This page has moved

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your interest in this site - we have moved, rolling all our work into one site at www.reinventinglife.org. The doctorate life blog has moved to the WorkLife Menu under doctorate mentoring.

The new site gives you lots of opportunity for increased interaction in the forum - accessed after signing in by clicking on the discussion link in the top right of the page.

See you there,
Alana

Passion about use of technology in schools

Two blogs in one day? The following is a cut and paste from a student of mine who was commenting that for schools to spend money on technology before they are teaching to standards seems inappropriate. My comments follow:

Hi to both of you,

I want to wade in on this one because (with humbleness but a great deal of passion) I don't think your analogy of technology to money works. What is the goal of education? To meet standards or to prepare our young people for the world they will inherit? When my homeless students have web pages so they won't lose track of their friends when they move, yet our schools don't have computers for word processing the students papers, education is out of sync with the world. If homeless students know how to access free technology then we can count it ubiquitous.

When our students know more about the basic tools of their lives with technology than their teachers - we have become like the English as a second language parent who uses their children to translate at the doctors office - and really inappropriate things result. Somehow an entire generation (starting with mine) thought that learning technology, preparing for it etc was an option - not in the world our children inherit - they know it and education looks really dumb that schools spend money on buildings that come from the industrial revolution when we don't have the tools they need for tomorrow.

I see the "but they can't even write" comment by teachers still teaching using tools that aren't interesting to their students as similar to doctors in the age when antibiotics were coming of age asking, "but have we used Willowroot yet?" Just as we will always have natural herbs, most of the world's medical problems were overcome through the use of antibiotics. Just as we will still have herbal remedies, we will always have fountain pens - but students know they need keyboards - as kids in Nigeria are learning through cell phones. Education first and foremost needs to meet children where they live and they live in a world of technology - whether we do or not. Technology will be a major player in solving the issue of illiteracy - but we have to use it because our kids want to.

How's that for passion?
Alana

A PAR cycle in website design

Hi everyone,

As I write this I am in the middle of a big PAR cycle – done with the intention of putting up a web presence for myself, one that models the complexities my life and who I am. After all, if people want to work with me they deserve to have a fairly good idea of not only my skills but also the ideas and personality I will bring to the mix.

As you all know, I use participatory action research (PAR) for both my personal and professional patterns of research and growth. My move into designing and managing my own site is playing out like a perfect PAR cycle. The graphic above explaining the process was done by Alan Bucknam at Notchcode design for the book we did together on the subject. I’ll take you through how the process has worked for me on this latest journey into web development (remember this is a field in which I am a complete novice).

Diagnosis: For six months or more I have been reading blogs by people who specialize in social media, communicating in business etc. I will have a links page on the new site that sends you off to all of these really great people, for whom I am very grateful. I have hundreds of bookmarks and have spend tons of time reading, thinking, drawing out ideas, feeling frustrated, and then reading again. Throughout my diagnosis of what I want these writers and thinkers have helped me craft my ideas.

When I can get to the point of clearly stating my goals I know I am ready to move into the next phase (action). My goals for this website are to:

1. Encourage rather than discourage exchange of ideas and interactions between people who just happened to stop in and would like to add “their two cents”,

2. Give a format for my writing as I sort and weave together the ideas that are changing my practice as an educator (distributed content and PAR for development purposes).

3. Encourage others to want to consult with me and my associates (who are slowly showing up to work here as well) as they reinvent their personal, professional or global lives.

Action: This particular action cycle feels very big – designing and learning to put up my own website. Fortunately the Measurement cycle that is wedded to it is equally direct. Actions I take either work or they don’t. I can either get into the site or I can’t. Doors to the next step in my thinking and development are either blocked from me or they work and I can test them out. Slowly, (some days two steps back for each one forward) I have progressed (as you can see from the top picture).

The REAL measurement cycle will be when others can see it and interact – if things go well I will cross this bridge in a couple of weeks.

Reflections-could I have learned faster? Perhaps if I had had a local tutor – however the forums have helped and day by day I have progressed. It is possible that the sheer frustration of some days has helped my neurotransmitters reform to embrace new concepts more readily than if I had been taught how to do it. I know this project is helping my brain plasticity.

Will it be all that I want it to be? Probably not even close – but I am far enough into it to see my way clear to wonder why more people aren’t doing some things differently. For instance if we are saying we want to encourage community on our websites, why do we make everyone give away so much of themselves just to begin to talk to us? I would never go over and start a conversation with a stranger in the face to face world by having to give him/her my phone number first and I think online communities request too much too fast and it doesn’t fit the cycle of how people relate.

