I promised to write a summary of the responses I received to this post on blogging as reflective practice, so here it is (better late than never!).

Not only did I write about blogging as a mechanism for learning on this blog, I wrote about it on EMC’s internal social media site (EMC|ONE) as well. Here is a summary of the responses from both places:

• Blogging is used to interact with communities of special interests if none exist in your current network. Sometimes people were pleasantly surprised that blogging introduced them to peers they didn’t even know about until these people commented on their blog posts.
• Some people seemed to appreciate the benefits of the reflection they had to do to write a post more than the amount of comments a post received.
• Blogging helps show how online networks evolve and react to information.
• Blogging helps open up new ways to think about a topic.
• Blogging is much more than a “training tool”, it is a “career tool”. I think this is important – I framed the question in a strict instructional technology sense. But I was quickly called on that, and reminded that blogging really is a career tool – it’s probably one of those “knowledge worker skills” that people working with information should really become proficient.
• Many people (including myself) can’t blog about their day-to-day activities, but blogging has helped them learn more about the industry in which they work.
• Blogging helps open up new avenues for development. By reflecting and writing on different topics, as well as expanding your professional network, new ways to use your current skills start opening up.
• A couple of people reminded me of how things used to be done. People used to take the time to write journals, letters, and other written forms of correspondence. Sitting down to physically write these documents required people to slow down and really think about the ideas they were trying to convey in written format. Maybe blogs are a throw-back to those times.

So, I think we can definitely say that blogging can be used to learn. Blogging makes people slow down, think about their topics, and reflect on what they know (or what they think they know). Blogging helps to expand a personal or professional network.

I would think blogging can also be used as an instructional technology for an individual educational event such as a class, or even better a boot camp.

For myself, I’ll continue to blog for all of the reasons listed above. I’m learning so much about our industry, and also learning so much about education. My network has really expanded, I am bummed the economy is tanked because I can’t see me being able to travel to a conference to meet any of them in person. We’ll just have to keep building ties until things look up, or a conference rolls into Boston.

The last two days EMC held its 2nd annual Innovation Conference, right in the Education Services building. I was lucky enough to be given a last-minute invite to the conference. I attended last year’s conference (as a judge, not sure how that happened!), and both times the event has been very energizing and encouraging.

You may be thinking: wait! This blog is all about education! Why would Gina go to a geeky engineer science fair? Well, I am a geek. Our group writes technical training, so all of us are very technical and geeky. It is great to have a different connection to the engineering folks we work with to get our product training ready for consumption.

Plus I had two submissions of my own! They were both education based. One was very very innovative – in fact several of the finalists submitted a key piece to my idea. Next year I’ll try to geek it up more and hide my education side.

After the conference, we had a meet-up of some of the social media types at EMC. Besides myself and Brian Rosenthal, Dave Spencer, Polly Pearson, Mark Twomey, Steve Todd, Dave Graham, Stu Miniman, and Radha Sekhar were there.

As we talked, I started thinking about the connections we have. The connections started with our internal social media site, EMC ONE. Then we moved to external social media like Twitter and Facebook. These social connections allowed our unseen business connections to surface. Here’s a quick concept map:

I’ll try to break it down:

• 4 of us had Innovation Conferences entries (One of us won 2nd place!)
• 3 people are in Engineering (one Distinguished engineer)
• 2 people in Education Services
• 2 people in Sales
• 1 person in HR, and 1 person in the CTO office
• 4 of us do work supporting the Resource Management Software organization
• We represented 3 different countries
• 8 of us are on Twitter, and 7 of us blog (which is how we all met)

It’s clear to me social media breaks through organizational silos, and as an educator this is critical. If one of the biggest competitive advantages right now is how fast your workforce can learn, educators need to be able to find the information they need in a true cross-functional manner.

So CCK08 people, how can Connectivism be used as an instructional method that connects and tunnels through these organizational silos?

Here’s a picture of the group (minus “the Daves”)

So I am wondering: are there filters being imposed in the CCK08 class? I know I am applying my own filters. I decided early on I would keep up with blog posts and posts from the CCK08 twitter network. I stay away from the Moodle boards because they are very busy, and for at least the first couple of weeks they were also very negative (from my filtered view at least).

