MOOCs as organizational learning tools

[This post is my reply to the following question posed in the #moocmooc MOOC, (which can be found at www.moocmooc.com ): "If MOOCs aren’t a replacement for the classroom in higher education, how else might they be employed in our teaching and learning?" ]

MOOCs, what are they good for?

I've participated in a couple MOOCs so far, and i have to say that they're something definitely special. But both critics and fans will probably agree on one thing: they're not very much like your granpa's learning experiences. They can be so different that, in some cases, it's hard to find "a teacher". So weird that the discussion with other participants can enrich your thought much more than the prescribed readings. And they can sometimes demand so much initiative that overkill doesn't start to describe the feeling that can grab the guts of the "weaker" students.

In my view, MOOCs are really good at:

• making reflection possible. Individual reflection and collective reflection. And that's not nothing. This is a big deal (to me).
• making conversations happen that couldn't possibly happen anywhere else in the world/web.
• creating connections between people, contents, and ideas.
• successfully demanding people to create stuff and show/share it to the (online) world. "successfully" will not be defined in this post, but it's successful enough that other participants will go read it/see it/link to it and in many documented instances go as far as commenting those artifacts.

MOOCs as organizational development tools

Now, where would those strengths be put to good use? Any educational context, sure. But for me, where the magic could/should happen is within organizational contexts 

[Full disclosure: i am an Organizational Psychologist by training and vocation, and will quite possibly remain so for the remainder of my earthly life]

What i mean by that is that MOOCs, because they're so good at making reflections (individual and collective) happen make them a weapon of choice for any organization to use them to foster the discussions no one has time for within the "normal" time a company has allotted for its activities. 

In this context, i shall define organizational reflection as an active process whereby the organization can look at itself, revise where it stands, make some assumptions it works with explicit and discuss them frankly, seeking to grasp its reality (and the surrounding context) in a way that helps it cope with its past, present and future in a better way. 

Never heard of organizational reflection before? It's because no one has the time it takes to think about those things. Also, organizational reflection might not necessarily be conducive to increased revenue, demands quite a lot of humbleness, and is best served by open minds that can take the positive with the not so positive.

M.O.O.C in an organization:

I think MOOCs can be a super tool to make organizational reflection a possibility. 

• Massive: Because it is Massive, most everyone (within the organization) can be invited. 
• Open: Because it is Open (again, within the organization) it can be a superb tool to enhance a strong sense of participation and even ownership. 
• Online: As it is Online, it can be used across all sites where the organization operates, and can be used asynchronously, which makes possible for everyone to join in when they can, something that would otherwise demand freezing all activities for a huge yet short event. Also, making it online makes following the participation much simpler: who is participating in which discussion, and who hasn't shared anything yet can be fairly easily tracked, especially when the limits of the organizations have been established.
• Course: The Course part is mostly about defining which aspects (of the organization) need to be discussed: it's an agenda of sorts, used to put forward topics that matter in that organization. The course aspect denotes of course the learning aspect of MOOCs. I won't get into details here, but the potential for organizational learning and even Knowledge Management, as participants engage and share with each others should be pretty obvious.

Reflections for week 1

1. What are your learning goals for this course?
2. In what ways are you hoping to connect what you learn here with your own practice?

1) My learning goals include, but are not necessarily limited to:

• understanding what the 'PLE paradigm' covers, and what it implies for formal education 
• making new (online) friends, with whom i can discuss (mostly) PLE related stuff 
• deepen my reflections on PLE, and get more thoughts out in the clear 
• widen my learning network for the PLE/PLN topic 
• assemble more academic resources on PLEs 
• formulate a (somewhat) coherent framework regarding PLEs that i can share with educators 

2) My expectations regarding practice come from a trainer's perspective: i want to articulate a framework i can put to test with 'traditional' teachers and other non-formal NGO-type groups. Actually, i would go as far as trying to get that framework tested in informal groups i work with. 

