Learning to live, or living to learn?

From a post to OTL discussions on learning online learning.

What not to do, and a bunch of other dangerous ideas you shouldn’t pay any attention to.

I’m doing this lesson backwards. I’m starting with assuming I’ve already learned how to be an online learner. I’ve already worked out through experience what works for me. Perhaps completely unconsciously, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good way for me to learn online.

Just because I might not know how I’m learning doesn’t mean I’m not learning.

So, before I “learn how to learn” and possibly lose track of my intuitive learning ways, I thought to try to describe them first. It comes down to, I just trust myself to be interested in the things I should be interested in. If I’m curious, I follow through. What better time for that kind of self directed learning than the days of google and billions of web sites served? Also, after life long attempts to “better structure my day”, I’m a bit jaded to advice to “set aside a time everyday to do….”. Not to say, I’m not tempted to think my life can be fixed up all nice and efficient, with no messy time conflicts and stupid late nights that get way out of hand.

Do I have the critical thinking capabilities present in the guidelines? I don’t know, I haven’t read them yet, but I do think I can focus on what’s important in someone else’s post, and relate to their ideas both on a rational level, and an empathic level. I think both are important. Also I’m tempted to think the whole online interchange is so fluid and fast that if one starts trying to filter everything through an extensive lists of guidelines, then one loses the focus on the immediacy of the medium. With Skype for example, stop to do much more than type as fast as you can and the conversation evaporates.

So, I tend to think we each already know how to learn, and how to interact effectively in conversation to “get what we want out of it”. I shy away from education being something that happens in a special space removed from life, or the rest of life, and something that happens according to guidelines and rules, when life itself does not. After all, what are we trying to learn? How to live, or how to “educate ourselves”? Wait, don’t answer that!

Day Nine: If everybody’s talking, is anyone listening?

Jan.29

Yesterday’s second half of the F2F had some more discussion about mulittasking. Pros and cons. And also learning styles, which comes down to another way of saying different strokes for different folks. Socio constructivist on one end of the spectrum, and cognitive constructionist, on the other.

Of number one interest when starting OTL course, because a lot of the issues of public online space involve designing attractive places for both informal and formal discourse, and maybe innovative ways of mixing the two. I think education is going to be competing with entertainment more and more for eyeballs and participation, so we may have to get good at Socio/Cognitive interplay. Cognitive play, and social thinking?

Also fascinated by what is good about mulit-tasking, and what not so good. Clearly it’s where we are going as a culture and a society, if not there already.
Our machines must be tended. They ring, buzz, vibrate, and sing to get our attention. It’s so sad to turn them off. =^)

Good: perhaps we are fully engaged? More of our capabilities activated rather than the passive TV world? More fully alive? A way to a more profound community based on many many more “interactions per minute” across time and space? Have friends in Norway? Have a online relationship with people one would never relate with in real life? Forgive me, but a new super complex web of inter-relation, kind of like the brains neural connections? A whole lot of discrete transactions that in their multiplicity and complexity create a new thing, a new consciousness, a new way of being a person, of being social, of thinking? A brave new world? You are borg?

Bad: Fragmented attention is not as profound as focused attention, is it? Would you rather talk to somebody when they are half paying attention to you, or fully paying attention? Or is that simply an obsolete question, because no one is ever going to be able to give that kind of attention in the future? How far are we from that now?

Ugly: Could we eventually not remember what it is like to fully connect one to one as persons? Will the idea of persons itself become transformed into multiple selves? Imago relationship theory already talks about our multiple selves.

One also wonders if multitasking is a natural fit for a particular age group? It might be a fit for those evolving at a rapid rate, such as adolescents, because it puts the emphasis on being open to change through not having a solid cohered self, but rather on continuously assuming parts and poses in a undefined world of roles and parts? What happens when this group becomes adults? Present adults once again on the other side of a generation gap that’s profound? Or are all generations making their own adaptations to and uses for the new technology? Don’t seniors have some interest in being transcendent and finding new roles to inhabit as aging effects change previous roles? Is there a group who would have a greater interest in the transformation of the flesh into the electric body?

