Notes from Week Two CCK11

My notes from week one? Here they are

Let´s compare CCK11 to some challenges in upper secondary school

Imagine for example a girl refusing/unable to start to create something, let´s say a novel. (Maybe autistic, ADD, ADHD, unfocused, bored, not enough self confidence or whatever reason). What will sometimes* help is this:

1. Draw a square and ask her to write something inside this square. (Heavy problems-smaller square)
2. Set a time limit. Ask her to write three sentences in ten minutes. Set a countdown clock.
3. Give her a start. "To live a good life, you have to know maths". Something that she can argue against.
4. Write a suggestion yourself, but do it in a bad way, so that she would want to change it to something better.

(Once getting started, she will typically produce an excellent novel)

Imagine the same girl, refusing/unable to take part in social situations and connect to others during lunch break. (Whatever reason.) What sometimes will help is this:

1. Create a clear center for lunch break activities. A round table with a coffe brewer for example.
2. Don´t wait for a spontaneous discussion about the weather to take place around this table. Instead, create a center, one concrete thing, around wich a discussion can take place. It can be a card game, a camera, a drawing, an article, an ipad, a riddle, ...
3. Set a time limit. "I ask you to stay here for ten minutes, then you can leave if you want."

In other words, to create something new, that you can share with others, to contribute, you sometimes need a starting point, a center and frames. (Like in computer games)

Catalysts.

Not all people need this, to get started, but some do.

Giving the girl (and others) a simple starting point and a clear center like this does not mean she will get stucked there. On the contrary she will dare to move around, connect and create new centers if she knows where to start and if she has a place to  return to?

My point is, I do like the freedom and the lack of center in CCK11. However I think it would be possible to include more people in, and deepen the discussion if a SIMPLE center with ONE suggested starting point was offered.

I am thinking one youtubeclip or one text or one question a week around which a discussion can start along with the necessary announcements (like time and place for sessions) and why not also the highlight of the past week. Like the http://cck11.mooc.ca/ and http://cck11.mooc.ca/newsletter.htm in one, but if possible, simpler, more like a dot. Why just not a simple central Blogger blog combined with a public Google Reader and gRSS hopper and search gadget? Like a first door to the different discussions, a facilitators PLE, and a starting point/model for creating your own PLE.

For more disucussion about a center or not, in a MOOC, watch the recorded friday session.

*This is not evidencebased facts. I just say this based on own experiences as a teacher. Sometimes, of course, this will not help at all, maybe even make things worse. Sometimes it works better just to listen to the girl and wait for her to come up with something her own way.

Ett sätt att ta tillvara den tysta lärarkompetensen och minska alienation?

alienation, förfrämligande, känsla av maktlöshet, meningslöshet, social isolering och brist på identitet. (http://www.ne.se/alienation, Nationalencyklopedin, hämtad 2011-01-29)

Vi har detta år en kurs som heter Livskunskap. I den kursen kan vi inkludera

1. Det som vi tycker är viktigt att kunna för just våra elever.
2. Det som just våra elever tycker är viktigt att lära sig.
3. Praktiska grejer som behöver göras. (Nu i veckan kommer det besök till vår verksamhet. De vill lära sig om Flexibelt Lärande. Eleverna och vi hjälps åt att organisera detta besök som en del i kursen).

Det är bra med en sådan här relativt "fri" kurs.

Jag skulle verkligen vilja att 100 poäng (eller fler) av alla 2500 poäng som ska läsas i GY11, överläts helt åt dem som jobbar på golvet (lärare och annan personal som jobbar nära eleverna) och eleverna själva att forma och fylla med innehåll.


Det ploppar kontinuerligt upp viktiga saker som stoppas in i livskunskapskursen. Den är inte svår att fylla med innehåll. Det kan till exempel vara strategier för att hålla ordning eller komma i tid, studieteknik, organisera teambuilding, planera sina studier, skapa nätverk eller diskutera livssituationer och framtidsplaner.


Och man blir liksom mera angelägen om att skapa ett relevant innehåll och en bra struktur för kursen om man inte kan gömma sig bakom eller skylla på skolverkets mål.

All CCK11content (RSS feeds) collected in One Stylish Magazine

Tomorrow morning for breakfast, I will be able to read all of the RSS feeds in CCK11 as a magazine

How?

The iPad app Flipboard (free) will transform the gRRS-hopper and Twitter chaos into a stylish magazine for you. Much easier to read!

Just follow the 3 steps below:

1. Buy an iPad
2. Download the app Flipboard to the iPad(it´s free)
3. I made a Twitteraccount with the feed of blogposts in cck11. It´s called CCK11Feeds. Follow that account with Flipboard (or make your own). You can also follow the twitter list of cck11 participants. Voila!

Can someone give me one million dollar so that I can start a school that uses iPad-Flipboard-gRRS-hopper instead of a LMS?

What would I do without my RSS Reader CCK11

Instead of seraching for a center in CCK11 to hang on to, I now try to create my own center by adding all feeds I find to my Google Reader. So far I have added:

• http://cck11.mooc.ca/dailyposts.xml

• http://www.quora.com/CCK11

• http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=%23cck11

• The facebook group, tricky one. I tried to use yahoo pipes for the feed of the group but I am not sure  if it works. Any suggestions how to add facebookgroupfeeds to RSS Reader?