I want to share ideas first – and I want for you as my reader to be able to hear my reaction in response – then after we have interaction we can decide if we like each other enough to go further.

I also wonder if whether because I come to this as a more chronologically mature person than the majority of designers, if my ideas will be slightly different. Hopefully I will have something to add to the mix (once I get there).

Anyone reading this who would like notification of when the “real deal” website goes online – please email me at james.alana@gmail.com

All the best to you in your lives,

Alana

Social Networks and Communities= MyNews

Hi everyone,

My morning routine has changed in the last four months and I think it is worth mentioning here. For all who are currently involved in any educational or social science research practice online communities are a must on staying current. I use my book, journal and paper writing for work that is (as the Irish would say) "done and dusted." By its nature it is not what brings the greatest passion, nor does it contain HOT ideas. For those you need to find the people who blog about your world, or one tangential to it. It is also helpful if you find a few "aggregators" as well - blogs that make it their business to pass on what they are finding. I realize no that through the series of practices I discuss here I have created for myself a personal news platform - and I must say I enjoy it more than I ever did the newspaper!

My passions are three fold: distributed e-Learning 2.0, multicultural living and personal/world development. My mainpage of news is Google Reader - the blogs I have captured using RSS feed all put up synopsis's there. The bloggers write and link back to their sources, so when I am particularly interested I open those links in another tab. I cruise through as many blogs as keep me interested, then I read through the links. Those I find may be references for later work or links I will use here, I bookmark in del_ico_us. I may start and/or end reading Tweets.

Two months ago I was asking how people found those they follow and the ideas they play with - following links has become the answer. Someone will link in an article to someone they read, and if I like what I find I subscribe by RSS to their blog - after all, all I lose is a little time if they don't pan out to remain interesting to me. It humbles me to know that this link is from 2002 - but then we all have to start somewhere and I know that I am still ahead of most of the people in my work/social group with these habits. My next step is then to move into the conversation and see where it takes me.

I have lurked long enough now that some of my shyness has ended. I follow some people on both Twitter and their blogs, looking at their presentations and reading their papers or articles. When someone posts a blog or a Tweet that moves me I "chime in" and comment or respond. Occasionally they even get back to me.

I liken this all to a cocktail party cum conference. I am there for my own reasons, one of which is some desire to share community around the thoughts that interest me most (not many in my social world in Kinsale care a twit about distributed learning, although many would be interested in multicultural living). I stand in the corner with a drink in my hand, ready to throw in a line or two. As I better understand what my next main body of work will be, I simultaneously prepare to "put it out there" as I go - but that is a topic for another blog.

My bottom line to all who read this who are students - don't wait until your work is over to begin to lurk in these places. Search today for blogs on your topic, join Twitter and post a line or two, but more important follow those whose ideas you like (it is nice to see each other as people, not just ideas). You will be amazed at how enlivening your morning "newspaper" can be to your intellectual life.

Further thoughts:

• read about different types and reasons for networks
  
• we may need help doing this - watch for sites with community managers to help us figure this all out
• I am considering what Chris Brogan has written about what a community manager would do for my site as I develop it.
  

More as we go,
Alana

Follow your inspiration

Hi everyone,

Thanks to one of my doctoral students for being the inspiration for this post. I am frequently confronted with folks who want exemplars (this I can understand) and/or who are insecure to do what they think is best and want to follow "the" model." This is what the rest of the educational system breeds, so no harm in following the path that lead you to success in the past. However .......

I would coach (others may disagree) NOT to change from your ideas to match a model given in a course. Why? Because those choices are stale. At some point in the past your course content author or professor chose a few exemplars - but once the choice was made it became static. Words on the other hand are fresh - so when you become inspired from words, don't turn back to match the older models.

What may work best, and a system of which I am a big advocate, is to adopt an "and/both" stance. Try to incorporate the ideas that inspired you AND those which make sense from an exemplar. However my bottom line here is to coach for you to stay true to your spirit. A doctorate is to be a rite of passage from one place to that lofty doctorateness status (smile). Only by being true to your spirit (from which inspiration comes) can you get there with grace.

Of course if your own spirit leads you to want to follow an exemplar exactly - so be it. Put this in the back of your mind and let it hatch as a new way of being in its own time and space.

all the best,
Alana

Disributed Learning 2.0

Hi everyone,

The times they are a changing! If your interest is in the future of education, I don't have to outline it for you - the manufacturing of content is redundant - and like artists for the last hundred years, those of us who like to create content just need to get used to that redundancy and carve our niche somewhere else rather than focused on its uniqueness. As Dylan put it (in what was the most exciting period -before this one) that I have experienced in my life.....