Is it the adolescents and young adults, plus the seniors, that have the “disposable” time to be online, and the working world parents who are too busy with mudane to inhabit the new electric space?

Day Eight

Jan.27
Today was our F2F meeting with a large number of the cohort. First thing I was struck by was how many things were going on at the same time. Audio headsets, live text chat windows, and “guided” web surfing and Centra working. I had to wonder if this level of mulitasking was something some people were comfortable with all the time. Several in the cohort said this was the way an online class was. Frantic.

A couple other interesting questions…that I sort of fell into. If there are rubrics for a OTL course, does it change to respond to the changing realities of the online world. No rubrics don’t change much now was the answer. Do some courses use templates for teachers rather than have teachers design their own courses? Yes, some universities use them. Does it appear that in the future online teaching roles will be specialized. For example rather than having an OTL teacher responsible for troubleshooting for students, have a troubleshooting department?

Answer maybe more specialization will be coming. That’s what I would think.

Day Seven

Jan.26
Online communities. So far Cel460 has more life in the exchanges than I might have expected.
It’s odd to have a number of converstations running around in one’s head after logging out. The odd discontinuous sense of time seems nonetheless to grab hold of consciousness and not let go. It’s like the conversations never stop. Or one has a sort of duty by simply being in the group to keep giving the big wheel a kick or spin, to keep a certain base line momentum going. So, I’m getting more out of it, or realizing there’s a lot to get out of it, while at the same time realizing that’s it’s draining to have one’s batteries always connected, even when one isn’t actually here in front of the computer.

Other topic. If it’s generally a problematic situation to attempt to talk about religion, politics, or money, with ANYONE, is the same true online? Is there any more slack given to counter opinions just because they are said by a group member online? Do we care less online if someone disagrees, because mostly what we care about is just the connection? I did a little experimentation re religion and politics so far on Cel460 discussion group. I actually sort of stated my political views, though I framed them as being innocuously right down the middle. So far we haven’t had people referring to god, I don’t think, or maybe just a little. Is that because of the group is not into “god talk” or is it because people are being cautious at the beginning here. Or permanently cautious to talk about potentially hot subjects online.

That’s a subject that anyone who designs public online spaces has to at least think about some. How are hot button issues going to be handled. What kind of discipline or oversight is going to be exercised, exorcised by site manager(s). An awesomely difficult issue for something like SeniorsOnlineLasCruces.

Day Six

Jan.24
Textbooks arrive re OTL. I glance through them. A little. Read here and there. Do these guys know what they are talking about? Are online communites at all like art?

Because art is not really an academic exercise, is it? It’s something that precedes the academic description, rather than proceeding from it. And to the extent online communities are alive, to that extent one is somewhat unlikely to experience that life in an academic description. So, I’m wary of textbook prescriptions. On the other hand, why be closed to what people have worked hard to learn and share, even if in an academic context?

As long as I don’t have to consider anyone really an “expert”, and can take or leave what they have to say, got to listen and do the work to understand what is being said. And if I am going to help foster communities, help design communities, help create communities that bring to life the potential of online means “for a better tomorrow” then I have a lot to learn. Only so much can be learned by doing.

Brings up again the problem of intention. Designing, creating, implementing one has an intention, generally a purpose. Creating better tomorrows though is hubris isn’t it? If anyone is creating better tomorrows wouldn’t it be through the auspices of a higher power? Do we really have the wisdom necessary to improve on the present?

Not sure about the correct answer to that question. Nonetheless, I know nothing better than believing we do have purpose and we do have to act as if we can make a difference. In the realm of intentionally creating communithy online that’s an intimidating prospect.

Maybe the idea of someone being “in control” is the problem. Can one person create a community? Maybe. I revere the person who started New College at the University of Hawaii in late 60′s. Unclear to the extent he started things “on his own”. He certainly didn’t achieve a new institution as a one person project.

