Sunday, September 21, 2008

CCK08 X28 post-1

I must pinpoint this blog :

http://x28newblog.blog.uni-heidelberg.de/2008/09/21/cck08-week-2-and-forums/

 

This is my comment copied in here due 2 factors:

  • Need a spelling for the text
  • Keep it in a place for posterior retrieval.

Hi X28,
Some how I feel very connected with you. Your nickname reminds me of the old days of network asynchronous connections pre-internet (X25 packet switching) where CTRL+letter defined the environment. I fully agree with your observations about the forums. In other forums this is much easier to follow. People try to stick to the subject. I think that, other that academic flavour they try to give information (altruism) and not exercise power or assertion .
Your maps are food for thought . Really learning OF the networks as Stephan Downes has reified the process.

Helena

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Saturday, September 13, 2008

In this MOOC are we challenging the Dunbar ´s Number?

 

I am enjoying very much all this conversations and indications of connections to grow the map of my world

But sometimes I feel that there is to much of much . Is my brain different from others brains ?  See this anthropologic theory on  group sizes http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/03/the_dunbar_numb.html

  Helena Ramos

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Thursday, September 11, 2008

CCKo8 - Emotions and connectivism

I find this subject fascinating.

In my classes, water cooling contacts, chats and presentations of a subject (and they are very technical matters) , I try to involve emotional representations (Histories of the old days, incidents relating to lack of skills - anecdotes after all) .

Adding situational context to the content helps to connect item of knowledge and reinforces memories. 

John Medina http://www.brainrules.net/pdf/JohnMedina_PsychTimes_May08.pdf,  explained  it very clear . Thanks Diego Leal, for reminding me of this .

 

Concerns

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

CCK08 My views of the learning theories

What is connectivism?

For me, connectivism is

another dimension of seeing and understating how learning occurs or grows .

Like in physics, where String Theory had to add another dimension (the 11th) to integrate gravitation , connectivism helps to deal with the growing complexity all the world of knowledge .

Here is my concept map

4Dimensionslearning

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Sunday, September 7, 2008

cck08 Pre activities course - Multitasking

Multitasking always or just following the Mob ?

Introductory statement:

The Public Sphere-Recalling Habermas – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas

George Siemens said that the Moodle Forum is the place for discussion (not until now. I did not find the place to do it)

, an Agora. Very interesting concept. This remind me of Habermas philosophy and his communication act.

Habermas defined that knowledge is created when a commutation act, mediated by language between persons, happens.

The communication act aims at getting consensus. The agent who wants to communicate claims for himself the aspect of Correction (follow norms), Truth (prove of evidence) and Sincerity (express his subject experiences – tacit knowledge). So with this in mind I express the following on the subject of multitasking in this space.

We know that the cognitivism theory in mapping the brain processes to computer design is excessive. Some analogies or metaphors, though, help me to understand better learning activities. One of which is the multitasking concepts.

In computer techniques multitasking is performed with:

a) Several CPU´s running in parallel and sharing resources distributing them to processing requests.

b) Threading – allocating Time CPU slots to processes.

This second method allows having several programs in a computer running apparently “at the same time” as long as they not exceed the CPU resources.

Multitasking, as is recognized in the proposed , is used by younger’s when they use certain media (Computers, not games or TV, according to my reading). Deducting from some declarations of participants in this study, I think youngsters are able to switch between task because they can (computers tend to take a long time to have available , ready to act, programs or webpages needed). It is this latency that permits multitasking.

In computer technology, CPUs switch between tasks, sending several data to a common stack (Temporary memory) where they can pick them up later to update registers and pointers allowing the resuming of processes.

According to Jeff Hawkins

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Hawkins

( our mind receives information from sensory interfaces (visual and audio) and from internal channel (Long Term Memory- memory of sequences) that’s allows predictions. The internal channel has information already processed, so we deduct that we can resume thinking when we switch task depending only on the sensory channels. As we have limited capacity (bandwidth ) and limited working memory (7 items according to Miller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two

)

improving the shifting of focus as needed to salient environment’s details (MIT – Fenry Jenkins on Participatory Culture on the 21 st Century) must rely on Distributed Cognition (Interact with tools that expand mental capacities ) .

Furthermore, as stated on the Multitask media paper, the best time to reach a young person attention with a message (vehicle of learning) is when that person is seeking for it (synchronizing with the slot allocation of attention of that relevant interest) . Delivering a message is not enough, one has to broadcast it and the person has to fetch it (The Networking skills) .

The first method - providing multitasking paralleling CPUs- is built distributing them in a bus or in a Grid. The Bus way has less latency but can generate a lot of overload (because of the broadcast techniques).

The Grid has selective potentialities but does depend heavily on switching technology, bandwidth and topology . The skill involved, in this anthropomorphic method of paralleling CPUs, is the Collective Intelligence (compare notes towards the common goal). This ideas pull me to -We, Borg speculations on hive Minds as a Posthuman Sate - Sandberg http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Posthumanity/WeBorg.html -

), where we have to recognized that we are at the same time a part of a planetary mind and an independent individual.

So…

Questions:

1 - Can we link up to the Collective Intelligence at will, or;

2 – We are always connected but we have some mental levels to ourselves while others are reserved to the collective- (Again the question of mind sharing resources mapping?)

Connectivism all the way , don’t you think ?

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