However, I click and read all the links sent via the daily as well as links from blog posts that come via my google alert. Vilpav Baxi’s post about Passion v. Reason showed up in the google alert today. I especially appreciated this comment:

“Secondly, it is very important to be able to base one of the distinctions between ”traditional” and “connected” in groups vs. networks,  in the context of the dominant educational systems today, otherwise you do not have a base reference to what you are trying to revolutionize (and revolution is what is required, IMHO). In that vein, calling this an experience vs. a course and similar examples, only reinforce the point that we must contrast in order to expose. We must expose in order to change”

I think this is a very important point. We are taught how to learn in the “dominant educational systems” of our modern world. Even Dr. Terry Anderson acknowledged this in the Elluminate session I attended this week when he said (and I am paraphrasing from memory here) that we are taught to expect the instructor-led model, so that we expect to receive instruction (and thus have the tools to learn) from this one model. That rings true for me in Corporate Ed, because Instructor-Led training (ILT) is the method most preferred by our audiences. (A question for another post: if we are conditioned to prefer ILT, will they accept the more connected way of learning provided by Web 2.0 tools?).

Those of us who think differently, whether we are “gifted”, “dyslexic”, “autistic”, or whatever other learning label you they stick to us, may have an easier time with receiving instructions in different (more connected) ways. We had to figure ways around the normal teacher-led model to survive the dominant educational system. We are used to looking for other ways of learning.

I learned very early how to get around the library, and would check out every single book on a topic I didn’t understand, until I found some kernel of information that helped me make sense of it (my label was gifted).  I also learned my times tables from School House Rocks (I don’t do well at all with rote learning, I always want to know WHY). My oldest was taught ways to endure the onslaught of sensory information so she could have the clarity to withstand ILTs (she has Asperger’s Syndrome and Sensory Integration Disorder). My youngest was thrown anything that he would read, but the only thing that ever worked was comic books (he still hates reading). He’s in college now and still relates EVERYTHING to comics (he’s doing a project now on how political times have influence the way Batman has been portrayed in the comic).

So the questions I see are two-fold. Did I need to learn my times tables? Yes, that was important. Did I have to work at learning them? Yes because I hate rote memorization. To this day I have to sing the “Three is a Magic Number” to get some of the answers. But I would never have been able to grasp binary or hex or octal without the times tables, and I would have never finished college, and never been doing what I can do now.

Would everyone best learn the times tables the way I learned them? Probably not. My nieces both just knew their tables. I don’t understand it.  The question to me becomes: how do you ensure  that everyone in a school setting learns what we expect them to learn. And what do we expect them to learn?  Is there a list of  what kids need to learn to survive in today’s society? Won’t a teacher’s own filters influence the way she allows her students to connect to the information they need?

One thing I want to add about filters. Vilpav’s post referenced the Moodle Forum Passion v. Reason. I am still smarting from being smacked down by Stephen Downes for simply asking if his definitions were the same as or different than the sociological or ethnographic definitions for groups and networks. I never got an answer, and was made to feel like I shouldn’t have even asked for the clarification.

I think Vilpav’s comments about being able to contrast and compare these definitions are right on: we have to be able to explain these differences to have an opinion on them.

I think Stephen is (perhaps unknowingly) creating rules and language for inclusion in the CCK08 group. For example, from reading his posts on this week’s topics, he seems to very much believe the sociologist view of groups and networks. I am not sure though, and am quite unwilling to ask now. Especially after some of the remarks he makes to others to trying to engage him in the Moodle forum:

“would not expect or require you to believe this. You can believe what you want. But I would expect you to understand the distinct that is being made here. Your posts suggests that you did not understand the difference.
Certainly, you made no attempt to demonstrate that you understood – you simply took a cheap shot without thinking about it. That does not play well either in the domain of reason or passion.”

“I’m sorry to be snippy – but I’m getting very tired of students in this course saying “I disagree” or “You’re wrong” without giving me even the faintest clue about what it is that seems wrong much less concrete evidence that they’ve read the work they’re disagreeing with).”

“Finally – please don’t feel singled out here. The remarks in this post are meant not just for you but for the other members of the course. Where I am indicating a dissatisfaction, I am indicating a general dissatisfaction, not just a dissatisfaction with you. It’s not personal. I am trying in my response to point to the standards I think are appropriate in a course of this level.”

So I feel stuck a bit in this course to be honest. I do not agree with Stephen’s argument that learning is not work (see my times table argument, also the only class I ever got a C in was stupid Earth Science and the rock test. GAH. Hated it). Sometimes learning base level knowledge is work, but it’s a necessary building block to understand higher order things like algebra (and all the good logical math that makes sense and I can deal with!). I am also having a hard time figuring out what he is actually saying, how it is different from existing definitions and work in group and network theory. I even tried working it out in a wiki, without much success.