Any community would be “controlled” by the participants themselves because they would give it life, which is not “under control”. What then happens to the intentionality of “Creating Online Communities”?

Where is the balance point between individual intention and purpose on one hand, and out of control group life on the other?

Day Five

Jan.23
I decided to simply allow the title of the posts to float a little freely from the actual number of days I’ve been doing this. Add a little metaphoricality.
A quote from a book called “A Whole New Mind” by Daniel H. Pink. He’s quoting another person here Marcel Wanders “professional amateur.
“I am best at what I can’t do. It has become my ability to feel strong and confident in these situations. I feel free to move, to listen to my heart, to learn, to act even if that means I will make mistakes. If you want a creative life, do what you can’t and experience the beauty of the mistakes you make.”

That resonates for me today, after realizing yesterday how little I know about online communities and how big the challenge is even if one knows. It’s going to continue to be about feeling strong and confident in the face of the unknown, being present and willing to adjust and learn and act on the fly, and to make creative and interesting mistakes.

Day Four

Jan.22 late
Just finally got through to me what is implied by the term online community.
It’s not just people doing things within the lines, but it’s people doing all the things people do.
And looking at it that way, seems ridiculous to think people can be “controlled”.
Isn’t it more a matter of just trying to shape the environment a bit here and there?
Sending people down chutes and up ladders online seems kind of like orwellian control. A brave new world where
the choices are pre supplied. Is that community? But if one is trying to achieve a goal by creating online communities, it seems like some sort of manipulation is inevitable. Is this something new, or just more of the same social “achievements” by other methods?

Jan. 23 morning
On the other hand…as promised I see more than one side here…it’s not like we are going to stop doing things we think are important to do just because they involve scary steps into the unknown that bring up new kinds of problems, and questions of appropriateness, or even morality. In that sense I’m not conservative. I’m willing to be part of the fullness of the present as it departs for the future, and get on board the train with good faith. But the idea of online communities is no small idea, it implies a great deal of responsibility.

And that frightens me. I’m not as comfortable or as experienced in the teacher role as probably most of the OTL cohort. I haven’t perhaps come to terms with the way teachers take on responsibility for their class in ways that go beyond just imparting knowledge, and stimulating learning. Or that to do those things, a teacher must engage the whole person, and that requires a level of leadership and wisdom I wasn’t necessarily thinking about when taking on the OTL challenge.

If a classroom becomes a community, such as an online community, even a small sized one such as OTL, then clearly there’s the whole person engagement problem, but also the ways that the persons engage each other problem. I’m not saying it’s playing god, managing online communities, enabling online communities, but it seems close enough to be very sobering.

Day Three

Jan.22
Happy to receive some feedback to some of my webCT posts. Even though I was kind of tip toe-ing along the edge of propriety, there was at least one or two that appreciated that kind of communication. What seems to be coming up just in a few days of doing this, is that there’s meta levels here. We are students, learning to be teachers online, and doing that online, and in a way teaching ourselves, and each other all at the same time. I find this fascinating, and rich with possibilities for understanding communication in general, and learning useful tools for specific situations, and hopefully gaining a foundation level competence for forming online communities in the future. Perhaps the near future, as I have to get my grant application for SOL in today.

Day Two

Jan.21
Struck by the social complexity of an online community. It’s kind of like throwing a party, one has to account for the melding of a group of people who may very well have different personalities and communication styles. To say nothing of culturual differences, gender and age differences, political and religious differences. In a sense it’s the best of democracy in action because the medium seems to be a egalitarian one. Equal access, few barriers to participation.

