Connecting Communities

My Top 10 Tools for 2011

2011-11-13T21:37:00.001+11:00

Jane Hart has compiled and shared for the last 5 years the Top 100 tools used by educators. She invited educators from across the world to Share their top 10 Tools
Hoping I can dive in before voting closes for the 2011 list. As I teach every week online and am always on the search for better educational tools here are my top 10 tools.

Adobe Connect Virtual Classroom - for live online connections with students and teams
Voicethreads - www.voicethread.com Wonderful for language learning, visual & audio collaboration and digital story telling
Wikispaces - www.wikispaces.com brilliantly quick for collaboratively building and sharing content & for eportfolios
Screenr - www.screenr.com a fun and quick less than 5 minute way to demo how to use tools online.
Dropbox - www.dropbox.com for sharing files and easily synching files across online tools.
Google Docs -https://docs.google.com for storing, collaborating and publishing files - quick surveys too.
Delicious www.delicious.com for saving and sharing your favourites for anytime, anywhere.
Toondoo - www.toondoo.com for writing and building cartoons in language
Flickr - www.flickr.com for sharing and finding images
Facebook - www.facebook.com a tool I am gradually learning to see value in this tool for education. Currently I am learning via Facebook to experience it.

Others close to the 10 would be Google + for connection with colleagues; Twitter for connecting and discovering new info; Voki - for fun short animation; survey monkey for gathering stats (though google docs has a great tool, Blackboard Collaborate as an alternative to Adobe connect but i don't get to play often with that tool, still somewhat resistant to Moodle but will be trying to apply it more this year; Youtube a great resources.. especially Lee le Fevers info videos; Audacity for editing sound files; Screenhunter for capturing images with the cursor on my screen.... and I could go on but these are the key tools

Elearning innovation - Presentation at the Vocational Education Summit (Sydney, Aus)

2011-10-29T21:13:00.015+11:00

I was asked to present at the Tonkin's Vocational Education Summit on the topic of "Looking how building e-learning innovations are assisting with training for now and for the future"

I found researching the topic and considering what to present a fascinating challenge, thought provoking and what I discovered questioned the existence and purpose of Training organisations in the future and what the role of a 'teacher' will be.

If you are involved in education I encourage you to follow the many links embedded in this presentation. I am sure you will discover much food for thought.

Elearning innovation - Presentation at the Vocational Education Summit

View more presentations from vivevans

Our learners are changing along with technology and social communication – We will see this increasingly so... People wanting skills and solutions to issues... Not necessarily qualifications (perhaps more so recognition of prior learning.. From their self directed learning.

Gottfreson also states that:

These kinds of learners will ultimately abandon outright our formal learning solutions if what we provide them fails to efficiently prepare them to effectively perform at their moments of “Apply.” Why? Because when facing a traditional course that fails to do this, today's learners are predisposed to simply walk away and look elsewhere for the shortest path to successful performance.

Jane Hart in her presentation "The Future of Learning is Social" suggests 'that success can be measured by organisations moving away from learning management systems.'

It would take for many organisations a giant leap in thinking to not utilise a Learning management system with their online students.

Final thoughts
I certainly know that we do need to radically rethink learning and training... and where we as trainers / managers / leaders / innovators will best engage learners.

A big concern is the widening digital divide - between individuals, communities and across the road. Access to resources and the skills to set and achieve their own personal learning goals.

Level 1 Eportfolios - Understand what they are

2011-08-03T15:40:00.009+10:00

http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Diving into another MOOC... let's see if I can stick with this one for the 6 weeks.

This one is Australian and hosted by long term online colleague Coach Carole :-), live chats are Aussie time so that will make my engagement with others more likely. Focus is Eportfolios... would be good to build my own so i can assist students... in fact as I am exploring the resources in the MOOC I can see a lot of potential

My challenge now is to get comfortable with the MOOC tools and forms of communication. Have spent past hour & 1/2 exploring, bookmarking on delicious & a few tweets.

