then sharing the knowledge acquired in a 2.0 way - of WHAT IS CONNECTIVISM.

The above picture by George Siemens guided my initial steps to the 12-week-journey. The journey has been stigmatized - well, rather.. vizualized in our minds, through our minds and from our minds on - as constant two poles of information and knowledge rising, emerging, fading, re-emerging and expanding => CONNECTIVISM:

1) Learning - leadership and management - theory or not?

2) (R)evolutionary or not?

3) An answer to how we (should) change the way we change our way to handle the global change - or not?

@courosa just tweeted this link to a New Scientist article, from which the following quotation compresses the confusion the #cck08 course has caused:

"As connections increase, though, networked systems become increasingly tightly coupled. This means the impacts of failures can propagate: the more closely those two villages come to depend on each other, the more both will suffer if either has a problem. "Complexity leads to higher vulnerability in some ways," says Bar-Yam. "This is not widely understood."

The reason is that as networks become ever tighter, they start to transmit shocks rather than absorb them. "The intricate networks that tightly connect us together - and move people, materials, information, money and energy - amplify and transmit any shock," says Homer-Dixon. "A financial crisis, a terrorist attack or a disease outbreak has almost instant destabilising effects, from one side of the world to the other.""

Further - the two connective question poles could be:

4) Is connectivism a way to reshape your own impact toward the direction which moderates collisions caused by uncontrolled or unmanaged formation of PERSONAL LEARNING NODES - or not? My reply after 12 #cck08 week is YES - rather than no.

#cck08 will have an impact on my learning of a size I cannot describe yet. It is clear though, that the consequences carry my learning forward - yes, for several years on. The difficulty of the #cck08 learning is caused by the learning themes covering everything in the universe. And that's why the energy boosting effect - seen as an opposite pole again - is inevitable for one's personal learning. Just the learner has the willpower - lasting for 12 weeks.

2.0 networks are a necessary, an inevitable, tool for connective learning, management and behaviour. A vast part of my #cck08 energy boost has been taken by my setting up the basic 2.0 elements. Again - the opposite pole of that is that without that all, the following step of my learning, unpruning the past 12 weeks would not exist or even be possible.

During #cck08 - to visualize the formation of my PERSONAL LEARNING NODES - I started a photoblog. This twitwall is a beginning of my microblog. And my personal learning node formation triangle is completed by my blog - also started as an outcome of #cck08 - will be my connective learning hub for unpruning the past 12 weeks.

Blogging has during recent days started to increase my: 1) Feeling of continuation, 2) Feeling of belonging and => 3) Feeling of control. That all together increases the feeling of ability to reshape my impact - which I see as a cornerstone of building one's motivation.

The above is a true outcome of what is why #cck08 in my opinion ever was started - to help the participants EXPERIENCE CONNECTIVE WAYS OF LEARNING AND MANAGING IN PRACTICE.

I know I'm repeating myself - but again, it's getting midnight on my timezone :). Thank you for your reading, sharing, taking care of your impact.