Also, since i've recently joined a virtual team/organization that delivers trainings, i hope i can enrich what we do with the application of pertinent elements of both MOOC styled educational activities and PLEs approaches.

The dilemma PLEs might solve

In summary, PLENK2010 got finished, and my participation fizzled quite a bit in the last few weeks. It was an interesting course, where i discovered a connection that i had been looking for for more than a few years, as illustrated (quite coarsely manner) in this 2004 post.

The dilemma of education, to me, was centered on two needs that it should be managing:

1. Education must be universal: everyone has a right, and a responsibility to get educated.
2. Education should provide the opportunities for each individual to discover his personal strengths, talents, and deliver to means to connect those to the needs of society. 

The first aspect covers aspects of education that all humans beings need to perform and deliver the services societies, and humanity at large needs. The second one is not really a concern in the 'modern' educational systems we have created. We've emphasized the first aspect and "standardized" so much that "customization" or "personalization" is completely out of the question, and usually scoffed at: This is not how and why the educational systems were created: they were made so lots of people could learn how to jump through exactly the same hoops.

However, the experience of most individuals that survive formal education -and of many educators- is quite dissonant from the unisized, uniformed experience that we've been trying to deliver. As societies grow more diverse (because of migration to name but a factor), standardization works less and less. The promise then lies in personalization, individualization, or customization of education. 

The question then has become for me: How can massive, centralized educational systems deliver that customizable experience?

My answer as of this time of the century: PLEs might well be the quick fix that solves the dilemma. On the longer term, as the systems 'feel' the feedback they get from students exposed to the ideas and practice of the PLEs, they might just evolve in an almost timely fashion, and adapt around them. 

Montessori, another key?

This being said, i've recently been more in touch with the Montessori theory of education, which is deemed to be inherently personalized. Could that be another key to solving the dilemma? How come Montessori has not amounted to becoming a standard massive educational systems? If you have an opinion, please drop it in the comments.

What i'm doing about it

Since i am considering PLEs as part of the answer to the dilemma, i enrolled at the PLEK12 (PLEs for k-12 education) online course. If it's intriguing to you too, jump right in! (it's free).

Talkin' about (educational) revolution

Saw on The Daily today Linn’s post of a talk by Sir Ken Robinson on the need not for reform of education but rather for its (utter?) transformation.

It seems there is some synchronousness going on, as i discovered the same video yesterday. But I discovered after another video, which does a great job of adding visuals to a different talk (on the same topic) from Sir Robinson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z78aaeJR8no

While I was at it, I also discovered a great interview of the great Isaac Asimov, in which he describes the emergence of the internet, and its impact on education. 



I think those last two links are must-see for #PLENK2010 participants.

Interestingly, both make a very strong point of individualizing education. Both acknowledge the value of educative processes (which involve having a teacher, whether presential or virtual), but denounce the industrialization of education and plead for the mass-customization of education (in my words).

Obviously, part of the solution for the need to deliver specific contents tailored to each individual’s needs are to be found in the Information and Communication Technologies, and fit perfectly with the idea that each individual has to go about his business of creating his own Personal Learning Environment.

Where is the MOOC’s Social Network?

One of the goals of the MOOC (or was it just in my mind?) was to generate a community of participants, and Dave Courmier’s post on surviving the fourth week goes on to say that participants should now enter a stage of clustering, where we form stronger ties between peers that have common interests, or at least enjoy each other’s artifacts.

Eventually, i believe we need some unifying tools to get around the MOOC. Allowing the participants to do their own thing on their own corner of the net is great, but I can’t help myself think: “if only we knew what we know”, a saying that every person that has dabbled in Knowledge Management (KM) will recognize. What it means is that within an organization (such as our MOOC) there is often more knowledge than the individual participants of the organization are aware of. Knowledge Management therefore tries to increase the knowledge that is available to most participants by various means and strategies. 