Admit that around you the waters
Have grown and accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone. If your time to you
Is worth saving'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a changin'.

It is appropriate that I use Dylan for this analogy, because what the 60's taught me and the rest of my generation was the fun and the excitement that can come with both change and helping the world evolve. That then is where I lay my hat in the next evolution of my life as a facilitator of education: How can Learning 2.0 be used to help personal lives, businesses and education, and the community systems of the world evolve?

In future weeks look for discussions on the website I will be starting up where these ideas can be discussed, projects taken on by doctoral students I am mentoring, and my own support of personal growth retreats, permaculture and clowning (as the nonprofit based in the US ReinventingLife.org) gets off the ground.

All the best for now, more soon,
Alana

Re Content and Reputation - Ideas spurred by George Siemens

Hi everyone,
As I was reading Twitter yesterday George Siemens had posted that he had presented on Connectivism and Instructional Design and it was not well received. I had to look! I printed and have reflected on the following slide from that presentation and would love to put it up here for comments and consideration......(with a HUGE caveat that this is only one slide, out of context and not probably one that was intended to engender this level of focus).

He points to three tension points: finding quality content, creating a pathway through it as we learn and fostering connections between teachers and learners. If our larger educational context moves more to the world without courses that he imagines, then I agree with his tension points- in ascending order as they are listed. For now the online universities that I work for largely manage all three of these tensions for our doctoral students (for which they receive hefty fees largely supported by student loans). This brings to mind questions of the transitioning of our world economies and whether and to what extent personal debt will continue to finance our institutions, but that is a subject for another post.

What interests me today, and links with my earlier post about doctorate life's rite of passage into peer-dom within academia, is that reputation is linked to "sustained participation in a learning network (ie the distributed world that evolves out of ideas that interest us). I want to unpack the idea of reputation using his three columns and adding another one: Educational Practice. Maybe he just didn't have room to put reputation in all three columns, but to me that is where it belongs.

First and foremost (at least in academia) we are responsible to and for the quality of our ideas. Using George Siemens as an example, I follow him on Twitter, his blog etc. because I find his ideas provocative, although as yet it is too early to see what types of practice develop from them. Joyce Epstein (whose work is the central part of the classes I teach on community involvement) had some really good ideas on which two decades of other people have built strong practice. This leads me then to say we need four columns - because education is more than content, connection leading to, recognition and accreditation - in fact its main purpose from my point of view (pragmatist that I am) is to foster new and better practices in the world as a whole and for future education.

This leads to four ways that I see us developing reputations: first from the quality of our ideas (which hopefully translates to quality content). In the new world we are evolving to we will be responsible for designing distributed content so that our ideas have a chance of influencing wider audiences. We build our reputations as well through connections with others as peers and as educators. As education evolves probably fewer academics will earn their living with only one institution which provides excellence traveling from one university context to another. Third, our reputations WILL advance through our participation in learning networks, but I would not put this one in all caps. I think there are too many learning networks (just look at the proliferation of journals as an example) and believe that the future slide such as this one will show a big white box in the third column labeled: Big vat of networks.

At the end of the day, I believe that our reputations will continue to be based on the triple prongs of our ideas, our relationships and the actions that result from both. This adds two more tension points: 1) finding the efficiencies where content, relationships, foster and measure new practice and 2) determining efficient ways to feed those back into the rest of the pathways diagrammed.

If these ideas are interesting to you, then I encourage you to read other posts below about the larger participatory action research project group I would like to see form. By working together in diverse world context on linked local issues, we can move the general understanding of these ideas forward.

All the best,
Alana

Provocative Logical Sequence: The importance of distributed content from doctoral students

Hi everyone,
This mornings reflections about distributed educational content and doctorate life brings this logical sequence:

1. IF getting your doctorate is supposed to make you a peer in academia - based on your developed expertise in the area of your dissertation....... AND
2. IF we now know that in the near future the strategic placement of distributed content will be key to both establishing reputation and maintaining it.....THEN
3. We should be coaching doctoral students to be establishing trails of their content (i.e. self publishing) so that when they move into their next professional iteration they have a foundation to build upon.

I posit that there are a couple of reasons institutions are not supporting this idea:

• it runs contrary to their marketing efforts of building their reputations on the backs of the work of their students and faculty
• the faculty is not equipped to do this as they themselves do not know how.

Perhaps this is a good starting point for our distributed content research - with everyone working on the challenges of putting their own expertise up in a truly distributed way.

