CCK08 – I think I’ve attempted some sort of distillation of the concepts for my own blog-notes and all I can say is “what a mess”. I guess that’s my network for ya. Despite having a sense of networks through a bunch of different lens’ (social organizing close to 15 years ago, network design courses close to 5 years ago) I’m not sure I can comment on this weeks events (not just readings). This is the disequalibrium that every normal course seems to inflict on people.
Of course, having real life interfere on a number of levels didn’t help either. Never mind that I wanted to have this done on Sunday. The best laid plans, neh? So, back to a Brookfield technique, what was the one thing I learned this week?
Well, the one idea that resonated with me was that networks need to continually be nourished. Weak nodes need to be used to be stronger, good connections need to be maintained to be useful. In that sense, Connectivism seems to be very organic – much like how networks are when they are not artificially created. I imagine this is how neural networks look – although my only fleeting moment of biology schooling was helping my wife study for the RN exam. Of course, to many people this may have been a self-evident idea, but I hadn’t grasped that the network that Downes and Siemens were speaking of were not only the ones made of fibre. As Mike Watt would say, “Baka!”
It’s also been interesting seeing the Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing dynamic that I’ve been reading about in the Bens text “Facilitation with Ease” for the facilitation course, and then to have a forum post about it – brilliant timing. It’s uncanny that my sense of timing is so good.