What I think is needed, in the case of the MOOC, is a ‘social network’ functionality. I am grateful that the course is wide open (and free!), and that I have the liberty of using the tools I want to do what I want with the course. But the presentation forum is not fulfilling the function of allowing me to know who’s who and who’s what, and more specifically, where they are storing+sharing their artifacts (at least for those who are hanging them on the ‘net). I’m thinking for a Facebook profile styled thing, which would link to the key things participants would want to share, and allow for a more effective clustering by specifying interests. Tags (Delicious or Diigo style) would be a must where one could describe himself and his work and interests, and allow others to tag him or her with what they see fit. 


Yes, again for those that have some background in Knowledge Management (KM), I’m talking about the good’ole Yellow Pages, where experts can identify themselves and identify others, and which’s ultimate goal is making connections easier and faster. “If only we knew who we know” is very often the first step in KM. We need this for the MOOC to take shape, and more specifically for our PLNs to get jumpstarted and conform themsevles. In a previous post I described my PLN as the group of people I collaborate with to learn and develop new concepts. These people play a key role in helping me understand and achieve new things. I know there must be lots of new people that can help me, and possibly a few that could benefit from what I can offer. However, the MOOC, given the very philosophy that animates it, should make this easier and not so random.
Every informal education specialist will tell you: When you start a workshop, you need some ice breakers, or at the very least have people present themselves somehow in order to facilitate integration, and setting (hopefully shared) expectations. I once asked my professor of Organizational Psychology “how do we get people to open up in a group activity?”, which he answered “By sharing something intimate”. [No, it probably doesn’t have to be as ‘intimate’ as you’re thinking of right now]. ‘Personal’ might be a better word in English. When this introduction exercise is done, the facilitator probably has an idea about who’s who and who wants what in the course. 


Our little “hello world” in the forum are not quite enough. From what I observed, we mostly got locations out of everyone, but a more detailed profile would go much deeper in order to start forming the ‘clusters’ as early as possible. The course’s organizers must have their own expectations of what is going to happen in the course, and who the ‘types’ of participants might be, so adding a few related good questions would help the participants get a sense of who they are and where they stand in regard to the other participants. Obviously, the self-descriptions will change over time, so those changes should be embraced as a design feature.
 
It might be apparent (and a tad repetitive, but this is "learning theories week, after all?) by now that what I am asking for is a ‘social network’: Facebook style, LinkedIn, Ning, whatever. Each participant should take a little time to throw a self-description in there, along with a few tags he/she would like to be associated with them, and his links for the course: where his blog is, what his twitter is, and maybe a couple more (social bookmarks, and personal website?). I do realize that not everyone will fill out every single field, and given the libertarian philosophy of the MOOC, why not? If, however, we could display a couple of the person’s RSS feeds right on the same page, this would probably become quite valuable for all the users.


I do realize this is extra work, but I’m pretty sure that more than a few specific research goals from the organizers would be solved there and then.

What i do in/with my PLE

So we were asked to create a concept map representing the tools we use to keep our PLE working. Now that i think i have a working definition for it, representing it should be easy, right?

It turns out that i felt i needed to go through a 'preparatory stage' in which i would identify how i get my learning done, what are the actions i take, before i freely share which tools i use. Out of this reflection came the following map:

It's pretty simple: i take up to 5 general actions to learn about something:

1) search and read about it on the interwebs. If i feel safe enough, or welcome enough, i may post some comment on the valuable things i've found. By reading i also mean watching slides, videos, and in some rare cases listening to some podcasts.

2) i'm a collector at heart, so i have to store/save everything i deem worthy. What i mean is that if i took the time to read it, it probably went to become part of my bookmark library. If there's a chance to download it (in the case of a pdf, or ppt, or such) i probably will. Once i have the link, i may decide i want to share it, either with specific people to whom i consider it may be of interest, or to the general public on some social media service that helps me connect to some kind of public. In the action of storing, it might occur that i comment on the stored resource.

3) When really in the mood, or maybe because something was extraordinarily eye-opening, i might create some artifact (an e-mail, a presentation, a word document, or even a blog post) were i register my experience regarding the topic, make some comments on it, or just present what the topic is to people that may become interested in it.

