I have to thank Shane Roberts for the suggestion to post a review of the last 12 months. With tonight being the end of 2008, it seems fitting to devote proper consideration to reflecting upon the learning experiences and activities I’ve been engaged with this year. While I hadn’t set out to do this when first starting this blog in 2007, it’s proven to be an exceptionally insightful experience that I hope to establish as a tradition in the coming years.
To know where you’re going I think you need to know where you’ve been; and going back through my posts it’s fascinating to see connections in concepts I’d previously missed. This is one of the reasons I put together a map, which depicts the major concepts I explored or learned about this year. It’s given me a much better appreciation for the interrelatedness of my interests, and how much everything ties together in the end.
So without further ado, here’s 2008 in review:
Year in Review
2008 was characterised by tremendous growth and exploration of new areas and concepts – most notably the learning side of e-Learning. With several years of technical and user support experience under my belt – and an almost equal amount of blogging and new media experience – the learning side of things was an area I’d lacked a proper awareness of and appreciation for. This year I set out to start to fill in the gaps in my expertise – and ultimately did so in earnest.
There were several motivating factors in this decision, with the three main one’s being an unwavering interest in learning, a desire to be more helpful to people, and on the practical side a desire to have more education represented in my grasp of educational technology.
The first half of the year was largely business as usual though, with most of my attention devoted to analysing trends in emerging technology and evaluating new tools. One of the key research projects I really dove into early on though – which influenced everything that came afterwards – was a much more intense investigation of open source technologies than I’d engaged in previously, and in particular the culture of the community behind them.
The technologies themselves were really interesting – and continue to be – but the culture of openness, collaboration, sharing, communication and a core emphasis on individual freedom – and its preservation – really struck a chord and have inspired me ever since. As a result, there was a natural evolution from open source software, to open education, to what I like to think of as open learning.
In tandem to my exploration of open source sociology were my initial forays into learning theory, learning styles and hemispheric dominance (right brain vs left brain.). As relatively superficial as this was in the early part of the year, it was a significant step that led me to enrol in two online courses in session two – Facilitating Online Communities and Connectivism and Connective Knowledge. The latter course in particular was to play a key role in my learning through the rest of the year and I suspect will prove to be a career changing event.
As such my learning and research trends in 2008 quickly shifted from a predominantly technological focus early in the year to one in which technology became a vehicle for the empowerment and personalisation of learning, and I believe will prove – or I would like to see prove – a catalyst for educational change.
Concept Map
While the following map is not comprehensive of the learning and research activities I undertook in 2008, it nonetheless depicts some of the the most significant and most influential to me personally.
My major learning and research themes in 2008
Key Events:
Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (CCK08) – brilliant introduction to many learning theories, opportunity to engage with peers from around the world on a seemingly unprecedented scale and course model; expanded awareness from theoretical coinceptualisation of technology’s affordances for learning to real-world, practical application; increased awareness of trials and tribulations for classroom use; facilitated more in-depth exposure to experiences and perspectives of teachers; introduced concept of changing roles of educators and students
The Revolution Will Be Syndicated – If CCK08 fed my intellect, Jim Groom and Tom Woodward’s closing presentation at the 2008 NMC Virtual Symposium fed my soul, stoked my passions and ignited the feiry obsession to speak up for what I believe in. Their one-hour extravaganza echoed many of my most passionately held views, and did so in perhaps most creative and engaging way I’ve ever seen presented – online or offline. Truly, it was the highlight of 2008 for me.
Equally importantly, the message they conveyed was one that has stayed with me ever since, and has greatly influenced the manner in which I view my role in elearning both locally at my institution and abroad with those I interact with.
My reflections on the presentation and an embedded recording of the presentation in its entirety is available here: http://techticker.net/2008/11/10/the-revolution-will-be-syndicated/
Aims & Objectives for 2009
As I write this, the clock has struck 12:00 am and it has therefore literally just become 2009, so it’s quite fitting that my attention be brought to the coming year ahead. While there is still much to consider and undoubtly many undiscovered projects to investigate, there are several important points that come to mind straight off the bat:
- Engage more with others
- Actively Participate in the Social Media Colab
- Read and comment on more blogs
- Instigate and participate in discussion at my local institution and local Sydney area regarding new media, its affordances, and implications and opportunities for learning
- Continue to explore new models of learning
- Read Illich
- Read Holt – How Children Learn; How Children Fail
- Take another open course
Happy 2009 to you all. May it be a happy and healthy one!
Mike
What a great post to end a year and start a new one. It must have been fascinating bouncing with the baby on the birthball, reflecting and typing in between Sydney Harbour fireworks.
Your sharing impulse has transformed my thinking so I can hardly wait for what you produce in 2009!
Happy New Year to you and your family
Keith
Hi Keith,
Thanks for the kind words, as always
Looking back it’s interesting to see how my use of blogs has evolved over time and how much of their value to me (and others too I would suspect) has resulted from external factors, organic growth, or unconscious decisions as opposed to conscious ones.
For example I didn’t set out to actively engage with people and be a model or demonstrator of practice (that came much later); I just wanted a space to document my work and thought I’d make it publicly visible in case someone happened to stumble across it and found it useful.
That said though I did have experiences with reuse and sharing of resources – that’s how I came to work at UNSW. I just didn’t think any of my contributions would qualify as “useful” to anyone
When I began to realise people were actually reading what I had to say – and sometimes even disagreeing with me – my perspective on the role and purpose of blogs and new media began to change. The notion that there were actual people on the other side of the internet – some of whom actual found value in what I was trying to say – came to have a significant meaning.
That began a new chapter in the way I engaged with the technology, and marked the beginnings of when technology to me became a vehicle to something larger – it was no longer a destination unto itself, but a means of connecting with others and developing relationships that empowered and benefitted everyone.
I have to say that the open source model of transparency has played a major influence there, and the idea of contributions emerging because someone is “scratching their own itch.” It’s also one aspect of new media which I think is really significant, and which fuels its ongoing use and adoption. People come to new media for their own purposes – arguably fairly simple and narrowly focussed initially – then blossom once the relationships and networks emerge that yield far greater results than they’d initially set out to achieve – and that these relationships are a direct result of a participatory culture in which people give freely of themselves.
Ties into the notion of knowledge being distributed I think – the more we give, the more is available to everyone, and the more we receive back as a result.
Happy New Year to you as well!
Cheers,
Mike
Mike, an admirable self reflection and for me a solid description of a year long learning journey. I like this type of reflection more than my simple “What I did / did not do well. I unfortunately withdrew from FOC08 and CCK08, but would jump at the chance to participate in the future. Your concept of open learning is interesting and I look forward to reading more on that in the future. Thanks, a great and thought provoking post.
Shane
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