Please comment below and let me know if you interest in pursuing any of these ideas with a group of us working on distributed content and how it may affect our careers and the future of education.

All the best,
Alana

Citations and References vs. Hyperlinks

Hi everyone,

This post finds me in Houston, sipping my second double tall latte at a Starbucks. In a few hours I begin the 14 hour travel home to Ireland. Thanks to everyone who saw me present and who helped my ideas about participatory action research and its relations to dissertation work evolve. I promise to write about those ideas in the next weeks.

For today my musings focus on the communication factor between writers and readers and the use of citations and references to help that transference of resources. I love to learn. I want to know the resources others are working with - and as I learn to write blogs efficiently I find that hyperlinks naturally insert themselves in much the same ways I use citations and references in my formal writing.

What I hint at here is that there is life after APA! I think students would struggle less with reference styles and where and when to use citations if they would imagine them as hyperlinks to the resources with which they have recently been working. For example you would naturally put in the hyperlink the first time you mentioned a resource and you would be unlikely to link to the same place over and over in the paragraph. Both rules are true for citations as well.

When I write a blog I consciously use the links to help my readers go off on their own tangents of ideas and distributed learning web walks - hoping they come back and share, starting a great asynchronous conversation. I will also go back at the end of a blog and see if there are resources to which I may want to link my ideas for the fun and interest of my reader. Unfortunately I learned citation and references more as a way to "prove" something in the academic world, and I have to laugh that what was frequently shown is how much I was struggling with citations and references! (lol)

While I don't have the answers here, and I haven't had the time to research whether others are writing on a similar subject, I hope these thoughts provoke a personal voice in other writers as they use both the tools of citations, and hyperlinks. For myself, the journey to life long learning has taken a sudden uphill turn and I am likely to find myself back tracking those ideas to their sources - and beyond! I look forward to your comments - just follow the link below.

I hope everyone is having a fabulous day,
Alana

Interesting project is developing

Hi everyone,

I am half way through my presentations at Colorado Technical University. On Saturday I presented to doctor of management students and this coming Thursday I will present to the doctor of education students. An interesting project is developing that I would like to invite all who read this to consider:

Proposed Participatory Action Research Doctoral Team:

A group of doctoral students searching out whether and to what extent ideas of distributed education are interesting and/or successful in increasing ________(interest in, skill sets during, - professional development, further education, etc) across a variety of learning situations.

PREMISE(s):

1. Education is knowledge of basic skills, academics, technical, discipline, and citizenship that we use to help us in learning. Our paradigms are changing due to technology – no one knows where it is going but some suggest that we are evolving to a world without classes.

2. High quality distributed content exists across a variety of easily attainable web based resources thus diminishing the need to constantly reinvent ways to distribute content to learners.

3. Learners prefer to go find their own resources anyway.

4. These premises come together in the theory of Connectivism

5. The purposes of schools and teachers in this new world is evolving, but I suspect that:

a. Institutions, businesses and non profits will hold the keys to certification that knowledge has been learned through developing standards of output or assessment

b. Teachers increase the speed (and quality?) of learning through being conduits of:

1. i. new skills
2. ii. provocative ideas
3. iii. modulation of emotional stress.

The Project as I see it (April 11, 2008):

“Non Course” content (moving us out of the old paradigm while staying connected to its parts) to be discussed and derived by doctoral students in a variety of contexts would include:

1) Content (taken care of by independently studying the above resources),

2) Links between content and discussion (taken care of through sharing resources and participatory group Wiki work),

3) Developing relationships and networks (Twitter? – other social networking tools)

4) Reality based projects (in this case the dissertation process for the participants building and studying their own distributed education projects in the field –linking knowledge to the group – modeling PAR as a tool for development of new models within complex situations

5) Other things??????

Doctoral students interested in these ideas work as a participatory group to use the dissertation process to study, invent, research and write about projects that implement distributed education across the variety inherent in their local contexts. The group as a whole is facilitated and researched (using mixed methods) with participants by Dr. E. Alana James. As we go we publish what we are doing across a distributed group of contexts – consciously building a digital footprint of the larger project, linking the output and explicitly sharing group learning. We publish in traditional settings (peer reviewed journals and books) as appropriate. We become in essence a network of participants and participatory research projects over diverse settings, exploring linked ideas and using linked output to help move the world of education the next step.

