The change 11 MOOC has been immensely engaging and motivational. It has inspired me to learn about new areas of knowledge  and learning theory. The Cynethin model and IEML have been the highlights and although have taken repeated reading to get my head around both of them, have been the most rewarding.

They have have both led me to investigate other areas, in particular evolutionary biology – I have recently read the Selfish Gene (Dawkins 1974 first edition) and now slowly (very slowly) working my way through ‘The Origins of Order – Self-organisation and selection in evolution”(Kaufman 1993). The Selfish Gene opened up a new perspective on evolution and selection linking to game theory and how actions based on the actions of others to ensure best chance for genes to replicate (i.e. survive, breed.) This has led me to read the more complex book by Kauffman which models complex genotypes, adaptive walks and the limits of selection in evolution due to the complexity of gene’s interactions (epistatic activity). Apparently, we exist on the edge of chaos. In this environment, there may be pockets of complex interactions where self-organisation takes place, slowly spreading. In areas where the complexity becomes limited, selection becomes the dominant influence. Selection maps to the ‘simple’ environment of best practice. I wonder if the complexity catastrophes that Kauffman demonstrates to limit selection could be applied to the learning environments of connectivism. Perhaps there is some relevance to the limits of development of ideas if people limit study to one field, can this be transferred to the concept of local optimums. Perhaps ideas can only develop to a certain point because of the length of adaptive mutation – say of 1 in a closed field of study, a greater distance of ideas that can jump across fields can develop further towards the optimum point – i.e. the development of new ideas. It’s interesting that IEML perhaps can be considered as changing a complex environment with limited adaptive steps to a simple environment where all the environment is simple and the optimum (collective intelligence and the enlightenment that accompanies it) can be reached by all.

The Cynefin framework complex-complicated-simple draws on these theories. Getting an insight  into how one area of study overlaps to another has been fascinating, as well as getting to grips with another field that I hadn’t looked at since high school. The book has inspired me to review my maths (thank you Khan academy and I hope to actually apply it.

The next study plan is to continue with Kauffman (probably a couple more chapters on the origins of life), source the Vol 2 of IEML and also continue to review my maths to understand the models of self-organisation others. After that, I hope to link it back to linguistics and language study.

Social media and the change form information to formation « Esko Kilpi on Interactive Value Creation.

#change11 This link was posted on the IEML Facebook page. He may or may not be a MOOCer but the topic relates to connectivism, knowledge management and creative conversations. I hope he doesn’t mind me sharing the post with the MOOCers.

I think education systems of the future, will certainly be less about filling the container (student) with knowledge. It will be more about processing the information and understanding the relationships between concepts: optimising the ‘formation’ process.

You say you want an evolution? #change11.

This is a prezi I have added to as part of an invitation by another MOOC participant – I very creative way to initiate a ‘creative conversation’. The theme is to assess the use of digital media as evolving forms of communication in light of the tools that are available to manipulate and transfer that media.

I read (skimmed) the article about digital literacy and I believe the reason that digital literacy and print literacy are so similar is because effective use of the digital form is still being realised. By that I mean, the physical constraint of paper, the time constraint, and the space constraints of our previous forms of media and communication determined how we presented and communicated messages. Whether through, text or visual representation or audio / video the constraints have determined the pragmatics. The pragmatics of current print texts – introductory sentence, paragraphing, conclusion etc are still followed even though there is no paper to constrain the order of presentation of the text.

I wonder if it possible to transport messages in the future which contain predetermined links to knowledge/experiences/interests. A written text – is filtered for all the premises that are already linked to our previous knowledge. A 3D map around the message node can link to our individual areas of knowledge and conceptual understanding. It could even highlight how the idea of information is linking our understanding of the concepts around the idea together. The node of information is essentially just the ‘new’ piece of information. The form of media chosen to present this message (IMO, and I know I’m waffling on here will determined by 1 factor: precision of communication. If it’s quicker to present to the information with moving images and audio (i.e. a video) then this will take place. If it’s easier to do it by representing the meaning through letters and words (text) then people can chose to do this instead.

The learning path of 5. Steve Newcomb is particularly interesting. It’s encouraging that ‘Pioneers’ are welcome – I will keep plodding on trying to understand. I’m going to hit the reading list from ieml.org, as well as to try and read the rest of Vol1 and all of Vol2. By then, I hope to be able to ask a good question or two and try to come up with a question to be answered by IEML – that’s probably the ultimate goal for my learning right now.