What is interesting is exploring the potential for tools as well e.g. Ning, google sites (hmm like the look of this one)

Joined the NING EpCoP MOOC network space... but waiting to be approved.

Followed and joined a Facebook group called TwitterED... saved some links in my Delicious tagged with edcopmooc (hoping that is the correct tag as I can't find the #tag for this MOOC.

Discovered finally the level 1 https://sites.google.com/site/epcoplearnspace/ct1/Subject1

Really enjoyed this Youtube explanation of Eportfolios for beginners - gorgeous graphics :-) on this one.

Alison Miller showed another video - which visually was a bit poor but she had some excellent points and understanding about the needs of someone developing an eportfolio to enhance life long learning

Skills
Support
Structure
Space (I wonder what will be the best place to house - aggregate an eportfolio. I would be concerned investing into a site such as my employer's as in this changing environment I should/could change my employer regularly) Of course bits are everywhere!

Some years ago I created a Teaching Career Map of what had influenced my teaching career and it was very difficult to fit on one page. It didn't have live links & actually was the first page in a book that i produced. It would be brilliant to establish and grow this idea to have links etc to the world wide web.

Challenges in building an eportfolio that i want to uncover... how to make sure that the tools and resources are available to students throughout their life long learning

Found this video discussing how Uni teachers and students engaged in Eportfolios/blogging as part of their learning. Fascinating... can see a lot of potential for General Education & Equity Services teachers collaborating with other faculties and supporting their students. Perhaps we could include an aspect for Nursing students in a project I am currently involved in. #HG2011

Challenge find resources that are easy for beginners to IT already potentially overwhelmed by learning online to engage in more online tools!

What makes a good Blog posting?

2011-01-14T14:51:00.008+11:00

Teacher blogging Week 2 challenge.

1.Provide a link to an effective post from a blog you have found (preferably not
a post you have written). What is it about this post that makes it effective?
What characteristics do effective posts share?

Exploring the most influential education blog posting for 2010 was interesting. I headed straight for the winning post (though did scan the list of nomination finalists... for another time)

So what was effective about the wining blog post for 2010? $2 interactive whiteboard

Videos that were included were discussed... and a question asked of the reader (with the answer provided :-) ) Not just plonked in but an invitation to view and consider.
I liked this little comment directed to a link
<-- Go read this! (See image) Blogs are so full of links that i liked the way Frank pointed out that this is worth reading. Guess what! I went and read that link and yes worth reading :-) (BTW I highlighted the text in yellow using the 'snipping tool'.)

Frank provided valuable and usable resources through links and information. e.g. how to make/buy a $2 whiteboard

Summarizing in bullet forms (quick and easy to read.. providing links to original sources of ideas for the bullets)

The comments on Franks posting seemed to be mostly physics or mathematics teachers so the audience and networks were well established and he was writing for a specific audience - physics teachers and teachers generally perhaps too administrators.

Frank was quite busy engaging in comments to the postings with more ideas and reflections on the contributors. I think that adds value to his blog. He engages with his audience. :-)

Frank wasn't afraid to share his beliefs - That was the value of reading his post as a fellow teacher.

The 2nd most influential blog posting for 2010 was Things I think teacher librarians should unlearn (20 & counting)

Wow now this posting was so very different. This blog posting is a short posting with brief intro and 20 bullets -

I think what was influential was the topic... it struck a chord with the intended audience making them think personally of their work role

that Joyce and her blog is well networked (I am noticing lots of teacher librarians are very active online and tech savvy)

Unlike Frank's posting Joyde didn't respond to many post comments (except when contraversial - e.g. one person found her list disrespectful and Joyce went to defend her intent) Joyce let the conversation flow with not all that much input)

Joyce's bullet points had personal comments/feelings with them

So what makes an effective Blog? Not in any particular order of importance. (I sense this should be a changing list - thankfully you can edit posts ;-) )

