Paul Stacey

Hi everyone:

This forum is proving to be very stimulating. Great to see the level of participation and contributions from all.

I'm moderating the upcoming live synchronous sessions in this the second week featuring Tom Carey, Gilbert Paquette, George Siemens and Heather Kanuka.

In the spirit of produsage I thought I'd post this open invitation inviting advance questions or requests you'd like to ensure the presenters address. I'll do my best to ensure your questions/requests are woven in and addressed by presenters. We will of course welcome questions and requests during the live session too.

Looking forward to the coming week.

Paul

Dear UCIPD Colleagues:

I'm pleased to extend the attached invitation to UCIPD for five members to attend a Learn Together Strategy and Planning Day on Jan. 14, 2008. This event brings together SCETUG, UCIPD and the Northern Developers Network for the first time, to share current activities, discuss plans, and work toward common aspirations. I look forward to it being the first of many such collaborations supporting the build out of professional development capacity across post secondary.

Paul Stacey
Director of Development
BCcampus
555 Seymour Street, Suite 200
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada, V6B 3H6
phone: 604-412-7736
fax: 604-677-6273
web site: http://www.bccampus.ca

Hi all:

Thanks to all those who participated in today's kickoff Elluminate session exploring the Social Media Landscape.
If you missed it and want to check it out or were there and want to revisit it the recording of this Week 1 session is available at the following link:

https://sas.elluminate.com/site/external/installinfo/playback?psid=2007-11-13.1036.M.17041726D52CD6EBF6DDE85D1FFEE8.vcr

Next weeks session will feature Jason Toal speaking on tagging.

Hope to see you there.

Paul

(Edited by Sylvia Currie - original submission Tuesday, 13 November 2007, 02:55 PM. Notes: I edited the link for the recording.)

Hi UCIPD'ers:

As a follow-up to the presentation I made at your last UCIPD meeting I'm pleased to announce the BCcampus 2007 Online Program Development Fund has now been officially announced.

The 2007 round of the Online Program Development Fund has two categories:

1. Courses and Co-created Content

2. Professional Development

Of special note is the inclusion of Professional Development. The 2007 OPDF acknowledges the growing importance of complementing online learning development and delivery with educator professional development resources on how to effectively do so.

A complete description of the guidelines for each of the two categories, along with an FAQ, and application form is available from the BCcampus web site at: http://www.bccampus.ca/EducatorServices/CourseDevelopment/OPDF/CallForProposals.htm

In recognition of the upcoming summer vacation period the deadline for receiving proposals is September 28, 2007.

Feel free to forward this information on to others you think may be interested.

A frequent request in the previous four years of Online Program Development Funding, has been for support in the formation of partnerships across institutions wanting to submit collaborative proposals. In 2007, to support formation of joint partnerships BCcampus has established a 2007 OPDF discussion and partnership formation discussion forum in both the EdTech Online Community (for partnership formation between and among public post secondary institutions) http://community.bccampus.ca/bccampus?go=1584130 and the BC eLearning Marketplace and Expo Community (for partnership formation between public post secondary institutions and BC eLearning companies and not-for-profits) http://community.bccampus.ca/expo?go=1584153. BCcampus encourages the use of these forums to find, develop and sustain OPDF collaborations.

As UCIPD members you may want to use this SCOPE forum to discuss potential professional development proposals too.

Response to the previous four rounds of the OPDF has been very positive resulting in many innovative projects.

We look forward to building on that momentum with this 2007 round.

Paul

Hi everyone.

George, thanks for participating in our chaotic Elluminate session. Your ability to speak to such divergent questions was amazing. I probably should have reined the session in a bit and ensured you had a chance to present the fundamental concepts of knowing knowledge before getting in to the many deep questions that were asked but your book encourages embracing chaos, confusion, emotion and not knowing as part of the learning ecology so I let it go. And you did great – albeit speaking at warp speed!

I noticed in the Elluminate session, and its probably true here in this discussion forum too, that some are very familiar with your work and have read your book Knowing Knowledge, while others are less familiar with your work and may not yet have read your book.

I thought it might be useful as a foundation piece for discussion to reference what you describe as the five broad purposes of your Knowing Knowledge book which are:

1. To conceptualize learning and knowing as connection based processes.
2. To explore the nature of change in the context in which knowledge exists.
3. To explore the change in the characteristics of knowledge itself.
4. To present knowledge as a context game.
5. To present a model for the spaces and structures which will serve the needs of our organizations (schools, universities, and corporations) for tomorrow.

It might be useful to explore each of these a bit so to get that started I have a few questions related to each purpose. It would be great to hear what you and others have to say about each of these as we all learn together about knowing knowledge.

1. Knowing Knowledge argues that capacity for connection forming lies at the heart of knowledge exchange today and that design of methods, organizations, and systems benefit most by allowing greatest opportunity for connectivity. I love the way this shifts learning away from content consumption to interaction. It seems to me this corresponds to the old adage “Its not what you know its who you know.” If knowledge is based on connecting with people how should our schools and universities adjust their methods of teaching?
2. The context for knowledge is related to our own personal context - our physical state, our spiritual beliefs, our social context, our cognitive abilities. We all have our own perspective. Your book suggests that learning is like opening a door to a new way of perceiving and knowing – adopting a different perspective. Should we transition formal education from localized activities happening within defined geographic boundaries to more global activities in order to benefit from diversity of world views?
3. The preface to Knowing Knowledge states that knowledge has changed from categorization and hierarchies to networks and ecologies. I think I can see the relationship of networks to connectivism but ecologies is a bit tougher. How is knowledge an ecology? In biological terms I understand an ecology to be the abundance, distribution and interactions between organisms and their environment. I don’t quite see how knowledge is an ecology.
4. See question 2.
5. I’m very interested in the implications of knowing knowledge and connectivism on educational structures and spaces. Technology and online learning environments are changing the education habitat from being a physical classroom and school to that of a virtual environment involving interactions with others outside the physical habitat. This seems in keeping with connectivism but suggests virtual habitat needs as much attention as the physical one. What suggestions do people have for both the design of these virtual spaces as well as the redesign of existing physical spaces to be connectivist friendly?

Paul