How to integrate a group with a network (Moodle forum)

by Emanuela Zibordi - Friday, 10 October 2008

Hallo everybody,
after reading some documents,these days I'm asking this question: how to integrate a group with a network?
Their features seem quite different and sometimes opposite.
In my case, how to integrate school groups (students) with the network without losing someone of which I have the teaching responsibility?
Does creating a school network mean to implement a mixed environment between the group (institutional one) and network?
I think so, but I'd like to know your idea too.
Emanuela

by Carlos González Casares - Friday, 10 October 2008

Hi Emmanuela!

How to bring some "connectivism practice" to a formal-presential classroom?

Nowadays in the formal education the groups have the central position.
The class is a group, the school is also so a big group, the teachers in this institution are a group, etc.
But all (students and teachers) are using Internet: Facebook, Google, Blogger, Flickr, etc. We are learning with Internet in group, network or collective (; ) T. Anderson) And I think that our responsability is to help learning our students also with these web tools in the best way.
How? That is the big question.
The internet networks are "boring" the "close formal class" and that has advantages and disadvantages, but the potential of this "perforation" of the walls of the "formal class" is very interesting.
I don´t think that creating a "school network" in only one school is really to learn in network. This network would be also a group, a big group... and only later maybe with the interaction with the "external nodes" to the school is going to generate a network in a more connectivist sense...
It is dangerous for the young students?... Yes, but they are going to generate and participate in these same "external networks" in any cases, so maybe it is better to do it together and try to learn together.

Best regards
Carlos

by Emanuela Zibordi - Friday, 10 October 2008

Hi Carlos,
thank you for your attention.

But all (students and teachers) are using Internet: Facebook, Google, Blogger, Flickr, etc.
I'm not so sure. I wouldn't be so optimistic.

...to help learning our students also with these web tools in the best way
You're right. For this reason I'll choose only few tools, in the beginning to reinfoce their identity as a group (It's a first class) and then I'll extending the scope with other ones to start with external networks. But I'd like they understand what a network means, just a little and partly open.

I don´t think that creating a "school network" in only one school is really to learn in network.
I agree with you, I don't want to create a "school network" but from a "class network" arrive to the Network. I'm afraid that the formal environment, they know, is too far from the connective learning, or better said, they know something seems to connective but they don't associate it with the school.
The most difficult challenge is to understand that the school is open to the network.

...but they are going to generate and participate in these same "external networks" in any cases, so maybe it is better to do it together and try to learn together.
Yes, right, in fact this is my objective too.

In these days I'm trying to choose (tools, psychology, motivations, ect.) all what can introduce, without pains, the network in students and teachers.
I don't know if I succeed, stay and see.

Cheers.
Emanuela

by Carlos González Casares - Saturday, 11 October 2008

Upsss... You are right, I am allways very "optimistic" and think that all students and teachers are using Internet so like I am, but if I look around me that is not true, specially no for the teachers.

I agree with you that "...the formal environment (at the school) is too far from the connective learning..." and I am very skeptic about the idea of "introduce the network" in anyplace, I think that we can motivate the students to create and work with Networks beyond the school and the formal education, and than trying to bring the learning of the students in the "external network" to the class... I think now in the "centripetal force"...

The "Axis" is the group, the Velocity is the "Network surfing of the student", the Orbit is the "Connectivist Knowledge" and the "Centripetal force" would be the transfer of the learning in the Network of the the single student to the group.
Now I have the image of an atom, where each student is an electron... Today I am very imaginative jajajja... too much coffee...

I am spanish teacher and in this year my plan is going to motivate the students to participate in an online "Language exchange Network", for example www.sharedtalk.com I hope that they are going to meet other spanish people and they are going to learn spanish in an "informal context" and so to be better in the "formal context"... But let see if that works like I hope.

Kind regards
Carlos

by Jorge Crom - Saturday, 11 October 2008

Carlos:

I like your analogies. I would introduce the concept of field which will help in thinking on the environement created by a network. Not every point of the field have the same field strength, but participating in a network, make all the members sharing common characteristics. The field is present in the first figure through the string like the moon rotating around the earth and pulled by the gravitatory field. In the atom the atomic forces make the electrons move in their orbits.

by Pat Parslow - Saturday, 11 October 2008

I like both Carlos' atomic model and the field analogy by Jorge. Extending this a little, we can see that network behaviours will be hard to predict even if we treat the connections between learners and sources as being like gravity - the 3-body problem is rather tricky, and such systems can exhibit chaotic features.
The analogy is far from being without merit though, in my opinion.

by Emanuela Zibordi - Sunday, 12 October 2008

Hi Carlos, I suspect that you are a science teacher.

I think our thoughts are not so far, but, as well as in this course we use some tools (e.g. Moodle) and we are talking together on these, similarly we can educate and create a space where students can talk together. The chat can continue beyond the school time.
This is one of my integration ideas between group/network or formal/informal.
This Moodle is not the whole Network but, in my opinion, could be a little network and a crossroads of individual networks.
Cheers
Emanuela

by Carlos González Casares - Sunday, 12 October 2008

Emanuela, Jorge, Pat... this week get to finish in some hours but I read Pat and I think that in this discussion we have something that is in close relation with the topic of this next week: Complexity, networks... The analogy of Jorge is great: Field! That is a good idea. I have thought not so far. A network like a force field. That is going to be a little more difficult but also interesting. The topic complexity, how Pat says, is just there. We are going to enjoy it, sure

Emanuela, we are learning, we are crossing the net, and we find us now in this crossroad... That is right!

Good night!

Carlos

by Gabriel Bunster - Sunday, 12 October 2008

I would like to think that when you put web 2.0 tools in the context of a class, students experience a sort of different type of interaction, with characteristics of a group and others of a network.
The phisical dimension of an older teacher (most of the times), in front of students organized in a certain way, with certain authorities assign to the teacher, the tendence is to constitute a group.
But on the cloud everybody is more equivalent, and the body dimension sort of disappear, then the sensation is different and tend to have some elements of a network, with more autonomous elements, more diversity available mainly because the space for expression is bigger.
That.

by Oriol Miralbell - Monday, 13 October 2008

Hi Emanuela,
There are two things you should be aware first in this goal: First, how many groups you have in the class, and how to integrate them to become a network. Networks exist, normally without being conscious and if in your class students interact in different groups, this dynamic can be very positive for the learning network.
From the theory of social networks and from my experience, the task of the teacher, professor etc, is to lead the class with dynamism so that students learn while connecting ideas, concepts and knowledge in their internal and external activity.
Thus, as teachers we have to be aware who are the central nodes, who is the intermediator and who has the ability to open links to external knowledge and external networks.
Cohesion and open relations should coexist in a leveraged form so that they can afford the ideal conditions for connective learning through dynamic interaction of the members of the network. Groups may be some kind of clusters (or cliques, as SNA refers to these) that behave as small networks inside the big structure of the class-network.
It seems exciting to me every time I have to work with new groups and have to build new networks, because I know that this is what makes every course different the one from the other. Outcomes are different, student perceptions are different and teaching is also different.
I hope this answers in some how your question.

by Emanuela Zibordi - Monday, 13 October 2008

Hi Oriol,
good suggestions!
Thank you.

The discussion could go on..