Trying to participate in the Connectivism extravaganza along side attendance at ALT-C 2008 was a bit manic. I have dodged about, skimming. occasionally diving into the Moodle discussion, missing the synchronous events, doing the readings late.
So what can I do in this blog post? A partial reflection on my very partial participation, looking at three fairly random ideas
1. How to choose
Describing my participation as ‘partial’ is apt. Confronted with the torrent of (mainly) words, I have adopted a grazing approach to reading and contributing. That means my participation is partial in that I only look at part of what’s there, and partial in that I use my preferences/prejudices/chance to choose what I look at (someone I know, someone who looks ‘interesting’, what George and Stephen have to say).
2. Noise and Style
The Introductions thread started in a very friendly fashion, with international contributions, civility and charm. I really felt that an inclusive yet challenging atmosphere was developing. In the Moodle forums, people started to engage in exploring their understandings of connectivism. Then Catherine Fitzpatrick’s posts began to pop up with increasing frequency. From what I can gather Catherine (Prokofy in SL) has been the centre of controversy elsewhere e.g. Linden Blogs. Her posts were very interesting in that they expressed her views articulately and with force. She attracted many responses, even a blog post from Stephen Downes. What interested me was the impact of her dialogic style on her contribution to the discussion. She was certainly critiquing connectivism (which I welcome) but her tendency to label (”techno-communism”) and misinterpret others really got in the way of any critical engagement with ideas. For example (and there are many), Catherine made the statement “You act as if the university needs radical change” in the comment thread of Stephen Downes post (see link above). I wondered who the ‘you’ was and how Catherine formed this view. I didn’t spend long wondering this, though. I quickly formed the resolution to avoid responding to her.
I do wonder what impact she is having on the participation of others. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.
3. Visibility of networks
This quote from Bill Kerr’s critique caught my eye “Network based learning theories might be more visible because the network is more visible”. I am not quite sure what it means but the visibility of knowledge networks is certainly something that I hope we look at in the coming weeks. My initial thoughts are that the visibility of a network of knowledge might make it more useful (just as the visibility of a social network makes it more useful to more people) in that it focuses our attention on it. On the other hand, this may privilege visible (usually online) networks at the expense of other, valuable yet less visible networks (e.g. ideas expressed in books not yet online). This may be an argument for digitising but what do we do in the mean time?
5 responses so far ↓
1 Catherine Fitzpatrick // Sep 15, 2008 at 8:33 am
Well, nice way to keep your complacency intact, then!
People are not “exploring Connectivism” so much as drinking it in with big gulps and hoping to fit in. It’s a terribly smarmy atmosphere.
Stephen Downes and George Siemens are definitely all about radical change of the university. Everything they write, speak, and think is about repudiating and undermining traditional modes of teaching involving experts and transfer of knowledge. The entire theory of Connectivism is a challenge not just to other progressive educational theories like constructivism; it’s far more radical in challenging them and challenging the foundations of academe as they have stood for hundreds of years.
You may think that’s a good thing; but don’t misrepresent this as something they are *not* doing.
A term like “techno-communism” scares you because you think communism shouldn’t be criticised forcefully, and shouldn’t even be taken seriously, because it is either in the past, or was “a good idea with bad execution”. You fail to see that this ideology of Connectivism gives it a new lease on life, saying this time, they’ll really make it work with new scientific tools. Everything will be free, externalized, networked, distributed, equal, and the state will wither away…
2 Frances // Sep 15, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Thanks for replying Catherine. Why are you telling me what I think? or what I am scared of, or that I am saying “saying this time, they’ll really make it work with new scientific tools.”
I am sure that some good critique can come out of this MOOC activity, probably mainly through people getting together (maybe even away from some of the busy spaces), listening to each other, with the possibility that minds may be changed.
3 Catherine Fitzpatrick // Sep 16, 2008 at 5:04 am
I’m giving you a report on what you think, Frances. Take it or leave it. You sure felt entitled to give out a decidedly biased opinion, “her tendency to label (”techno-communism”) and misinterpret others really got in the way of any critical engagement with ideas.” You decide what is effective or ineffective — like you can go around giving Good Housekeeping Seals of Approval. Why are you telling me what to think?
I didn’t mislabel Connectivism as techno-communism; it *is* technocommunism in at least 10 ways I can outline, and if you’re interested, I can expand on it, but clearly the mere appearance of the word “communist” to describe anything or judge about anything sent you into reaction that something “wrong” might be afoot. This has to do more than anything with your existing feelings about communism, which, I’d be willing to bet (as it is often the case) is that it is “a good ideal, but executed poorly”.
That’s what you’re scared of: someone declaring something to be communist. It sounds terribly “Cold War” or “politically correct” and all that to you, and worries you. But it’s actually a very good descriptive term for an awful lot of the Web 2.0 mania which has been coded and promulgated by people who in fact have very hard left, even communist views in some cases, and/or promulgate the memes. To cite but a few concepts:
o everything is free, opensource, for the People
o no one is in charge, except, of course, the people who really *are* in charge but they are the avant garde
o distribution of all property to the network, collective ownership of knowledge
o the ends justifies the means
It really doesn’t bother me if somebody winces upon hearing the word “technocommunism” and begins to fuss and fume that my delivery or persuasiveness isn’t effective. Trust me, it’s what it takes to get people to see that it *is communist* in some of its manifestations. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t believe very fervently in the need to be come aware of the tendency toward totalitarianism in everything being built now, which is even more insidious in that it flies under the banner of ‘openness’ or ‘freedom’ or “personal democracy”.
I think it’s funny that nobody gets their back up over Jared Lanier writing about “Digital Maoism”
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/lanier06/lanier06_index.html
most likely because he’s a famous IT guy with credentials.
And guess what — none other than Joi Ito, who runs a lot of Internet architecture stuff behind the scenes, calls what he is doing “venture communism”. They are very explicit about this, and laugh about it.
4 Frances // Sep 16, 2008 at 6:33 am
What troubles me is the gap between what you report I think and what I actually said.
Thanks for the link to this article. I hope that critical engagement with utopian approaches to the role of the Internet in education will occur at CCK08. One thing that Lanier said made me smile
“But there are similarities, and the lack of a coherent voice or design sensibility in an esthetic sense is one negative quality of both open source software and the Wikipedia.”
Those of us who work with the most used proprietary Virtual Learning Environment Blackboard can confirm that having a commercial is no guarantee of a good user interface.
5 ailsa // Oct 9, 2008 at 12:38 am
Hi Frances, thanks for linking your blog from 2006 to CCK08. I enjoyed tripping around in here, i now see what you had been up to, with the knitting especially! Loved the 21st century camping photo and also your blog posting about being in your students shoes. I found your space to be a thought provoking space with lots of good humour included. Left me smiling.
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