But I also now feel I can’t participate in the CCK08 discussion. For some reason my words and methods of asking aren’t what one of the leaders of the CCK08 group expects, so I am in fear of being singled out for not understanding the language and norms. Effectively a filter has been created for me and the group.

I was reading this excellent post about groups and networks and I started to think about if groups filter access to networks. I think that all of the readings this week (at least how I understand them) point to groups being a restricted entity. In other words, there are definite boundaries to a group, access is controlled, there is an accepted language and other norms, etc.

On the other hand, networks are an ad hoc, fluid connection of autonomous individuals.  But can a person’s membership in a group potentially prevent him or her from seeing a beneficial network?

In my last post I talked about group styles, or signatures. This signature includes expected behaviors, language used, clothing worn, beliefs, etc. New group members are included (or excluded) based on their knowledge and use of the group signature.

Maybe part of a group’s signature is to create barriers to the information seeking behavior that would allow individual group members to connect to different networks. I found a paper that I may rework and post about “information imposters”. Here’s the definition of an information imposter from Dr. Chatman’s class notes:

Information impostors are persons within a small group that give the illusion of having knowledge. They jam the information social system with their own psuedo-information, shutting down the information seeking process. In effect, they claim to have given all the information that is necessary, telling members of the small world that they do not need to seek for any more information.

Sounds familiar to anyone following the US elections I bet. Is it possible for a group to have information impostors that purposely obfuscate connections to an outside network?

So individuals are in groups, and groups expect certain behavior from their members. In some cases groups obscure pathways to certain types of information. Individuals can connect to networks, but only if their information-seeking behavior is not blocked by the behavior they are expected to show to remain a member of their group.

In other words, groups can filter access to networks.

Ok, I give! CCK08 is officially killing me! I’m going to try and hang in there. I think the problem is that the topics are so meaty, and interesting, that I want to only do this class and nothing else.

For instance, this post has been sitting in my head for a while. I just haven’t been able to get the words together to do real justice to the idea in my head. So I put it off, and the idea gets bigger. Then I get frustrated. It’s such an evil cycle.

How are people on the Autism spectrum affected by a network? I’m just going to bullet point my main ideas, feel free to pull them apart. I do believe that if we are talking about a new theory of learning, we have the opportunity to investigate this theory for ALL learners. So I think we should take some care to think about how this new theory of connectivism works for folks with learning disabilities.

So here is the list of my thoughts on autism and networks. It is not referenced, I just don’t have time. These are merely the thoughts of a mom with a child on the spectrum:

• Some learners won’t give any (expected) feedback about being connected to the network, but will learn from the network.
  I say expected because they probably are giving some sort of feedback, but it’s just not at the frequency that the rest of the world is listening for.
  Obvious examples of this would be non-verbal people with savant qualities. These people have an expert level of knowledge or skill in one particular area. Did this quality come from the sky? Or are they plugged into the network somehow?
• The lack of social awareness may help attach to a classroom network, but being overwhelmed with sensory data may prevent that attachment.
  One of the hallmarks of Asperger’s Syndrome, which is on the autism spectrum, is that a person with this syndrome won’t understand social cues. They have a hard time making friends (connecting to the network?), are loners, etc. But they usually also have one or two special interests for which they are experts. People on this end of the spectrum are usually very intelligent as well.
  Maybe because their lack of understanding social norms is what helps them excel in school. They are not distracted by the social cliques at school because they just don’t see them. They don’t see the social circles, so they are left out them (excluded from those networks?). But this helps them have more attention for the lessons. So while socially they seem disconnected, they are very tuned into the classroom instruction.
  That is, if they are able to tune out sensory information. Many autistic people have very sensory integration problems. So while they are oblivious to social cues, every sensory cue that is in the room is handled as a major issue to be addressed cognitively. Florescent lights, someone sweeping the hall outside, kids whispering, all of that is hard to filter if you have sensory integration disorder. Since their sensory filters don’t work to filter sensory input properly, autistic kids may be too flooded with information to attach to the classroom network.

That’s all I have so far. Sorry there’s not more hard evidence attached to my idea. What have I left out?

In the spirit of the CCK08 theme of the week (Networks) I must ask about a roadblock I am seeing in involving the masses in social media.