For more information contact:

E. Alana James, Ed.D.

www.doctoratelife.blogspot.com

james.alana@gmail.com

Where is your focus? Try the long view as well as the close up

Hi everyone,

I have had a note on my computer for a few weeks to blog about taking the long view. When we are young and learn the skills required to do well in school we learn to focus on the end product required for that lesson, that class and (only occasionally) the unit. Doctoral work, when well done focuses our attention on the rest of our lives, what is important to the whole of the field we are studying AS WELL AS the immediate work of the class and the research we are doing. Like camera shots in a film with excellent cinematography we benefit from developing the regular habit of looking at both the long and short views.

These are the reasons this blog looks at both the specifics of writing a lit review AND the indications we may pick up from the horizon as to where education is moving. For instance, in the blog previous to this one I used the title to link to a presentation on the use of mobile phones as educational tools - why? because in some parts of the world mobile phones have much deeper penetration than laptops - making these technologies potentially keen for developers.

I'll close this short note with a few examples of how the long view may be important to doctoral work:

1. By understanding the policies that affect our topics we can be in touch with the district and state personnel (in the US) and/or other types of civic officials who are responsible for managing the funds associated with these initiatives. Depending on our topics, their may be funds to help support doctoral efforts. In my case the Colorado Department of Education paid about half of my salary and gave stipends to the participants I worked with. Because of their support, Regis university donated classroom space for our meetings.
2. Technology is interesting to young people, in a time when motivation for standard techniques associated with learning lags. Perhaps there are ways in which incorporating video (and uploading it to YouTube) or starting a blog (that is partially written by your participants) may be both a great source of data but energizing for the students you include in your study. But you have to know what is the most current to catch them - for instance do you Twitter (www.Twitter.com) ? If so, let's tweet! I am alanajames
   
3. The new and different is energizing - that is a key reason humans are always inventing - it gives us life. On the other hand doctoral work may sometimes seem like a heavy weight (after all will you EVER have your life back again?). Spending an allotted 10 minutes on web walking, searching for new and tangential ideas - reviewing what is up on www.slideshare.com or www.YouTube.com and you may regain your perspective.

Don't forget to search out movement videos when on YouTube! The latest brain research tells us that the chemicals that flood our brains with aerobic exercise are also important - remember our health is also part of the long view.

I look forward to your commenting using the link below if you found this helpful - share what you might have found in your latest webwalk!

All the best,
Alana

Mobile computing issues for the classroom

Hi everyone - Let me suggest that anyone who is studying student motivation view the video classroom link above. A professor from Nottingham discusses mobile technologies as a bridge from home learning to school learning, but he proceeds his efforts with a succinct and thoughtful explanation of why our students may not want to be learning in schools.

I look forward to your comments as you tell me what you think of his ideas.

Alana

Catching those ideas without killing them

Hi everyone,

Today I am writing the sixth class for the Jones International Mentoring courses. In this section students such as your selves are asked to take the 100+ resources they have collected for their reviews of the literature that pertains to their topics. I find myself musing about ideas and how:

• They enliven when they run freely,
  
• Excite when we organize them but
  
• Drop dead after seven rewrites!
  
• We can avoid death by diagramming before we write
  

It is amazing how ideas can scamper around in our heads. When we chase them down and put them into an outline we have something to work with. One good way to work with ideas without having them lose their vitality is to run them through a group of graphic organizers. For instance does the literature you have discovered cluster into groups? Perhaps with a few ideas that don't fit with the others in between?

Perhaps you might see one idea grow out of others, maybe to begin to spiral back to the place you began.
what every diagrams spurs both your creative analysis of the ideas you have encountered AND helps you keep them fresh in your mind is appropriate for this purpose.

If all goes well with technology I am also embedding a short sketchcast somewhere in this blog. You might also want to Google graphic organizers and look to see the static models provided by Microsoft with their Office software packages. Make up your own or use others, either way I hope this helps you enjoy the learning you are doing be bringing your creativity to the front.

Alana

Take those shoes out of your refrigerator!

Hi everyone,

Those shoes in the title above are defensive reactions. We all have them, and they all come from the part of our jobs as learners and teachers where we park our egos. for instance I was talking to a teacher and she was telling me about the power struggle she had with a student - oops there go those shoes jumping into refrigerators again!

Where did I come up with this phrase? It was given to me by my good friend and fellow facilitator in our Reinventing Life Retreats (see www.reinventinglife.org). John is a chiropractor and I was in his office for an adjustment and just fuming about an online student who was really rude in our interactions. He told me to "take my shoes out of my refrigerator! They had no business being there!" His point was that too much emotion was being tied up in my heart (and in my body) and it was inappropriate - I should let it go.

I have come to realize that only ego makes me defensive - because only my ego thinks that I have anything I need to defend. The rest of me cruises along knowing that I am doing the best that I can and offering the world the most that I know how to offer. Of course that is enough. If any one student doesn't understand why I work the way I do - then maybe their spirit is telling them I am not the person they should work with - and all of my caring can't change that.

