As a learning professional, today's Dilbert speaks mountains about learning objectives and expectations in and around organizational power (not to mention why what we think and want is often what we do not get.

Click on the picture to make it larger!

OK, my curiosity was awoken in the Online Connectivism Conference due to so much chatter about Second Life and its use in education, learning, and business. So, I created an account and played around for about 10 minutes. Amazing graphics, and while I only flew and accidentally (sorta) pushed somebody else into the water, I thought I needed to get back to work.

Well, this is related to my work as I am a learning professional.

Ernie at Little.Yellow.Different. wrote about his experiences, or seemingly lack thereof, of one particular "community" within the "gay community." I replied to his post and started to think about the terminology and its connotations we use in the term "gay community." I wonder if people who use it in fact mean different things at different times? For example, when I think of the "gay community," the only communal, or rather common, element I can think about is being gay. Period. Nothing about fashion or finance or education or zip-code or preferences or bars. Does simply being gay make one a part of the "gay community?" That somehow seems to be too surface-level, but perhaps I am over analyzing this. I think the term "community" has meanings beyond only attraction to one' own sex, but I wonder . . .

What does being part of the "gay community" mean?

Well, the Northern Voice bloggers have made their decisions, and alas I have not received a bursary to attend the conference later this month. Too bad, as it would have helped with the 3 planes I need to take to get to Vancouver with the combined 12 hour trip (so complicated from New York, it seems!). Well, they have their reasons, and I am glad at least to have had this opportunity to apply for it, especially given this organization is non-profit and run completely by the most dedicated group of volunteers I have seen in a long while.

Well, I suppose that means I will approach my friends at Amex and Visa for their continued funding support instead. As I see myself more and more as a researcher, I plan to continue my research project as I initially proposed it nevertheless. Hey, I like observing experience and phenomena and creating new knowledge!

So, I finally got Simply Threaded, a Movable Type plug-in by Arvind Satyanarayan, working on my site last night. This means that people can now post replies to one another. As an example, I posted a reply this morning to Ernie's reply to my post a few days ago. While this is not quite a threaded, Moodle-like conversation, it is the closest I have been able to do to foster some interaction between my readers (and my replies as well).

Today's OCC conference was wonderful! I really enjoyed listening to Will Richardson who spoke about Connectivism with students. I wish he could have spoken more about it with a higher education perspective, but many of his examples seemed based on his experiences with teaching younger students. I tried to ask a few questions toward the end of the session, only to find out my new microphone has an on/off switch which was, you guessed it, off.

I wish Will would have spoken about the diagram he showed on a slide with his connected contacts around him (in the center). I did not understand what he had that for, and wish my microphone worked so I could have asked him. Nonetheless, I shall ask him here. Who knows, perhaps he may reply.

I have been attending the Connectivism Online Conference , which is a week-long conference around the work of George Siemens and his thinking around Connectivism. The schedule for the conference is on the University of Manitoba site. I read George's book, Knowing Knowledge, and have beeen struggling with his learning theory. He states that the quantity of information that we face and the amount of learning we do within a network causes our conception of kwoledge to need to be revised. Knowledge, according to George, is no longer that thing which resides within us, but rather more of a shared notion that exists in a more systemic manner.

This reminds me of work in learning organizations, especially with Peter Senge, though on a larger scale. I used to be fonder of this thinking than I am currently, as I can't help but think that learning happens within a person, and if people leave a so-called learning organization, then the learning is no longer present. I wonder how this works in our connected networks that George is discussing? This conference promises to be informative, especially given the number of participants and variety of views that are being expressed.

I really like this, and am becoming increasingly interested in the philosophical foundations of this work.

It came as a shock to me, but I actually lost one pound while on my second week of Weight Watchers, for a grand total of 5 pounds!

Look, here is my bookmark and sticker to prove it!

As Ernie said last week, water and slight weight fluctuations are ok. I find that this blog as support is quite helpful . . .