Writing to a specific audience (Consider who would be interested in your thoughts? colleagues, students, young, old or everything in between, tech heads, fellow bloggers, gardeners, knitters etc)

Building a network - links in with point above. Build your own network by posting a link to your blog post on your other networks e.g. twitter, facebook, wikis etc adding to your email signature, tagging

Tagging your blog with appropriate tags - so you and others can find it

Good writing skills - use of spelling, punctuation, intro - body - end, (Bad punctuation can irritate some)

Good links that make sense (not ugly links but words that link to the site)

Adding your personality - emoticons (but don't overdo it!), your values, your emotions, your questions, your curiosity, your opinions! All these connect you to the reader and may disconnect you to some. LOL :-)

'A picture paints a 1000 words' (Wonder who first quoted that? - Now there's a search challenge). Though the sample winning posts didn't have pictures (hmm one had a videos) I think an image to tell the story looks good. Nice for aggregators too. ( I like the way my blog postings appear in my aggregator and down the side of my blog in the blog archives.)
Use headings, bolded words, bullet points where appropriate.

So here's my blog ending (grin)

I know i will be back to add more. I want to make this posting a useful link to others wanting to learn about blogging so it has to improve! BUT it is Friday afternoon 5pm time for me to log off and head to the beautiful day outside... I think I need to pick some flowers from my garden to brighten the lounge is in order!

Happy Blogging! Viv

My Life as a Blogger - Let's hope it improves!

2011-01-10T13:32:00.008+11:00

Well as foretold in an earlier posting I have taken on the Edublog Teacher Challenge.

I can't say I am a beginner so I go to the advanced section of the Challenge.
(Interestingly since I signed up for the challenge last week I have been inspired to blog almost everyday!! Which has had me advancing in skills unforeseen on my blog before)

So where or rather When did my Blogging Life Begin?

My Blogger tells me I began blogging in August 2006... I have created 5 different Blogs

Image of coffee cup word cloud made using http://www.tagxedo.com/app.html

I have kept struggling to find a reason and the inspiration to blog.... I prefer to invest in the community/team/project I am working on. I have thought of Blogs as egocentric, tricky to negotiate, too linear - wikis allowed me to link up, build side menus that evolved to what I wanted to highlight, prioritise information the way I wanted it to appear. So I erred way more on the side of wikis. Though I envied colleagues who blogged and kept personal wikis as they brought people to their site whilst I invested and 'repeated' content on lots of sites.

You can't say it wasn't for the lack of trying!

Out of the 5 blogs I did create - 'Connecting Communities' now holds the record with a whole 12 posts! (If you count this).

One blog didn't even score one posting :-( It was for a project that had a wiki and lots of other activities so I must have thought about it and then forgot or thought better of it!)

The other 4 racked up only 5 a piece - one blog was a plan to digitise the diary I kept on building our house... I should keep doing that so I don't lose the fabulous content to fires/loss/damage or similar.

My 16yo daughter thought it was hilarious when I told her I blogged and had so since 2006... and then told her how often. She was almost in tears! 4 posts! LOL

Oh I almost forgot I engaged in a DET NSW trial blog with my adult literacy students called 'Write On!' which worked quite well with a variety of lessons worked around blogging. Though the trial version was limited it was interesting how our digital rollbooks linked in - but couldn't get fellow colleagues linked in. - This has now improved.

Why have I increased blogging now? A variety of reasons.

