Just catching up on the start of Connectivism & Connective Knowledge 2009 – a Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) being offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes from the University of Manitoba. (Search this blog for CCK08 to see posts from last year’s class.)
This year I am making a conscious effort to not feel pressured to participate in the synchronous components of the course. If I can attend the synchronous meetings on the web or in Second Life, I will, but I want to experiment with taking full advantage of the flexibility of this kind of course format – can I get as much out of the class, and the connections with other course participants, in a mostly asynchronous way? I think so!
This will be in contrast to the Second Life cohort I facilitated last year, we met weekly in Second Life to discuss the course readings and the mechanics of taking a MOOC, which was a new experience for most of us last year. This year, Sharon Collingwood (SL: Ellie Brewster) from Ohio State University has taken over the SL Cohort, and she’s posted details on the course Moodle:
SECOND LIFE COHORT for CONNECTIVISM & CONNECTIVE KNOWLEDGE 2009
PRELIMINARY GET-TOGETHER & ORIENTATION SESSION, Sunday Sept 20
at 4pm Eastern U.S. time (1 pm Second Life time, as read at the top right-hand corner of the Second Life screen) This is bound to be inconvenient for some people, we’ll talk about meeting times then.To get to the meeting, sign up for the Second Life group “Connectivism and Connective Knowledge”
– search menu, “groups” tab, find Connectivism & Connective Knowledge
– follow link, find group profile, click “join”
– be sure group is activated (>>edit >>groups)
– read previous messages (>>info >>notices)IF YOU’RE NEW TO SECOND LIFE:
Check your system: http://secondlife.com/support/system-requirements/
sign up for Second Life: http://secondlife.com/
Become my friend
>>>search menu >>people >>Ellie Brewster >>add friend
(Feel free to friend me in Second Life, too, my name there is Fleep Tuque of course.)Â 🙂
The introductory videos by George and Stephen are good starting points if you’re not sure what the course is, how it works, or what Connectivism is, and I’d highly encourage you to participate if you have any interest in education, learning theories, how technology is changing how we learn, or how large open distributed courses can be delivered on the web – it’s free after all and fun too!
George’s introduction video:
Stephen’s introduction video:
Tags: cck09, Connectivism, Education, George Siemens, Higher education, learning, learning theories, MOOC, Second Life, Stephen Downes