I have students who care way too much about the grade that they get. They are not usually my best students. They may be my most technically proficient - but doctoral work is not about technical proficiency it is about guts and skill and confidence. You don't get any of those things when you worry about every small comment anyone makes to you. You develop those characteristics when you develop a sense of the larger picture.

Step one - take those shoes out of your refrigerator. If you find yourself defensive, take a deep breath and give yourself a moment of love - after all we all get there, and we all get out of it too. If those shoes just won't stay out of that refrigerator then move on to another relationship as soon as you can - life is too short.

In the meantime, don't work so hard you forget to feel the breeze on your face or to enjoy the lovely spring weather when it come your way.

All the best,
Alana

Networks and Lit reviews

Hi everyone,

As has been mentioned here before, I have spent the last few weeks learning about new technologies and how they pertain to learning. Many tools, such as Wiki’s, web conferencing, and learning management systems pertain to the process of learning, but some are changing the way we access content. For anyone reviewing literature, social networks and the work of aggregators may be key new tools worthy of consideration.

George Siemens’ (2008) presentation (http://www.elearnspace.org/media/worldwithoutcourses/player.html )starts this same discussion by pointing out that many stakeholders overlap in their concern about education. Societies care when education promotes citizenship as it does in the parts of the world that are to some degree democratic. Economies prosper when the needs of the marketplace are easily supplied by the expertise of the employable. Educational institutions in tandem with the educators they employ and the students who attend all prosper because the status quo appears to work.

The structure of this academic world that we all inhabit to some extent has been predefined as based on courses and pre-arranged curricular processes. These are designed for efficiency rather than fun and are built to help as many students as possible lock step their way through the processes of education absorbing the required amount of content as they go. Doctoral dissertations can be seen (at least partially) as a move away from that lock stepped approach as you venture into the murky lands of discovery and inquiry based on your own motivations. While you must ultimately meet certain standards in your work, you each will follow your own path towards that goal. This blog is meant to help you have more fun doing that – as discovery of the new and uncharted is fun!

Connectivism (Siemens, 2004) has much to offer this conversation both as a theory and as a model for education. At http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm Dr Siemens writes:

Learning theories are concerned with the actual process of learning, not with the value of what is being learned. In a networked world, the very manner of information that we acquire is worth exploring. The need to evaluate the worthiness of learning something is a meta-skill that is applied before learning itself begins. When knowledge is subject to paucity, the process of assessing worthiness is assumed to be intrinsic to learning. When knowledge is abundant, the rapid evaluation of knowledge is important. Additional concerns arise from the rapid increase in information. In today’s environment, action is often needed without personal learning – that is, we need to act by drawing information outside of our primary knowledge. The ability to synthesize and recognize connections and patterns is a valuable skill. (page 3).

The phrases highlighted in yellow have direct implications to the process of developing and writing a review of literature, as in this endeavour you will need to show that you have evaluated the worthiness of what you have read as well as synthesized it, pointing out connections and patterns between what networked technology calls nodes of information.

Without going too deeply into his discussion of neural, social and other types of networks (2007) (http://www.slideshare.net/gsiemens/living-learning-communicating-in-an-immediate-world ) he quotes Kieran Egan (1997) when he says, “the tools we use, when learning, shape and very largely determine what and how we can learn.” I would translate this to doctoral students I mentor to mean – if you stay with the traditional modes of information transfer within academia (peer reviewed journals, etc) you likely will analyse only safe data and information. If your heart desires to build new bridges across gaps in our field then it is likely you will have to build those bridges to the networked resources available on the web. Be prepared for a wild ride in comparison, but one that should take you out of the silos of academia into a more holistic view of the world.

First let’s consider that packages of content (knowledge) have been published on the web in a variety of formats. Do you feel like listening to lectures (www.YouTube.com ) or are you in the mood for reading (search for blogs using www.blogsearch.google.com )? Do you want to see a presentation (www.slideshare.net )or have a discussion (find and join networks, make comments on blogs, search out people to follow on www.twitter.com. Whose work will you find from these sources? They may cluster at younger ages and with fewer degrees than those in peer reviewed journals, but just as likely you will find the latest from the same people you would find in the more traditional sources. Because of the speed of being able to publish as you go on the web, you may have access not only to their current thinking, but through their blogs to the people themselves.