A Teacher challenge to spur me on;

Being engaged in a MOOC (Massive Online Open Course) needing a place to put my reflections;

The increased ease of adding gadgets to my blog page - making it more fun and linked to other aspects of my online presence;

Inspired by 174 people checking out my last blog (Earlier blogging would have been virtually invisible to others on the web - so better now as I am linked into Facebook, twitter and with tagging to relevant topics and groups);

Increased linkages from lots of other sites e.g. You can check out a Youtube, Slideshare, Flickr image and from that site push it out to your Blog;

Increased personal understanding in how tools, sites, links etc work and how to negotiate them

Improvement in internet speed and computer speed are both ways that blogging would increase!! Still working on it but have an i7 core speed on my new (as of yesterday) laptop! Woo hoo! Next a bigger aerial to be installed for my wireless connection from out here in the bush.

So here is hoping that my Blogging will continue as I can see uses in the following areas

For lessons - individual classes
Building a technology based resource... How to's, Why to's
Personal learning reflection
Diarising personal building, gardening, alternative power
The list goes on

Happy Blogging!

Taking the plunge into a MOOC - LAK11

2011-01-09T18:00:00.014+11:00

George Siemens is hosting another open online course (a MOOC) and I am taking the plunge (with over 400 other participants world wide) whilst I have some time over the break. The topic is Learning & Knowledge Analytics... 6 weeks of exploring the analysis of how people learn online.

I have been warned to expect chaos and feeling overwhelmed!

I want to document how and what I learn in this course - so a few blogs that will be about the personal analysis of my learning and gaining of knowledge through this very open

and 'radical' way of learning.

So I have listened to the live recording of the first intro - about 1 hr. Recording was handy as I could pause when I wanted to follow up links - from both the presenation & chat input; listen when I realised screens weren't changing in the chat and followed up more links, surfed, twittered, tagged & bookmarked.

Bookmarked a few sites that appeared in the chat and saved with #LAK11 See my LAK11 bookmarks on delicious http://www.delicious.com/vivevans/LAK11

Joined the Facebook group & the Diigo group that was created during the live chat.

Posted a quick tweet on twitter - retweeted George Siemens recording posting (where I found the link to the course). The tag #LAK11 for seeing related tweets.

Joined the LAK11 Moodle group and posted an introduction, edited my profile and responded to 3 others - selecting participants from other countries and who hadn't had a reply as yet. (A habit formed from 23 things project to engage participants). Stopped the email feed from Moodle as I know from experience I could be overwhelmed by the number of postings!!! Especially when I am also notified on my mobile of my incoming emails. Crikey not sure of the numbers but as George mentioned over 400 participants have expressed interest. This will mean I will need to check the Moodle for the input.

Joined the Google group - read 6 postings and followed up a link to the slides from the live intro chat and marked all 6 postings as read.

Checked out Netvibes LAK11 and tried to see if I could copy it - unsuccessful so need to work on this some more.

Here are the slides - a short and sweet summary

Lak11_Orientation

View more presentations from gsiemens.

Then onto this blog postings - (took 2 goes over 2 days to gather the images & links, edit the notes.

After all that a link i followed from the chat explaining what Learning Analytics is... DUH should have considered this first. Good old wikipedia! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_analytics

This is making me think is this really what I want to do? I think yes to understand what systems are out there that can measure connections, privacy issues and what works for engaging learners and gaining of knowledge, and finally experiencing learning in such a huge open course. I think I would prefer CCK11 but LAK11 is shorter and now whilst I have some time.

Though as George suggested engage in both when you want and when the topics and time suits!

Balancing and managing the info overload is certainly going to be the challenge here... and already I have a sore shoulder ;-) from being online too long.

Will I last the 6 weeks? Does it matter? I've certainly learnt a lot already - just in posting, linking, checking out the mesh of resources used in the course, how the facilitators see the variation in the uptake and engagement in such an open course (MOOC)

Time to post :-)

Networking Online like Pinball Machine

2011-01-08T22:20:00.003+11:00

Pinball Bumpers
Originally uploaded by Kapungo

I have spent the day reconnecting myself across the web... well I think that is the best way to describe it.

Not really any new sites except some delving deeper, building more links and networking systems. Websites I had joined some years ago now connect to others so much easier.

