Connections, or, What Learning is For

Recently Paul Signorelli sent out his usual invitation to his and Maurice Coleman's wonderful bi-monthly podcast series “T is for Training” where they feature trainers, educators and librarians who share their work and insights. The topic was “a National Mentoring Month discussion centered around what teacher-trainer-learners in libraries can learn from those who are already deeply involved in mentoring programs for learners of all ages.” Unfortunately, the Talkshoe platform often messes up recordings and did so again for this session. Nonetheless, I'm particularly interested in informal education for lifelong learners in 'third spaces.'

In his email invite Paul included a link to a decade old post “Alan Levine, #etmooc, and the cMOOC That Would Not Die” on his “Building Creative Bridges” blog. In his post, Alan (aka cogdog) talked about the 2013 #etMOOC and linked to last years’ “ETMOOC 10 YEARS TOP 10” celebration website which listed the #etMOOC and included a quote from Dave Cormier, “If we make community the curriculum, membership becomes how we scale. It’s all about belonging.”

Amazingly, most of the links on the blogs still work. Another reason to have your own place to post, and while Google+ and Twitter’s Storify.com have been razed, the etmooc X account still exists. For now. Unfortunately, the link to “an example of how connectivist MOOCs (cMOOCs) are beginning to serve as a new form of (collaboratively-produced) textbook” is broken. There has been much work on this topic over the past decade and I’m currently working with my academic dean and our librarian at the Western Institute for Social Research to start asking faculty to consider OERs with an eye to remixing, extending, and creating materials with and for our students. Despite their resistance to technology, er, digital tools.

Serendipitously, I was on a Reclaim (Hosting) Community 2024 Rewind Zoom session and clipped Dave Cormier’s reflection (with permission). Based on his comments I titled my post “Attention, AI, Education, & what learning is for” and included the 3 ½ minute video clip. I think Dave expressed the central issue in higher education today: "...in light of “AI”, all our institutions need to reevaluate “what learning is for” and explore how to transform into places lifelong learners can repeatedly return to as learning communities, to build upon their skill sets, and to pursue non-degree areas of interest. To me, this is the way to real sustainability for higher education." As a lifelong learner, I have been both returning to "higher education" and participating in informal learning for decades.

I'm reminded that I participated in Stephen Downes’ cMOOC “Ethics, Analytics and the Duty of Care” in 2021, where we looked at “the applications of artificial intelligence and analytics in learning technology.” If you don't know him, Stephen and George Siemens originally suggested ‘connectivism’ as a learning theory that recognized digital technology, the internet, and online learning.

I wanted to represent that experience, nearly one college quarter of work, so I made my own certificate. I even got Stephen to sign it! If nothing else, it is easier to read and understand than all my other ‘real’ certificates.

Here is Stephen's (long and thorough) resulting paper "Ethics, Analytics and the Duty of Care" published by the his employer the National Research Council Canada in 2023. And Stephen posted a shorter summary on LinkedIn.

All these resources illustrate the ongoing dialog across decades as we figure out learning and teaching in this digital age. We need to keep ethics and our duty of care centered as our mediated interactions within our learning networks now cross cultures and span the globe.

A graph would better represent the connections between all these people, resources, and blog posts. But that will have to be in another post.