Research papers on CCK08

[Jenny Mackness]

Dear CCK08 and CCK09 Participants,

You may know that Sui Fai John Mak, Roy Williams and I (who were participants in CCK08) decided (post CCK08) to research the reasons why CCKO8 participants chose to participate in Moodle forums or blogs.

We have worked on this since then and this has led to two research papers which we will submit to the Networked Learning Conference 2010.

Although we have not yet submitted our papers, we have been in touch with a member of the Conference Steering Committee who has encouraged us to share our papers with CCK09 before we submit them for the conference.

Attached are the two papers.

• Blogs and Forums as Communication and Learning Tools in a MOOC

• The ideals and Reality of Participating in a MOOC

We would very much appreciate feedback on these papers before we submit them to the Networked Learning Conference at the beginning of November 2009.

Best wishes,

Jenny Mackness, Sui Fai John Mak and Roy Williams

[Nellie Deutsch]

Congratulations on taking the initiative and finishing the research in a timely manner.

It may be interesting to conduct a follow-up.

I enjoyed reading both papers.

Thank you for sharing,

Warm wishes,
Nellie

[Jenny Mackness]

Thank you Nellie,
We would welcome any feedback - positive or negative, as we still have time to work on the papers before we submit to the Networked Learning Conference on November 13th.
Jenny

Nellie Deutsch said:

Congratulations on taking the initiative and finishing the research in a timely manner.

It may be interesting to conduct a follow-up.

I enjoyed reading both papers.

Thank you for sharing,

Warm wishes,
Nellie

[Jane Brotchie]

Hi

I found these papers fascinating as they are addressing questions that interest me about how a course like this can be organised. I was particularly interested in the different methods that people choose to adopt and why. This topic is one that deserves more exploration - do you plan to do a follow up comparing CCK08 with this course?

In the 'Ideas and reality...' paper, you comment (p.5) that 'opennesses was not well understood'. I wonder if you see this as a problem that should be addressed within the way the course is organised - perhaps some readings or philosophy statements - or is this part of the learning that takes place by participating?

I am also interested in your findings about the effects of there being 'minimal moderation' on the course. This crops up in the context of 'the expertise divide' (p.5) and again (p.6) where you suggest 'diversity and minimal moderation were difficult to reconcile'. I think the question of support is crucial for those who enter a network without the crucial skills to operate effectively. If it is not part of the instructors' role then perhaps there could be more mechanisms for participants to help other members? This would not compromise the autonomy aim but might enable diversity to be achieved also.

One point that your research did not address (as far as I understand), but that may be important, is the entry route that people followed to the course. I, for one, did not plan to do this course. I received an invite, was interested, remembered reading something interesting about connectivism, found I did not have to commit myself to anything and that it was socially acceptable to choose my own level. So I thought, 'why not?' This is very different from the way I would approach a course in other contexts.

Hope these comments are useful and thank you for the opportunity to read them.

[Jenny Mackness]

Hi Jane,
Many thanks for your comments. We think there are a number of papers that could come out of the research, not least the research process itself between 3 people who have never met, but do we have the energy!! I think I need a short break!

The whole question of whether you learn about the meaning of openness (and autonomy, diversity and connectedness) by being told about it or by experiencing it is a difficult one. In CCK08 and CCK09 both is on offer. The difference between these and more traditional courses is that the content is not all up front and participants need to decide what extra content they might need and where they might find it. But as I noted in my blog during CCK08, I don't know what I don't know, and so what might be obvious to others (e.g. a clear understanding of what we mean by openness) might not be obvious to me and the importance of thinking about it might only arise by chance.

As far as the role of moderation goes, this was something I was aware of at the time of CCK08 and it was interesting to observe how people managed with minimal moderation. Ideally moderation would be part of the networking skills of all participants, but this is to belie what a skilled job it is to be a moderator. It would be interesting though to explore in more depth the relationship between moderation, autononmy, openness, diversity and connectedness.

I too didn't plan to join CCK08 - I came across it by chance after it had started, but then became fascinated not only by what the course had to offer but also in what it taught me about myself. This year I planned to join CCK09 and have not managed to do so apart from making the odd rushed post here or there. Not very satisfying! There was actually so much more we could have included in our research. We were swamped by data and it was quite a task deciding what we would include in just an 8 page paper (the requirement for the NLC!).

Thanks Jane

Jenny

[Roy Williams]

Hi Jane, thanks for your detailed comments.

I think the issue of how well people understand openness is linked to the issue of minimal moderation.

There are a number of questions:

1. Are constraints necessary for openness? In principle, no, its a contradiction in terms.

2. Are constraints necessary for emergence? In principle and in practice yes. Emergence, as in Complex Adaptive Systems Theory (CAST) is premised on constraints, althought constraints of a special type. These constraints do NOT prescribe what should be done (so they are not prescriptive), but they do determine what CAN NOT be done. It may sound like a subtle difference, but in curriculum terms it means the curriculum follows the learning, which is different, even if there is still a curriculum 'framework' which is more flexibly defined.

3. How then to manage what cannot be done?

Firstly, the aim is to facilitate emergent thoughts, issues, areas of inquiry. Not necessarily to 'invent the curriculum' as you go along, but certainly to extend it and to enrich it (as I think happens in CCKs - I would love to focus on that for follow up research).

Second, constraint must be light touch wherever possible, and diversionary rather than confrontationary. It must also be quick and timely.

Third: if necessary, it must be decisive.
[Although even here, alternatives can also be considered. In Open source software development, which is not dissimlar to an open learning network, there is always the option of forking - branching off into a new, separate track, 'removed' from the main open enterprise. It is seldom invoked in practice].

In CCK08, if I read Stephen's postings correctly, the mechanism of choice was to ignore, or withdraw engagement from people who overstepped the boundaries of acceptable behaviour.

This is fine in principle. In practice is gets a lot more complicated:

a. If it is not obvious that those with responsibility for the course regard particular behaviour as unacceptable, and are prepared to effectively put a stop to it, the question of what exactly 'unacceptable behaviour' is remains unknown, not to say confusing, to everyone else.

b. If the constraint is to withdraw communication, this is unlikely to be 'visible' to anyone else, who are most likely to 'read' it as absence of communication rather than withdrawal of engagement.

c. The 'withdraw engagement' strategy can only work if it is driven by near total consensus. This is extremely unlikely to happen unless those responsible for the course make this explicit, and unless they present a very good case as to why it is the best strategy. Particularly in a new 'open' course, some participants are likely to want to 'see' if it will all 'take care of itself'.

The point is that emergence is a key aspect of openness - in fact it is one of the factors which motivates the whole openness initiative, but it does not just happen (in a MOOC or any other complex system) if the necesary negative constraints are not in place - not to be used at the first sight of questionable behaviour, but rather to be used decisively if and when necessary.

The way openness was defined (sic!), operationally, in CCK08 does not take any of this into account. That's fine, there are no easy answers here. Each to his or her own, but this reseach shows that there are consequences, not least for openness and autonomy.