One site just doesn't seem enough... it is the connections between sites and tools that builds the web and makes the connections with more people and more ideas.

So where did I start the day? I know I didn't work in a linear fashion it was a lot of bouncing to different sites and back again... a bit like a ball in a pin ball machine. (Hence the picture.. thanks Kapungo for the image. ) That was another 'bounce' and link up (flickr and blogger connect)

A spark from an email was the beginning - it was Edublog inviting me to take up a Teacher Challenge. So I joined that.

Which triggered me to revisit my blog... and editing the design which meant adding all those cool gadgets and networking gizmos on the side. Counters, RSS feeds, Links, Images from Flickr etc

I revisited my aggregator Netvibes - I focused on updating my public netvibes aggregator. Why is it that appearance makes such a difference? Colour makes difference - visual appealing outcomes makes it so much more rewarding. It makes you want to create more. Bright greens, pinks, blues...

Some facebook postings (yes starting to get more of a hang on that site... though I wonder why they seem to hide things on facebook.) I added links from flickr to facebook and got 2 comments! That inspires more connections! More networking! More bounces on the Pinball machine!

Bouncing then between Flickr, twitter, images captured from a live chat last week, grabbing screen grabs, linking up blogger to netvibes, linking up twitter to netvibes

Then had to tweak my wikispace and change my menu... more links more bounces through the pinball.

Well enough... bouncing for one day. (though looking forward to creating more... it is a little addictive... like those pinball machines.)

Live Chats Inspire

2011-01-08T16:26:00.006+11:00

I was lucky to spot an email alerting me to a Live chat with an American library network and I had an hour before it started! So once I got over the confusion of time zones etc (I wasn't the only one and ended up striking up a connection with a fellow Aussie - Robyn :-))

Over 100 participants joined the session which included 4 librarians presenting how they facilitate their networks - it was full of ideas and strategies for connecting communities and heaps of tools to play with.

Here is a link to the Chat recording and other resources. I have grabbed this slideshare which includes all the slides from the presentation.

SIGMS at the TL Virtual Cafe

View more presentations from ISTE SIGMS.

I went and had a play with the word cloud tool Tagxedo that was mentioned in the chat... and turned our family Christmas letter into a Map of Australia. Well an interesting tool to use for some quick imagery to include in a blog/website.

Other tools discussed
www.voicethread.com - Well I am a confirmed fan of Voicethreads see My Focus & help page on Voicethreads

Grouply - where one group moved from Ning when Ning started charging (Don't you hate that! Understandable for developers but frustrating for those wanting free community sites... I have a legacy of moving community websites as they go from free to charging or putting on revolting ads. (hmm could I list them all... Blackboard, Communityzero, Wetpaint...)

Animoto - still to be sold on this site but have joined and dabbled, Though I did like that I could upload the photos and leave the site and my computer whilst it finished off my film! Then sent me an email when it was ready. Like the service especially when on low bandwidth!

I ended up making twitter followers and followees :-) Favourited a number of sites and as my Blog title suggested I was inspired!

Cheers to the Teacher Librarians in the USA! Thanks for sharing.

Viv

Web wanderings... leads to idiogo text to speech tool

2010-10-30T21:40:00.004+11:00

Well isn't always the way that you go on the web and find new tools that you didn't even dream of.

Aiming to respond to a post in 23things... I explored Michael Coghlins Blog link to demonstrate hipcast (podcasting via your mobile phone)

But whilst there reading the post I pressed the incorrect audio file and discovered that another tool in his site read his text. So after listened to a passionate review by Michael, posting a comment to Michael's blog, going back to moodle to post to the discussion forum, tagging the http://www.hipcast.com/ site to delicious I went back to Michael's blog to see where the text to speech tool came from.

Now I have joined Odiogo.com for free, Joined, added my blogger address and now have all my blog postings translated text into speech (although a male american voice he doesn't do too badly reading the text). Sure there will be issues for the translations.

