Castles in the Cloud
This video is just brilliant. It uses the format made famous by the Common Craft Show (think “Wikis in Plain English“) to discuss networked learning and Connectivism. It’s 5 minutes long but really easy viewing.
URL: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=e7oFzmr9_M4
Description: “The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler’s high school students. The Networked Student concept map was inspired by Alec Couros’ Networked Teacher. I hope that teachers will use it to help their colleagues, parents, and students understand networked learning in the 21st century. “
I believe this trend has already begun informally for education and will continue to grow in the future. In many regards it also highlights trends in web use and online learning amidst existing students and staff that are occurring outside of the formal IT channels. Despite attempts to keep tight reigns on a school/institution’s web presence and the data therein, and thus control the manner in which it is accessed and used by the public, students and staff have begun to circumvent these channels.
While institutions continue to rely on massive, monolithic systems that inhibit user freedoms and personal ownership, free and publicly available tools like wikis, blogs, social networking sites, instant messaging clients, video sharing sites, web conferencing tools and virtual environments facilitate immediate access to peers in extraordinarily flexible and customiseable ways. It is little wonder then that shadow systems of learning and interacting have begun to develop outside of recognised institutional channels.
The implications for institutions are clear. To ignore this reality is to ignore learning opportunities for students and ourselves. Regardless of whether these shadow activities conform to formal institutional web standards, it is undeniable that conversations occurring in the Read-Write Web are real. They are having a real impact, have a real audience, and convey real perceptions on both learning and student/staff attitudes about the institution.
To institutional decision-makers at all levels: we ignore these trends at our peril. To remain relevant we must remain engaged. The time is past when institutions held the keys to the castle and could dictate the conditions and terms under which students could interact, what they could contribute, and how they could do so. Today the castles are anywhere, and everywhere; and they are run by the learners.
I’d therefore encourage everyone to view the video and make your opinions known; so we can begin to consider the implications for projects, processes, planning and indeed the future of education.