Does marketing own social media? The social media groups I am involved with are all run by marketers. The marketing group in my company are the early adopters of social media in the Enterprise. Marketers see the reasons for connecting, breaking through silos, etc.

But marketers don’t have to implement these solutions. They don’t have to do really deal with the fallout from people talking openly about information that needed to stay within a group. They can get righteously indignant at the IT guys who block access to the tools they want to use, since they won’t have to work 48 hours straight when one of those tools introduces a virus that makes all nodes on the corporate network inoperable.

Marketers can talk about how awesome these new tools are and how we have to open access to all of them RIGHT NOW!!!!

Which puts the rest of us in a bad position. Sometimes all that enthusiasm comes across the wrong way to folks who have t put these exciting plans into motion.

Our bosses want to know if we have time to blog, read blogs and feeds, are we really working? How is all the new media different? How will it affect current revenue streams? Or is this just another fad that marketers are getting all worked up over?

Yeah, that is where I am. I think my management sees me as too technical to do social media. Even though social media tools could help me connect to my audience. Cut through silos to give me a genuine feedback loop for the training I develop.

So let me bring this back to the network. In my company, the people who develop courses have to become SMEs. I used to be a sysadmin, and now I am expected to learn the products I write about until I am an SME. I help write our Proven Professional Certification Exams, in fact most of the courses I have been involved with support these certifications.

So marketers may want links into the geek networks that are made up of folks holding our certifications. I am already a node in that network of certified geeks. So who would have an easier time accessing that network? Someone who knows the language, the norms, etc of the network? Or someone trying to connect to the network for the first time?

In IP networking terms, my connection to the network is the least expensive because I have the fewest amount of hops before I reach the network. So, you would think that I would be a perfect candidate to facilitate social media plans for these groups.

Except I am not in marketing. I am an SME that creates technical training. Infinite Loop.

So all you SM gurus: how do I change that perception?

When we talk about networks in constructivism or group theory, my mind always compares them to computer networks. It’s the easiest reference I can pull up, since I deal with computer networking on a daily basis.

I’m going to try and post a series of posts including some mindmaps to help me make sense of my comparisons of a  computer network to the connectivist’s network.

This first map is of a compute node:

I am the world’s worst artist, so it doesn’t look like I want it to. But I am going for the concept here:

• Our Long-Term memory is like a hard drive, a place to store data
• Our Short-Term memory is like a computer’s RAM
• Our Mental Models are like filters applied to an individual compute node
• Network Connections are our access to information, just like that cable you plug into the wall to get on the internet.

To me, applying the constructivist theory of learning to how an individual learns makes sense. We are bound by what we filter with our mental models. I am comparing the mental models to filters because in a sense they are, they are social constructs so they may not allow us to search for or appreciate information we encounter from new networks.

Connectivism, to me right now at least, is everything from the Network connection out. Problem is, we have more than our own filters sifting through all the information we encounter. The network itself is filtered, and that may prevent us from ever knowing about certain networks.

I’m off to participate on a panel about Asperger’s and college (talk about filtering…), but when I get back I will try and draw out how the network filters work.

This post is going to be rather free form because I feel like I have so much in my brain that I need to get out.

One of the common explanations for the difference of connectivism and constructivism is that constructivism happens in your head, and connectivism happens out in “the network”.

My question was what about people with autism? You have autistic savants that don’t interact with the network, but they are absolute experts in their special interest.

Well someone has been studying that. Allan Snyder has figured out a way to turn off the left temporal lobe to induce a savant-like state. Basically the idea is that if the left temporal lobe is shut off, sensory data from the outside world (dare I say the network?) has direct access to your brain. It gets right to the brain’s processor, going around all of the filters that left temporal lobe has for us.

So, maybe info flows through the networks (just like computer networks), but the data is processed through filters in your left temporal node to be processed by your brain into information that is relevant to *you*. The filters are what create the relevant. Autistic people are able to absorb more of the data in raw form because their filters are inhibited for some reason.

It is obvious info flows through the network: someone that follows me on Twitter because of CCK08 saw me tweeting about autism (my daughter has Asperger’s Syndrome). Her daughter was just diagnosed as being on the spectrum, and she asked me for links so she could get some more information for herself. I threw together a quick blog post of resources. I’m pretty tapped into a very helpful network that helps me help my daughter, and now my CCK08 classmate is able to join that network too.

In networking terms, my classmate learned my routing table.

Maybe I will try to draw a picture of this from a (computer) networking point of view. Tomorrow.