It has interesting potential for students with low level reading skills, visually impaired. Can you see other advantages? At least readers have the choice to play it or not.

Anyway my web wanderings had interesting pay offs but now I had better get back to those Moodle discussions.

Web Wandering Viv

23Things team meet

2010-10-15T14:53:00.007+11:00

Time flew this morning where we had 10 members of the NSW team of the 23Things project meet at 1 Oxford Street to kick off the project.

So much to fit into 3 hours that we were meeting!

We covered introductions and it is always fun to make a connection with individuals - we shared how we relax and unwind... which gave us some interesting insights.

Got stalled when we went to sign in to the Moodle (We needed a Key & didn't have one!) So like any technology teacher you need a back up plan so this was resolved with a quick side step into offline role play on discussion forums.

We discussed the E-avalanche... how to cope with the onslaught of new tools in pairs and then shared the ideas.
(The image shows our whiteboard of our discussions.)

We linked up briefly with participants in SA where Jim from SA and Katy from NSW bravely took on the mic to share why they were doing the course. Go Jim & Katy!

We checked out Delicious (not on the plan) but everyone was keen so we checked out http://www.delicious.com/. If the team tag useful sites with 23things as well as others we can share sites of mutual interest.

Participants chose between wikis or a blogger and some of the team stayed on to kick of their site whilst I assisted. Some very clever titles for the wikis. :-)

Cheers Viv

Why Facebook?

2010-10-05T14:17:00.005+11:00

Well I have succumbed to joining Facebook in the line of duty :-)

Reason for joining t0 understand how it works for the Elearning online course.. at this stage after a brief tour I am not sure what the benefits will be.

Spooked

What spooked me was that as soon as I signed in it listed a host of people I knew! My 16 y.o. tells me it accesses my emails but it seemed to be more than that! Maybe I had joined before and it recognised me... who knows!

Useful for connecting teams??

I'm curious to know if teachers/teams use facebook to connect

I know my extended family do and for some of them the games and connections are the only aspect they use of the web besides emails and a few websites. For me it is completely the opposite I am deluged with online building and connections not sure i need Facebook as well!

Well within 2 hours I had 3 friends confirmed :-) :-) :-) and had engaged in a conversation.

Issues

Blocked at TAFE

Need everyone to join to work (though that is common for all sites to connect teams)

Alternatives

Plaxo (more professional allows input from various sites e.g. Flickr)

More time will tell with this tool.

23 Things... tools, tools, tools

2010-10-05T12:47:00.010+11:00

I have just taken up a project in collaboration with a great team to help deliver '23 Things' engaging participants from NSW and SA through the AFLF.

Michael Coughlin, Stephan Schmidt and myself will be inducting 'newbies' to 23 online tools. As I understand it Marlene Manto devised the current program based on the "Learning 2.0 program" that was inspired by a program 43 things I want to do with my life

Anyway I am attempting to get up to speed with the 23 things in this particular project... I have used heaps and heaps of online tools and am somewhat amazed (perhaps better to say somewhat amused) at the amount I haven't used from the list and the number that I used to use and don't any longer. It isn't amazing considering the amount of tools that are online and the various purposes we put to using these tools. So this will prove to be a fun discovery tour - reaquainting myself with old web 2.0 tools and new 2.0 tools and of course the most fun will be engaging and learning with the team of participants!!!

Fighting for access

I thought it pertinent to record my discoveries and rediscoveries in a blog (Yes Blogger makes the 23 things list ) so after almost an hour of fiddling and fighting with the mish mash of email accounts (Yes Blogger converted to Gmail accounts after I had joined blogger so user and passwords were a blur after such a long time between postings so my usual standard email, username and password went right out the window!)

I had to fight my way into recalling my gmail account, then my password as it kept pushing me into creating a new account and I knew I had old blogs I didn't want another account. Anyway here I am posting again on blogger.

