Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2010-05-05

  • Did I hear right that airfare is again stopped over the UK and Ireland due to the volcano? Glad I made it out from #nlc2010 in time. #
  • Signal trouble at #NYC #Penn Station. All trains are stopped now, and we are stuck en route #1010Wins. #
  • Just arrived at Newark Airport. A record of 5 minutes from leaving my seat to clearing security + customs. I love the Global Entry Program. #
  • The travel fairies are watching over me today; I got an exit door seat on the Trans-Atlantic flight. Love #Lufthansa. #
  • My paper was just accepted for the #AoIR Internet Research 11.0 Conference #IR10 #AoIR2010 in Gothenburg in October! Anybody else attending? #
  • Wonder which path my colleagues at #nlc2010, who helped us see the closing of that wonderful venue last night, took back to the hotel? #
  • Perhaps Denmark does not have (or need?) Passport control? Have already needed it three times since back in Munich. #
  • Denmark must not like passports. I was not asked at all, not even once between my 4 flights into or out of the country, to show my passport. #
  • Just landed in Munich on my way home from #nlc2010. Very cold here. When I was here last week, people were sunbathing and strolling outdoors #
  • Boarding my second flight from Copenhagen to Munich. #
  • RT @francesbell: #nlc2010 has been great experience in collegiality friendship and sociotechnical networking – lots of great new tweeps too #
  • Very fast and smooth flight to Copenhagen, where I enjoyed the conversation with @netcrit who sat next to me. #
  • My #SAS flight from Aalborg to Copenhagen is delayed. Hope I make my #SAS connection to Munich. #
  • Eating an egg salad sandwich at the airport. Never seen one made with one slice white, and one slice wheat. #
  • The Aalborg Airport was certainly busy when I arrived. I found that surprising for such a small facility. #
  • Farewell, Hotel Hvide Hus. Has been a wonderful conference in Aalborg. Learning, friends, colleagues, community, research, practice #nlc2010 #

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Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2010-05-04

  • Wonderful conference at #nlc2010. The conference dinner was quite fun. Early flight out in the morning. #
  • About to go downstairs to join the human bus to the dinner location #nlc2010 #
  • I am flying tomorrow morning at 8:20; anybody want to share a taxi at 6:30am? #nlc2010 #
  • Gifts to those who assisted at the @nlc2010 were now given out. Quite humorous. #
  • Nice to see the public Twitter backchannel discussions during #nlc2010. Wonder to what extent this promotes our networked learning? #
  • Several people are Tweeting from the Plenary Session at #nlc2010. Looking around, I see lots of open laptops, netbooks, and smartphones. #
  • Need some fresh air and a little walk. #
  • I find the #nlc2010 conference really quite informative and energizing. I wish it were an additional day (hear that, planning committee?). #
  • I have had Internet access for an unbroken 30 minutes, so am uploading some of my offline liveblog posts from yesterday #nlc2010 #
  • Great interactive group discussion to wrap up the Lancaster doctoral research group session. #nlc2010 #
  • Chryssa was very kind and supportive to me when I applied to Lancaster; she shared her experiences, I applied, and here I am #nlc2010 #
  • Watching Chryssa Themelis talk about her current research on Athenian Democracy and Networked Learning Communities. #nlc2010 #
  • Justin Bonzo's work with social media at the medical school has similar challenges as my work in nursing clinical education #nlc2010. #
  • Alex Bell talked about experiences and research teaching qualitative research course. Reminded me of teaching research for practice #nlc2010 #
  • It is nice to see how far along they are with their work, knowing that I can be there in another year, too. #nlc2010 #
  • Watching the first cohort from my doctoral program at Lancaster University present their work in their symposium session. #nlc2010 #
  • I feel a bit lost again today, as I cannot maintain an Internet connection. #nlc2010 #
  • Getting ready for my paper presentation at #nlc2010 at 8:45. #

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Networked Learning Conference 2010 Closing Plenary

The closing session at the Networked Learning Conference 2010 comprised of many of the facilitators of the Hot Seat sessions in the front of the room, summarizing the pre-conference discussions.

As per some of our panelists (Charalambos Vrasidas, Caroline Haythornthwaite, Etienne Wenger, Grainne Conole), some of the learning that has occurred and the issues raised include:

  • is technology required for networked learning?
  • what are some of the issues of access and equity regarding these technologies?
  • what are some of the differences between networks and social networks?
  • to what extent can networks serve as reflective practice?
  • how can social network analysis be used as a method of analysis to develop social network theories?
  • networks can be across organizations, serious leisure (e.g., home brewing, cooking), across disciplines, alumni networks?
  • synergies with other fields, such as Internet Research field
  • learning is an opportunity to be knocked out of balance, as that allows us to see things differently and shake one out of complacency
  • knowledge / practice fair — where each community can have a booth and then show what each is doing. This is an opportunity to have different communities rub together as different networks
  • brokering between and across boundaries has an insight into networks and going between communities
  • When one is networking, there is very light brokering. When it is heavy networking, then it is more toward multimembership that creates a bridge between networks
  • There are new ways of understanding virtual vs. F2F relationships
  • Language is one of the key challenges
  • Theoretical frameworks in networked learning seem to primarily include communities of practice, actor network theory, and activity theory
  • We may want to expand upon the theoretical frameworks, as there are many more we can use
  • We should tighten the theoretical perspectives, methodologies, and then clearly link them to practice
  • The relationship  between theory and practice should be made stronger
  • Policy debates are happening, though we need to be present to where this debate can be followed and interacted
  • Cloudworks can be used as a liveblogging platform, and the Twitter streams are being tracked and will be archived on the website

Some facilitated discussions (thank you, Maarten de Laat) then happened with questions from the participants, with the majority of it happening around issues of policy and how policy can fit with practice.

David McConnell then began discussing a holistic view of what networked learning is, and how we understand and use the concept of network learning. What are the educational values we can bring back to networked learning. Is there anything distinctive to networked learning that makes it difference from technology enhanced learning or from eLearning? Perhaps these fundamentals need to be reflected upon again–I agree completely with this, as in many ways there seem to be great differences between these, there also seems to be differences as well, namely to include how the learning happens in a way of networks.

Chris Jones spoke about the movement from practice to praxis, so there is an ethical dimensions we bring to bear to the practice we bring to our work. This comment then ended the discussions with a quick  applause.

Nice ending for this conference, and now we can look forward to the next conference in two years.  It was mentioned that there will be a book that comes out of this conference, tentatively titled Exploring the theory, pedagogy and practce of networked learning.