But it’s also so open ended and undefined, that the question of “the rules of the game” becomes paramount. How can it be made comfortable for everyone without making it too impossibly superficial and boring that no one wants to participate. Well, one way might be to take steps to try to “keep it real”. We all do hunger for community, but we want at least the semblence of something beyond just platitudes and talk of the weather. Posturing of various kinds seems to have a place, with some relation to drama and theater…the costumes, lighting, sets, accompanying music track, have there counterparts in the online experience. There’s a heightened and foreshortened experience similar to the theater. New forms of communication and presentation that fit the new media. A certain flippancy, snarky wise guy everybody’s a comic, along with an odd feelilng of it being safe to expose one’s normally hidden side to the “public”.

I posted two different kinds of pictures of myself, sort of to test things out a bit. One a sort of glamour shot in a beautiful spot, and the other, intentially grungy ugly up 24 hours look. Does that help people feel comfortable with me, or just freak people out? It’s so easy to be phony online, but it’s also a fair amount of work to actually pay attention to what other people are saying and give them some feedback. It’s a paradox, because we don’t really know the people we are revealing intimate details of our lives to. What’s up with that?

I kind of let it all hang loose in my bio, though of course I avoided talking about plenty of things. If I’m writing it, I’m not even answering anyone’s questions, so I control more than what would be written about me in a media story. How does an online community become really a conversation, rather than a lot of people just talking AT each other? Well, it would no doubt need both some form that has developed and proved useful to encouragae such interchange, plus some sort of organic process where participants discover for themselves how to make it real, how to get out of it what they really need.

The web of course is littered with voices unheard in a vacuum of disinterest or in abundance of information sickness. Conversations where people try to connect, try to say something other than hello, here I am, are you there, and now what? But go no further. What is it that gets past this? Must be both a sense of real social connection, and a sense of something real being talked about.

Are the numbers of talkers and the numbers of listeners evenly distributed in the universe? What if the group is all talkers and no listeners? Or vice versa?
Does online allow an overthrow of personal limitations or patterns found in other social situations? Timid liberated to tell it like it is?

And a fine line between leading online, and getting too far out. Just like the fundamental problems of the avante garde, if one loses contact with the group then there’s absolutely nothing going on. That’s when the artists get burned at the stake.

All community meetings have certain dynamics in common. Male and female roles. Pecking order and ego trips. Power trips. Acting out our demons and neurosis, and simple calls for help, and just getting it off one’s chest. And what happens when someone tells a blue joke in mixed company, or transcends limits a bit too much? Who plays the social moderator? The moral arbitrator? The group policeman? The one who draws the line and initiates ostracism?

day one

Jan. 19
Excited to begin, and excited to read bios which is a good starting point.
Notice some of what we are doing seems as focused on instructors gathering and learning from students as vice versa. Or at least some of that going on. But that’s appropriate because we need to learn the perspective of teachers as we go. Or maybe that’s just normal paranoia. Also of interest that while there seems to be a lot of “intro” activities, and somewhat non-linear in presentation, there’s also a feel of trying out, and doing a bit of this and a bit of that, which is less intimidating than some other more controlled approach.
Instructor bios all interesting. But…What if it was video instead of pix and text? Maybe more than one pic of each instructor. Or what if it was actually a webpage designed by each instructor instead of static. What are the boundaries here, when the “subtext” is the whole world wide web? I noticed when this posted it says 11:30pm. Where in the world is this being served from? It’s actually seven hours earlier where I’m coming from…

Jan.20
This day started actually late last night. Dangers of late night posting in that who knows what one might say. Interesting questions about what the proper tone for interactions in an online learning course might be. Different online situations are different…or do they tend to end up the same becauase they are online? It’s not like anyone knows if I’m typing away naked, or sitting in front of the ocmpuer in a coat and tie. What are people comfortable with? Is that important, should one try to fit social expectations? Or just be one’s self? Or push the envelope some? Trying to do my part to create a social environment, but what happens when one of the guys makes a one of the guys type joke. The women are going to cringe, I think. How do I know if they are cringing?

How personal is it appropriate to get? Is it necessary to try a bit harder to expand personal zone to make up for lack of immediacy, and live faces?