Blogging & I don't quite gel - Long time between postings

I must admit despite making many attempts for many years to blog I just can't quite stick at it. (I noted that I joined blogger back in 2005 so that is 5 years with perhaps 20 postings on 5 different blogs within my account)

So why don't I stick at it?

I prefer to put my time into communities or teams I am working with... so I prefer to put my energies in the team wiki to a blog

Perhaps it is because I haven't had much in the way of feedback so posting to the ether doesn't make sense to me. IF people replied to my postings perhaps I would have fuel for posting more.

Since Google took over Blogger many years ago my access has been somewhat frustrated so haven't wasted my time to get back in.

Perhaps I don't know how to effectively engage in a blog. I have posted to others blogs but they are through random visits and I don't check out what happens afterwards.

Do you blog? Do you follow bloggers? What makes you stick at it?

Word Clouds - visualising key words

2008-07-11T19:43:00.004+10:00

Wordle.net calls it's tool a 'toy' and it is definitely fun to play with! Wordle gives you options of creating 'tag clouds' of any del.icio.us account or any page that has an RSS feed. I dived right in to play and checked out my own Delicious tags (the result above is quite interesting)

But wait there's more you can paste in blocks of text and this I found interesting from the perspective as an adult literacy teacher. I tried using a transcript from a 4 minute news piece video (We have been basing reading/writing activities on current news from a great show called 'Behind the News')

For a first attempt I created a word cloud that was a mass of words. Wordle allows you to select the number of words so I pulled it back to 20 words. The result looked much better (see below). These could be the words students focus on for their spelling and various literacy activities as they are the more commonly used words.

A visual tool 'Wordle' allows you to change fonts, layout and colours... a potential poster in the room or in a website for those who learn visually.

2008-06-20T21:59:00.000+10:00

Inspiration..
First posting for 'Connecting Communities'... the Blogspot created ages ago but no posting till now. Despite reading many blogs and starting many blogs I have a real problem Blogging!

The inspiration? Why tonight? A variety of things... Firstly George Siemen's email re upcoming Connectivism & Connective Knowledge Online course, returning today from involvement in a 2 day Head Teacher Symposium sharing of issues, think tanks, talking about worklife balance, innovation, procedures and policies blocking innovation & collaboration (WHY? Certainly not the intent), Influencing change to overcome these, George Siemens and many other things...

George is modelling/exploring/delivering a fascinating concept of an open uni course where
*you can get credit if you pay for it & are therefore assessed or you can engage anyway, at any level...
*650 expressions of interest to date and it doesn't start for a few months yet!
*A myriad of new ideas.. A blog, wiki, & email list (hmm not knew to many...)
Connectivism Wiki * Connectivism and Connective Knowledge Blog * Connectivism Google Group

*focus on participants using their own space and tagging with CCK08
*Relying on the network itself to push the issues

To Quote George Siemens

"Rather than forcing learners to participate in a space and manner that we deem appropriate, we will leave things as open and flexible as possible. You may have this feeling of "what if I miss something". This is the new normal feeling online :), particularly in decentralized learning environments. We will happily trust the network to filter and highlight important concepts and ideas.
Do you have ideas on how we can improve the participant experience of this course? How can we extend access? (We've had one person offer to translate into Chinese and another to translate into Spanish). How can we push the boundaries of teaching and learning?
Final point: we hope to use this experience as an opportunity to research the impact of a large online open course. We'll be sharing our design approaches on the blog (link provided above) as well as soliciting your input/reactions to what we're planning to do."

I am definitely inspired to be a part of this journey!
Inspired to make my first blog post to hopefully
be followed my many more (I currently have a history of 'Blog blockage'!)
Inspired to join, tag, and establish links & webs in http://del.icio.us/vivevans/CCK08 and beyond
Inspired to reflect and connect to learn
Woo hoo! A brilliant learning curve ahead! Are you going to join too? Go on!!!