4) Rarer, but not out of the realm of possibilities, is the chance to get a conversation started on the topic. In a few instances, i was able to find someone's twitter account and was able to have an almost synchronous chat with that person. Great experience. In some cases, the chat is with someone i'm well acquainted with, and then the chat is through a more 'personal' channel (google talk, skype, etc.)

5) When i am really ON with a topic, and i find the 'right' -online- community, i might register myself in, to get a deeper sense of where the discourse/narrative is at regarding the topic of interest. Levels of participation will largely depend on how many questions i have, which answers i can't find, and the perceived probability of being treated with respect i feel i'll get there.

PLN vs PLE, i think i got it (for me, anyways)

Antecedents

This morning, i spotted a post on http://plenk10.blogspot.com/, which led me to the original post. Eduardo’s post was (in my words) essentially a question about whether The Daily was really needed. I answered that in my view yes it was, and then Eduardo answered back, and then I replied, and we interchanged a few ideas and then turned to connecting on twitter and thank each other for what has occurred. What I got out of that conversation was a glimpse of clarity on what how I can differentiate Personal Learning Networks (PLN) from Personal Learning Environments (PLE).

[I do realize I am a week late in getting this, but I’m getting there, I hope]

To make this introduction longer, allow to explain some of my background: I am a psychologist by training, and have always practiced within the field of Organizational Psychology, and got most of my work experience as a trainer. I wrote my thesis (in Latin America, that’s how we get a degree) on how Organizational Psychology could enhance Knowledge Management. Knowledge Management, as you can guess, has been a field I’ve discovered and enjoyed a lot, and was how I stumbled upon George Siemens’ Knowing Knowledge, which I quoted in said thesis. Within my research, Wenger’s concepts of Community of Practice were also key. If you are starting to see a pattern of emphasizing the power of the group/team to get things done, you’re getting me right. Of course, virtual teams and online collaboration came next, along with a great interest in what was then called “social networks”. I’m referring to those quaint diagrams with dots and lines that portrayed how people related to one another. Networks were where the action was. I actually went as far as trying to describe what my emerging views on organizational design were in here.

PLN 

With all these antecedents, Personal Learning Networks were necessarily where the action had to be for me. I actually gave a (dis)presentation at the last Quito Barcamp to share my ideas and enjoy a little discussion about the topic. 

One of the key concepts for me in a PLN is that learning is a social activity. The human being learns, and makes sense of the world within a community. And PLNs are the expression of that social behavior on the online world. We connect to people, including their artifacts (writings, drawings, videos, etc.) in order to learn more. The human being is naturally a learner, and this is one of the ways he has to connect to other human beings (within the learning-teaching continuum). PLNs, then, are how we locate the resources we need to learn more, how we achieve interaction with people that can help us learn more. To me, the PLN is this bunch of resources (essentially people, but more practically their artifacts) that I have connected to and that can help me make more sense of the world, possibly even providing me with answers when I need them (or at least good questions).

The key aspect here are the connections, and what I can do with them, in the sense of doing something with them, not just benefiting from them.

  

The PLN is then more akin to a community, but with much looser connections, described in the literature as “weak ties”. Weak they may be, but if they’re helpful, that’s all that’s needed.

PLE  

My comprehension of the Personal Learning Environment is now differentiated from the PLN in the following way: My PLE is where I store all my “keys” to the network. The PLE takes me to my PLN through various gates and paths.

This difference is key for me as it means that the PLE is more focused on the tools, whereas the PLN is more focused on the people that can learn from each other and together. PLEs are nice, and useful, but they're the ticket and ride, not the destination. The destination is the PLN.

Back to Eduardo's post: In order to keep a growing productive community, we must help it learning more to achieve more. PLEs are enablers, not doers. What we need is a conscious and active PLN to get things done.   This means facilitating connections (between people, artifacts, and results).

I guess my next question then becomes: why focus on PLEs? Shouldn't we be trying to figure out how to make PLN work better?