Like 1,200 other people, I’m planning to take George Siemen’s and Stephen Downes‘ Connectivism class through the University of Manitoba in September.
I listened to the planners’ podcast at EdTech Talk this morning, and it sounds like they’re expecting only about 30 people to take the class for credit (I will be doing so, and think it will be many more than 30). There is already a mail list, a blog, a Google group, a wiki, a tag (CCK08) and numerous groups forming by language and location. The instructors are organizing for what is already a welcome experiment in open education, a class which is a model of its own learning theory. I am spending the morning organizing feeds in preparation.
One of the intriguing elements of this class is that its organization seems to be paralleling what we’re doing with the new Program for Online Teaching Online Teaching Certificate. In terms of assessment (of interest to every student, even me) the Connectivism instructors sound like they’re developing versions of self-assessment through blogging as a primary tool. This is also what we’ve created for the Program. As instructors accumulate workshops and outside information while learning how to teach online, they are required to share by using a blog, wiki, or web page.
The intention is both documentation and building of community among our online instructors, which has been sorely lacking. People show up for workshops, we get rave reviews, but then I tend to hear from participants individually, rather in a group setting (such as the forums on the POT Moodle site). At the same time as I encourage more discussion online, I hope that the certification plan will lead to more sharing of technology methods and pedagogy.
I originally thought that the Connectivism class would be of most help with my teaching history, and I’m sure it will. But the overlaps are making me think that it might be even more helpful for POT.