During this type of exploration (which I call my morning web walkabouts) you will discover some networks, and aggregators of information. Like this blog, they are full of links to other sites and regularly perusing their work keeps you as current as they are on the subjects of mutual interest. Because in a networked world, the very manner of information that we acquire is worth exploring you may find yourselves wanting to: a) trackback from the sources of interest to their sources, on the web following conversations and links back in time, and b) be very careful about the tools you use to capture your sources, so that you can search through them again in the future. I use Firefox as my browser because I can easily add on other tools. I always capture my bookmarks in Del icio us because I can easily give multiple bookmarks to significant links and track them as to importance etc. I sometimes use Yoono or Stumble on to suggest other resources. You will find your own tools, and I would be delighted if you would comment on them here for this community.

You may also find rubbish, but that is no different from a long day at the library when you find nothing of interest. It is up to you to decide which are gold and which is for fools. Now we loop back to “The need to evaluate the worthiness of learning something is a meta-skill that is applied before learning itself begins.” Just how to go about building that meta skill AND how to develop the equally important ability to synthesize and recognize connections and patterns will be the topic of future blogs.

All the best,

Alana

References:(Egan, 1997; George Siemens, 2007, 2008a, 2008b; George Siemens, December 12, 2004)

Egan, K. (1997). The Educated Mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Siemens, G. (2007). Living learning and communicating in an immediate world. Paper presented at the ADETA. from http://www.slideshare.net/gsiemens/living-learning-communicating-in-an-immediate-world

Siemens, G. (2008a). Connectivism: Rethinking curriculum, knowledge and learning. Paper presented at the EDUCAUSE. from http://www.slideshare.net/gsiemens/connecitivism-curriculum-knowledge-learning

Siemens, G. (2008b). World without courses. from http://www.elearnspace.org/media/worldwithoutcourses/player.html

Siemens, G. (December 12, 2004). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age [Electronic Version], from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm

Web walkabout links

Hi everyone,

While I don't recommend that the average doctoral candidate spends lots of time on web walkabouts, I do suggest that once in a while dipping ones intellectual quill pen into the writings and ideas of those outside of our general field of interest is enlivening. After a hard day at work, and while facing a long night of hitting the books in the latest class or typing away on ideas that run around your head in circles, a little adventure into the ideas of others can be good for us.

If you need this type of fix, below are a couple of pots (posts?) to dip into:

1. Since bias is inherent and the bane of research you may be interested to see what these folks are writing about: http://www.overcomingbias.com/welcome.html .
2. I don't know what web browser you are using, but I love Firefox. If that is your browser of choice you may be interested in some of the tools/plugins mentioned at: http://www.seosmarty.com/firefox-plugins/ . It might not be a bad idea for this growing community to discuss web tools and see if there could be consensus on what works. While a ways in the future, I will ePostIt the idea for a later time, more readers etc.

Let me know if the idea appeals either by commenting through the link below or emailing me at ajames@faculty.jiu.edu.

All the best for today,
Alana

Web works

Hi everyone,

Working on the web has a few challenges: you don’t know the gender of the person you are speaking to in a lot of cases – and yesterday I had occasion to react to news as though it were current, when actually it happened a year ago.

Alas we cannot attend the “Future of Education” online conference except as lurkers. However the archive at http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/moodle/ (link to enter the conference archive) remains interesting. Thoughts that come to mind as I read:

1. Context is always important – sometimes a speaker makes known their background, location and area of expertise but sometimes these remain unclear. In international meetings I find folks from the America’s less likely to introduce their location. Where were these people from? To what extent did that constrain their view? Would they say the same things now (with the growth in social networks in the last year)?

2. I found it very interesting the question of accreditation, although it came up within forums, did not attract conversation in a forum set up just for that purpose. The one issue in what new education might look like that no one seems to have a glimmer of an answer for is who and how people who have learned as much as anyone in a class could can be accredited for that learning. Without an answer here people continue to give a good part of their future income back to the university that holds that key.

3. Discussion of change frequently puts people in line with their personal fears on how they will survive. Discussions of the format of schools and the changing roles of students and teachers bring up these fears. As I send to Columbia today for a transcript I realize how many people are employed in education – when people take responsibility for their own education do we fear being put out of work?

4. There is much here worth further investigation. I am caught by catchy titles and interesting new explorations into tools. Also E laminate is offering a web based room for up to three people in conference – what a start! http://216.220.49.222/index.jsp

I’m sure I will be adding more about tools in the next several days, but this should be good for a few ideas to mull over as you all get back to whatever else you have on your doctorate plates!

