How This Course Works
How this Course Works
View this overview of participating in LAK13 Links to an external site.
In addition to the details below, we will be providing information on aggregating blogs during our live session on Tues, Feb 12 (see here Live Sessions & Guest Speakers). A short tutorial on submitting your blog is available here: Aggregation on Edufeedr Links to an external site.. Submit your blog to LAK13 Edufeedr Links to an external site. (click the "enroll to course" link on the right-hand side)
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This is an unusual course. It does not consist of a body of content you are supposed to remember. Rather, the learning in the course results from the activities you undertake and will be different for each person.
This is an open online course. In designing this course, we wanted to create an environment of active and peer learning.
Each week will include opportunities for discussion and interaction in the course discussion forums, your personal site (blog, tumblr), Twitter, and Diigo. You can participate in whatever way you find most helpful for your learning. In addition to weekly discussions, suggested learning activities are provided so that you can actively engage with course concepts. Early in the course, these activities consist of creating concept maps, blog posts, or images of how you are experiencing and making sense of the concepts. Beginning week 3, hands on analytics activities have been planned using R and Tableau Software. More details will be provided in week 3.
The course has both centralized and decentralized components.
- Centralized elements include the weekly course readings and forum discussions in this Canvas site.
- Distributed elements include whatever you as course participants decide to do. For example, we will be using the tag #lak13 on Twitter for ongoing resource sharing. We will also be using the LAK13 group in Diigo (join here Links to an external site.) for sharing articles and resources. You are also invited to join the Learning Analytics Google Group Links to an external site.. This group has been around for several years and will continue after this course has ended.
We will provide some facilities, such as this Canvas site. But we expect your activities to take place all over the internet. We will ask you to visit other people's web pages, and even to create some of your own.
This type of course is called a ‘connectivist' course and is based on four major types of activity:
1. Aggregate
We will give you access to a wide variety of things to read, watch or play with. There will be a LOT of content associated with this course, everything from relatively basic instruction to arguments and discussions to high-level interviews with experts in the field.
You are NOT expected to read and watch everything. Even we, the facilitators, cannot do that. Instead, what you should do is PICK AND CHOOSE content that looks interesting to you and is appropriate for you. If it looks too complicated, don't read it. If it looks boring, move on to the next item.
2. Remix
Once you've read or watched or listened to some content, your next step is to keep track of that somewhere. How you do this will be up to you.
You can keep a document on your own computer listing all the things you've accessed. Or, better yet, you can keep a record online somewhere. That way you will be able to share your content with other people.
Here are some suggestions:
- create a blog with Blogger. Go to http://www.blogger.com Links to an external site. and create a new blog. Or, if you already have a blog, you can use your existing blog. You can also use Wordpress (http://www.wordpress.com Links to an external site.) or any other blogging service. Blogs are a great way to express ideas or concepts that resonate with you and that you want to capture. Submit your blog URL to LAK13 Edufeedr Links to an external site. - click the link on the right-hand side 'enroll to the course' (Tutorial here Links to an external site.).
- create an account with Diigo Links to an external site. or del.icio.us Links to an external site. and create a new entry for each piece of content that you find important. We will be tagging/sharing articles and resources at this Diigo group Links to an external site., please join if interested.
- take part in an online discussion in settings such as the learning analytics Google group Links to an external site..
- tweet about the item in Twitter. If you have a Twitter account, post something about the content you've accessed and use the #lak13 course tag.
- participate in course discussion forums and share your experiences with learning analytics or share your questions/concerns.
- complete course learning activities (assignments) and share with others.
- anything else: you can use any other service on the internet – Flickr, Yahoo Groups, Facebook, YouTube, anything! use your existing accounts if you want or create a new one especially for this course. The choice is completely yours.
3. Repurpose
We don't want you simply to repeat what other people have said. We want you to create something of your own. This is probably the hardest part of the process.
Remember that you are not starting from scratch. Nobody ever creates something from nothing. That's why we call this section ‘repurpose' instead of ‘create'. We want to emphasize that you are working with materials, that you are not starting from scratch.
What materials? Why, the materials you have aggregated and remixed online. These materials are the bricks and mortar you can use to compose your own thoughts and understanding of the material.
What thoughts? What understanding? Well – that is the subject of this course. This whole course will be about how to read or watch, understand, and work with the content other people create, and how to create your own new understanding and knowledge out of them.
Your job isn't to memorize a whole bunch of stuff about the tools. Rather, your job is to USE TOOLS and just practice with them. We will show you the tool, give examples, use the tools ourselves, and talk about them in depth. You watch what we do, then practice using them yourself.
Think of every bit of content you create not simply as content, but as practice using the tool. The content almost doesn't even matter – what matters is that you apply the tool.
This will seem awkward at first, as any tool does. But with practice you'll become an accomplished creator and critic of ideas and knowledge. And that is the purpose of this course!
4. Feed Forward
We want you to share your work with other people in the course, and with the world at large.
Now to be clear: you don't have to share. You can work completely in private, not showing anything to anybody. Sharing is and will always be YOUR CHOICE.
And we know, sharing in public is harder. People can see your mistakes. People can see you try things you're not comfortable with. It's hard, and it's sometimes embarrassing.
But it's better. You'll try harder. You'll think more about what you're doing. And you'll get a greater reward – people will see what you've created and connect on it. Sometimes critically, but often (much more often) with support, help and praise.
People really appreciate it when you share. After all, what you're doing when you share is to create material that other people can learn from. Your sharing creates more content for this course. people appreciate that, you will probably appreciate the content other people in the course share with you.
So, how do you share?
First, use the LAK13 tag in anything you create.
It is especially important to use this tag in Diigo and in Twitter. That is how we will recognize content related to this course.
When a connectivist course is working really well, we see this great cycle of content and creativity begin to feed on itself, people in the course reading, collecting, creating and sharing. It's a wonderful experience you won't want to stop when the course is done.
And – because you can share anywhere – you won't have to. This course can last as long as you want it to.