Week 3 – Groups, networks, sets or collectives.

Are the participants of NGL a group, network, collective or something else?

In one sense the participants of NGL have formed a group. We are cohesive, each participant writes distinct entries but the group can and will exist without the 2015 members. There are formal lines of authority – David is the course leader/teacher and the participants are enrolled as USQ students. There is a schedule that participants must abide by and the modes of interaction are characterised to groups i.e. many to many or one to many.

The participants of NGL could also be classed as a set. Each member of the NGL course are bound together by commonalities i.e. we are mostly teachers,  and /or share interests i.e. how to incorporate networked and global learning into out teaching and everyday lives. We are all learners that seek information about NGL and who take individual and networks into consideration when learning.

What are your experiences of groups, networks and collectives, in learning, teaching or life more generally? 

1. Groups – As a teacher I post PowerPoints, activities and notes on my school moodle page that I want students to access and learn from. As a student and learner I access notes and assignment help on USQ moodle. I can navigate around moodle easily and feel confident in posting and participating in learning on it.
2. Networks – I am an Irish woman who immigrated to Australia 5 years ago. I use facebook regularly to interact with my family and friends. I also use facebook as a channel of knowledge to discover what my friends and family are doing. I also read about what is happening in the world using links and posts on facebook. I am a BIG facebook user.
3. Sets – I do not have much experience in using sets. Since starting my masters I have read many academic journals and books. I have connected with people who have similar thoughts through forums. Because of this course I have joined twitter, something that I now like the thought of but still need to use it a bit more.
4. Collectives – I did not know what collectives were until I read Anderson and Dron but now I know what they are and believe that I use them a lot. I use google and amazon regularly to make sense of things. I even used google earlier in the course to help me set up twitter and a diigo toolbar on my chrome web browser.

Have you experienced sites such as Quora or Reddit? 

Before reading these notes I had not come across Quora or Reddit but now I am a participant/member of both.

Quora is a set and collective that can be linked to a blog, twitter or LinkedIn. I can see myself using this to expand my knowledge, make connections and help others. As a teacher Quora could help me link students to blogs which in turn would help them with their learning of a certain topic.

Reddit is also a set and collective. It engages me in answers to things I am interested in and connects me to other people who have similar interests but different thinking.

At first glance Quora is more refined and educational when compared to Reddit whereas Reddit is a little bit more out there with random posts and information that can lead a person off topic easily.

Which of these conceptions might be useful, which might be challenging or inappropriate, for your context “as teacher”?

Groups and sets would be useful for my context as a teacher. A group would maintain cohesiveness and direct students on what to use for learning.  A group would unite my students and with coordination would lead to student collaboration and restricted practice on the topic in hand.

Sets would encourage me and my students to interact with experts and people who have a shared interest. Sets would allow interaction with likeminded people and they would promote student autonomy and connectedness.

Collective’s would encourage students to join sets that link to the topic in hand and would result in a huge collection of resources that may be useful. However, if not used or filtered correctly, this large amount of information provided by the collective’s may overwhelm the learner and thus be inappropriate.

In my context networks would be inappropriate because they can distract the learners (secondary school students) and involve them in incorrect learning (not on topic learning). Network participation might also eat up time and result in missed time limits thus leading to students not meeting the course schedules.

Reference

Dron, J., & Anderson, T. (2014). Teaching crowds: Learning and social media. Athabasca University Press.