Time Constraints and Personal Limitations

This may be cheating slightly, but the last post was intended to make a point that I didn’t manage to get to, and that was a response to Jenny’s train of thought as expressed in “A 10 Minute Post.”

In this post she discusses the following points:

  • The issue of time constraints in connectivism and CCK08
  • Rapid interaction versus slow blogging, reflection and listening
  • Their fundamental “meaning” for connectivism

I’m a verbose writer. I have a great deal of trouble making a succinct point in 10 minutes, so covering this much territory in a short period of time will be a huge challenge.

George said early on in CCK08 that you’ll constantly have the feeling that you’re missing something and this tone is quite apparent in Jenny’s post. I myself have this problem constantly. I want to wholly engage in the course, do all the “required” readings, complete the Concept Map, read all the blog posts, reply to all the Tweets, be in all the disparate communities that have popped up over the course of the session, and participate in the forums – but I’ve realised that’s just not possible. It’s a superhuman feat that even the most hyperactive learner couldn’t keep up with.

The point for me is CCK08 as a formal course – or as formal as you can be in an informal capacity – is that it’s the beginning of a journey; not the start, middle and end of it. I anticipate much of my exploration of the subject matter, and many of the epiphanies I have of its implications – won’t be realised until after the formal component comes to a close. The primary purpose as I see it is the laying of the foundation for future inquiry. Importantly this relies a great deal on the formulation of networks with other CCK08 learners.

This is just the beginning.

Herein lay another importance of open education. You can return to it later. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is an understanding of Connectivism. As with learning in general, an appreciation for its intricacies will evolve over time and will change as we change. We can always come back to what we missed – what’s important is that we engage in as great a manner as we can.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 10:08 pm and is filed under Digital Culture & the Internet, Educational Technology & eLearning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Even my shortest posts (a couple paragraphs) take considerably longer than 10 minutes to write. But would be nice.

    I suppose the question is while you can return to it later -- will you?
  • This isn't to criticise long posts mind you - they're still valuable as well - particularly when exposition is required. I also have no intention of doing away with more long-form content in favour of a shorter format - this is just to mix things up and give my blogging muscles a workout. Plus the 10-minute post theme will also be an exercise in brevity - which I think I could use :)


    As far as returning to the subject matter goes, that's a very good point but that is my intention (whether I manage to do it is another story, as you say). Then again, I'm enrolled informally and am earning no formal recognition for my participation.

    It's my interest in the subject that's kept me engaged, so the learning experience itself is the key motivator. In that sense I think I stand a pretty good chance of getting through things eventually...I hope!
  • I have a small technical problem with your feed address that you announced via Stephen's list and OPML (ending in category/cck08/feed/): it did not display your last two postings. Do you know why that is?

    I did not try to read everything but still thought I would completely receive all announced feeds.
  • Hi Matthias,

    Sorry about that - this is due to the fact I didn't categorise the last two posts as "CCK08" when I wrote them. I post so many entries I originally thought that people might prefer to only receive the content that is relevant to the course. So the feed address I gave to Stephen was for a specific category.

    In hindsight this post probably should be in the CCK08 category :)

    If you're interested in being notified of everything I write, the main feed for this blog is http://techticker.net/feed

    Sorry for the confusion!

    Cheers,

    Mike
  • Thanks for the explanation. What confused me most is that the RSS file had a "category" field containing cck08. But now I see that it is only a Wordpress "tag" instead of a "category".

    Now I also subscribed to your .../tag/cck08/feed since I like the idea of filtering only the relevant posts.
  • Mike

    I am fascinated by the iterative possibilities of writing. I do return to posts to edit and add. The narrative in my posts remains the same I think, the detail changes.

    Like you I do hope CCK08 is part of a longer term set of links and friendships. A collegiality of a shared community.

    Keith
  • Maintaining CCK08 relationships {seesmic_video:{"url_thumbnail":{"value":"http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/LUmk8wmVkp_th1.jpg"}"title":{"value":"Maintaining CCK08 relationships "}"videoUri":{"value":"http://www.seesmic.com/video/TwhzeN7XgM"}}}
  • Great!

    I thought it was a trampoline. I am looking forward to building our links.

    What a great dad.
  • Nice post. I, too, am looking for ways to sustain the relationships/networks that have grown out of CCK08, so that the conversation may go through many more iterations. Twitter, blogs, the LinkedIn CCK08 group... any other ideas?
  • Hi Ed,

    I think the big question will be how many people continue to actively participate on the web in any form. I for one will always be around - via this blog and Twitter primarily. I'm hopeful communities will emerge out of the student cohort but that remains to be seen I think - cross your fingers.

    For the bloggers I'd like to think there's a pretty good chance of continuity since they could continue to use the same spaces (and the rest of us would know where to find them - but for the people who relied on the Moodle forum things are a bit trickier. I think locating another forum site would make sense, but they'd have to agree on one of course :)

    Children call, gotta run! Talk to you later.

    Mike
  • Hi Mike!

    To have a post ready in ten minutes is out of my reach! LOL I tend to spend hours, maybe with practice I may shorten the time.

    Another thing that happens to me is that I feel it's impolite to skim while reading posts, I will have to change that idea because it leaves me reading less. I follow the links and come back to reply. It takes me so long to write one post that I imagine others take a lot of time and effort to post too, what I feel compelled to do is to pay tribute to that effort by following the links they carefully placed.

    I also hope to maintain the connections made during the course, as newbie and non savvy I see that I cannot contribute much so what I expect is to learn and not make other people waste their time.

    See you around. Maru :X
  • Slow reading and commenting {seesmic_video:{"url_thumbnail":{"value":"http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/4luNKXDATh_th1.jpg"}"title":{"value":"Slow reading and commenting "}"videoUri":{"value":"http://www.seesmic.com/video/D8HW6wQJxT"}}}
  • Hi Mike,
    Like you
    "I want to wholly engage in the course, do all the “required” readings, complete the Concept Map, read all the blog posts, reply to all the Tweets, be in all the disparate communities that have popped up over the course of the session, and participate in the forums -"
    but a little too late, I realised that it is not possible. I'm a bit exhausted and need to digest all the impressions and all the learning, and get the neurons and and connections growing. And I hope it will be possible to return to/stay in the network and continue the learning process.
    Your post is well written and nice and easy to understand for a 'foreigner'
    /Jorgen C
  • Hi Mike
    I really agree with your post. Around week 7 I had to make up my mind about what was more important for me. I had been interested in Conectivism before the course started and I'm still interested. But I needed more time. I got interested in Complex systems and I decided to do more research on that and see how I can apply that theory to my experiences with communities. Also, I found the pace of the course was hard to follow because I'm a fulltime teacher at my university.... October and November are hectic with marking and closing the term.
    For me this is also a journey and I will continue my exploration. Thanks to George and Stephen who gave us the opportunity of having all materials audios, videos and discussions available for further analysis.
    See you
    Sonia
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