All the best,

Alana

List of helpful hints

Hi everyone,

As I grade papers, read over research proposals and help student prepare for writing their dissertations I see the same challenges over and over. Here is a short and hopefully helpful list of the easiest challenges to avoid in writing up research:

1. Data ARE plural - I know this is not the way the word is commonly used and we hear data is but data really are. This leads to these data show …rather than this. Get your ear used to this one and you will go far towards saving hours of time on your dissertation. Watch for other instances where this is a problem - data have rather than data has is another example.
2. If you make a case for something once in your paper you do not have to take two more paragraphs later to justify the same idea again. This was common and partially a set up by the multiple assignments - but it helps when you are pulling something like this together to map your ideas in an outline - don't have the same idea under multiple headings.
3. Redundancies detract - redundant words in a paragraph, redundant ideas, etc. Don't do what I do and fall in love with a word and then use it three times in four lines. Some of you did this too (smile). It is even worse in presentations when you might have the same word three times on a single slide.
4. When we don't know precisely what we want to say our writing lags and our ideas are not easy to track. As you read other’s research, notice where you lose attention, that is the point where the author lost track of what was important. Be honest with yourselves - is your writing interesting for the whole article? If not, what can you take out?
5. It is not written anywhere, but generally if you go over 3000 words you have gone on past most attention spans - this is the length most publications allow. You can highlight the bits after the coversheet and table of contents and before the references and that is the body of your project or article - see how you did on words.
6. Passive sentences use are or is - try searching on these two and seeing how many passive sentences you are writing. Then take half of them and make them active. For instance, I could have changed the first sentence here to be active by saying instead: Readers prefer active writing to passive because it gives zest to your topic. Watch out for the use of “are” or “is” and try to rearrange your writing to get rid of them.
7. Also expel words like so, as in so important, or very or ....... you see what I mean even though you would say them for emphasis they detract from the sentence rather than strengthen it.
8. The use of the first person is tricky. I am not like some of professors, who simply say, "don't use it." This is because I see that when used sparingly and to bring your own presence into the article it can be effective. But when you use “I” in a sentence that describes your decision making path or where you are talking to your reader about any mental process..... then I would suggest you write instead about "the study" as though it were a thing separate from you. In a nutshell we don't want to confuse our beingness with our work. These projects are your work, the experiences you have in your schools or at your workplace are personal and that is where the use of "I" might be very effective.

I hope these are helpful, let me know in a comment by clicking that link below,
All the best,
Alana

Participatory Action Research Video Presentation

Hi doctoral students!

I hope you find this video interesting. Most of my research career has been on transformational educational practices, and nothing works like participatory action research. Although you may find this video a little sketchy (feet and bottom of slides cut off) I think you will catch my basic meaning. From here participants can build: doctoral research, community change projects, or personal transformation - the steps are the same no matter what the desired outcome.

This presentation is the basic slide set from which I am building two, two hour sessions for business majors and one four hour session for education majors at Colorado Technical University. I will be speaking, and they will be going through mock PAR cycles on April 12th and 17th.

Please comment by following the link below. I would love to hear what you think and suggestions you may have for my next attempt - both at these slides and at future videos. ALSO - Please take the one item quiz to the right - I am trying to get the pulse on whether and to what extent this is interesting content for my audience. - Thanks for both!

all the best,
Alana

Too many new ideas IS Confusing! Use that TENSION to your benefit

Hi everyone,

This week I was emailed by one of my doctoral students about her confused wanderings around methodology. The class she was taking required a project and the methods she was sorting out for that were confusing her as she worked on her ideas for her dissertation. What she was hoping (I think) was that the university would sort this out and stop putting conflicting demands on students.

But life isn't like that - for which we should be glad!

Right now I am on a very large uphill learning curve as I work to increase my digital footprint and explode my consulting business. In the last two weeks alone I have explored: RSS feeds, Twitter, LinkedIn social networks in general, many blogs, open source elearning tools and networks, Del icio us, SlideShare, etc. I have started new profiles, I have tried to expand my links, all of which result in a much longer "to do" list each day.

But when I look selectively at the inverse of my tension I see that each day I have come to understand a little more. One week later I can keep more straight in my head when I think about these concepts. More importantly, this week I am asking different questions.

Next week I will upload a link to my slide banks - but as I work on my talk for Colorado Technical University in April in Colorado Springs, Colorado I realize that I completely believe that we MUST HAVE THIS TENSION. As I study transformational education practices, what they have in common is not downplaying tension, but helping people ride it, climb with it, and let their spirits soar because of it.

This is probably why I love working with doctoral students so much - tension is your middle name!

I write this hoping that it brings a grin to your face and that you all have a great day - tackling your tensions!

All the best,
Alana