And here is your footprint, Jaap, side-by-side with Lisa's i.e. her designer perspective and your participant perspective.
To me the footprints look quite similar in many respects - but there are some differences. Do you have any comments about this Jaap, Lisa?
Differences could just be the use of a different scale ( Like Lisa is using Fahrenheit and I am using Celcius).
I had to look at the wiki when writing this post for reading the description of the critical factors. So my interpretation or understanding of the factors could be different from Lisa's.
Big differences in opinion is in our view on diversity and multiple pathways and on IDentity and on Theory of Mind.
On ID: Being online student in this kind of course is new to me. Have to adopt some new roles. I guess Lisa expects students of Potcert being used to this kind of online learning. (Is this a good guess, Lisa?)
On Diversity and Multiple Pathways: The difference could in part be a difference in scale. But it could be the newness of online learning and my personal objectives with the course. One goal is to learn from within how an online course in a community college is done. (In the Netherlands online teaching is not yet part of our "Community Colleges ")
On Theory of Mind: I am from another culture. Mutual conversations in Southern California need to be understood in a kind of anthropological way. (e.g. Compliments in US conversations have a different value than compliments in Dutch conversations) That is why I put the dot for ToM on another place than Lisa.
I did participate in some MOOCs (e.g. CCK11 and Change11) and that could be a cause of my different view on learning even in a rather prescribed course like Potcert. (I really do like Potcert. A prescribed course does certainly not not mean a low-value course). A course will be emergent if student and course do have a fit together. A non-imaginative student in a very emergent course could experience the course as a non-emergent course.
Many thanks for these explanatory points Jaap. I think inevitably indviduals will be working on slighty different scales - and I would suspect that this is the case in any form of reflection/evaluation exercise. What I like about the footprints is that they show so clearly how unique the learner experience is - and therefore how challenging it is to draw any generalisations about it at all!
However, you have pointed to the influence of prior experience on the drawing of footprints. I do agree with you that past experience, for example of a MOOC, is likely to affect how the factors are interpreted. I myself have found that I tend to judge factors such as autonomy, diversity and so on in relation to my experience of CCK08 - so I am not challenged by these as much as maybe someone who is more used to working in prescribed learning environments might be. That is why the descriptions that go with the footprints are also very important.
I completely agree though that a prescribed course does not mean a low-value course and I very much like how you have described this - A course will be emergent if student and course do have a fit together. Fitness for purpose is something we have always thought important, but perhaps we should emphasise more.
Hi Lisa, Jaap and Scott
Thought you might like to see your footprints all together.
Mine's biggest! Is that important?
Only if you are competitive ;-)
Helen attended the webinars and has drawn a footprint of her experience of the Exploring Personal Learning Networks online seminar. She has blogged about it here - and I have copied her footprint below.
Helen has provided me with more information about her footprint today - which I have added to our wiki - see
http://footprints-of-emergence.wikispaces.com/Exploring+Personal+Learning+Networks+-+Helen+Crump
Now that we are getting to the end of our time here, I would like to start copying all the footprints across to the wiki. If you have any objections to me doing this, please could you let me know.
Many thanks to all for your footprints. It has been fascinating to see them.
Adding my footprint to this list. My response is based on the first half of POTCert 13 where I combined roles as a moderately abscent student and helper / "expert" / discussion mixer / irritant. Found the template a bit of a pain and hope to get my tablet running for drawing rather than mousing.
Put notes here and there on the graphic and made a list of my reactions to each of the 25 characteristics which I would like to discuss with Lisa first.
I'm not personally good with novelty and have to settle new things before I can work with them. So to me, each dot location varied as initial edginess eased back into familiarity.
Conclusions I wrote previously remain intact. The challenge I found with the footprint was the implied valuing or judgement I feel from all rating systems. Much of what we deal with in life is what it is and rating it from the outside is a kind of absurdity. From art class critiquing the primary point is whether someone achieved something from their creation that matters to them. External comment that doesn't focus on assisting someone to be settled in themselves is not useful.
Scott - thanks so much for sharing your footprint. It is fascinating to see this - and now that we have received 3 POTCert footprints I am quite tempted to do one of my own from my perspective of contributing to the delivery and moderation of one of the weeks in the 2012 course.
I am really interested in the way you have given some factors two scores. This is not the first time this has happened. As you have found out - it is only possible to draw a footprint for a snapshot in time, because the learning experience is constantly dynamic and changing. That is why it is helpful to draw footprints at different stages in a course to see how your perceptions change over time. I picked up this wonderful Prezi on Twitter over the weekend which describes a PhD student's rollercoaster ride. She is describing the changes over 3 years - but my experience is that these ups and downs happen through any course, however short.
You have said that you found the template 'a pain'. My sympathies - I did too to begin with. It took me a long time to get used to it - and in fact the way I work now is to take an existing footprint and use that as a base - moving the points to where I need them to be for the new footprint. And Yes - we haven't yet sorted out how to get this to work on mobile devices or even on all versions of Word - as we found out in a face-to-face workshop we ran. So we still have a lot to do in that respect.
And finally you have said The challenge I found with the footprint was the implied valuing or judgement I feel from all rating systems. Again - I completely understand this having struggled with it myself. For me drawing the footprints forces me to be committed to how I position the points at that time. The evidence of what I think at that time is made very concrete and visible by the drawing process and outcome - so that puts a greater owness on me to make sure that I am being as honest and fair as I am able. An interesting if somewhat uncomfortable challenge!
Jenny,
Regardless of how I feel about assessing things this way the fact is we need some way to express our experience of a course that rises above the usual exit surveys that are brief and meaningless. As this is my first serious attempt, it's not surprising I found a bit of a slog. As I learn the 'language' of the environment things should get easier.
Comparing mine to Lisa's and Japp's prints reveals as much about the polarized, all-or-nothing way I think. Trying new things unsettles me, making first reactions judgemental, but strangely often correct. While it helps me in editing on a tight schedule it also requires being mindful and 'versioning' my judgements. So a first reaction may be critical that eases back into a second opinion as I become comfortable with something.
My model of reviewing things comes from critiquing in fine arts classes which is about supportive honesty. Acting as another set of eyes for someone obligates you to respect their effort the way you do with anthing you are asked to do by a friend.
Ramdom thoughts:
Do you think a way around being too bound up in the time element would be to think in cycles of experience? I'm thinking that emergence might seem most afforded by the disorientation of chaotic beginnings but Maria's mentioning not to underestimate the power of young children to sort the world suggest we might overestimate 'innocence' or inexperience. (This comes to me from the idea that emergence is a form of misunderstanding "rules" or the process of completion. When, in fact emergence is actually a new understanding that is amazingly or unexpectedly complete).
Hi Scott -
> Comparing mine to Lisa's and Japp's prints reveals as much about the polarized, all-or-nothing way I think
For me, this is a great sentence, because it is evidence that the footprints are not just a course evaluation tool; they support reflection and surface tacit knowledge and understanding.
> emergence is actually a new understanding that is amazingly or unexpectedly complete
And - yes - this is exactly how I see it.
Thanks for your comments.
Jenny,
Seeing the sharp spikes made me think about how similar my reactions are at the begining of all new courses. After a while I settle down to a less pointy footprint without the exreme shifts. The image shape made me think about this as something to think about rather than just "know." Surfacing of tacit knowledge as you call it is a very useful outcome. Looking at the course I see myself looking--interesting.
