Week Four: History of networked learning

Gosh golly! Say it isn't so Joe! This can't be Friday! I'm only now working on the readings for the week and with less than 2 hours left until the weekend, I doubt I'll get to it all. No introduction video this week and I feel as though I floundered around far too much. Only today did I get to review the recordings from Wednesday (which I usually attend live) and I was interrupted multiple times during the Elluminate session today to the point were it was pretty much useless. I'm also finding the Moodle discussions useless as well. I can't seem to find a place to interject coherently. I feel I'm losing grip of this course pretty rapidly. Each week's work gets done later and later in the week. next week, I need to get a grip on this or get out which I do NOT want to do. My original plan was to spend my first hour of the day on the course and I've been pushing that back to the last hour, but that's not working, so I will go back to my former plan. OK, I've got the article printed and the video will be my first job on Monday morning. I'm determined to get back on track.


Some random thoughts as I read A History of the Social Web by T. Scholz (2007, Sept. 26).

Both the telegraph and the telephone produced networking effects similar to the Internet. Certainly I know that networks weren't invented with the Internet, but hmmmm... I hadn't thought about the advent of other technologies and how our experiences might be similar to my grandmother's or great-grandmother's. They thought the telegraph would end all war??? Funny, how the most devastating wars came after the telegraph. Also, there were telegraph operators that dated long distance. I can hear the chatter about the "dogs" you could meet on "the telegraph."

The development of our Internet can be traced back to the 1950s.

The first wireless network was developed in Hawaii to communicate surfing conditions. Hang ten, baby! I guess without war and recreation we wouldn't have any technical advances.

1994 saw a 350,000% rate of growth in the WWW. Yup, that's when we all jumped on the bandwagon and got the show rolling. Desktop computers got affordable (or at least within reach) of many families. I took on teaching 2 classes as an adjunct to come up with the cash for one, but it worked the other way as well. I needed the computer to teach the classes. I wonder has anything else ever grown 350,00 percent in one year? Inflation in Zimbabwe this year and the ROI on the Blair Witch Project. Dang! That's a big jump.

Justin Hall, in 1994, begins writing and publishing his intimate sexual details in the first web-log. Many people felt he was invading their privacy(!) If you don't like it, don't read it for crying out loud!

OMG! Every minuscule point of Internet and WWW development must be in here. I know it's only a draft, but it's Friday afternoon and I'm grouchy, you know?

The Digg riots are an interesting twist in which the users make demands on the developers of a site and change policy decisions. The power of social networks. OK, here's something I can dig my teeth into. This is the real power ofnetworks . They not only pool knowledge, but influence as well. Those who might otherwise not have a voice suddenly can make themselves heard. I'm seeing this played out in this crazy election. There's not only television, radio and newspapers this time. It's even more than we had on the Internet(z) four years ago when we still were on thereceiving end of the information. We can now make ourselves heard, whether you are right or left, white or black, or somewhere in between. American, the world even, is making itself heard on the presidential election. I get daily updates from my party with ways in which I can make a difference. Admittedly many of these involve giving money, but there are local calling parties and other action-oriented events. I get my information mainly from blogs, podcasts, and targeted emails. So different from the days when our mailboxes were stuffed with political junk mail.

The other article, A Brief History of Networked Learning by G. Seimens, has an interesting 5 phase model or process that networked learning appears to follow. At first, the idea of "learning networks" focused on the hardware and infrastructure and then progressed to incorporating the theories, terminology, and views of other fields into the concept of network learning. These networks then move beyond the "bleeding edge" and become more popular, as we have seen with sites like Facebook and, finally, become fully integrated and usable even as they become "invisible." This can be seen in Blackboard's agreements with Facebook, Twitter, and Second Life so that students can be "dinged" about course materials.

OK, the weekend's about to start. Next week will be better. I promise!