Facilitators: Howard Rheingold, Mia Zamora, Alec Couros Design Touchstone: Self empowerment emerges within classrooms that embrace co-learning. In addition, networked learning contributes to self empowerment as students take more charge of their own learning outcomes and share their interest-driven knowledge. Questions: What is co-learning? Why co-learning? How can teachers empower students as co-learners? How does this pedagogy differ from traditional methods of teaching and learning? How does the instructor support a co-learning environment? What obstacles might educators encounter in this paradigm shift? What obstacles might students encounter in this paradigm shift? Objectives:  

• To support teachers in relinquishing (some) authority in order to empower students to take more responsibility for their own learning and their peers’ learning;
• To help teachers transform their own learning processes through listening and responding to student co-learners;
• To foster open learning environments and facilitate networked learning; and
• To support teachers in increasing their pedagogic adaptability and responsiveness to student needs.

Schedule:

• 11/10,  7 PM Pacific — Live session via w/Alec Couros, Howard Rheingold, Mia Zamora & #etmooc guests
• 11/10, 11/14 — Read and comment on organizers’ blog posts
• 11/10, 11/14 — Blog and comment on co-learners’ blogs – use tag co-learning
• 11/13, 5 PM Pacific — Twitter chat with Mia Zamora & Lee Skallerup Bessette using hashtags #colearning #ccourses #fycchat
• 11/17, 5 PM Pacific — Live session withLee Skallerup Bessette, Joseph Corneli; Charlotte Pierce; Alec Couros; Howard Rheingold; and Mia Zamora (provide link here)
• 11/19, 5 PM Pacific — Live session with Cathy Davidson & students, David Preston & students, Alec Couros; Howard Rheingold; and Mia Zamora

Supporting Media & Resources: Week 1:

• “The Connected Teacher”: This is an interview with Alec Couros by Howard Rheingold discussing his approach to his courses that builds a community of people who provide feedback, reinforce, and participate in his courses taught at the University of Regina. Couros provides a compelling example of how a professor can use social media to open up the experience of his students.
• The Power of Open in Peer-to-Peer Learning (Connected Learning TV):  This is a panel discussion on peer-to-peer learning from internationally-recognized experts, including Kristen Swanson, Mimi Ito, Paul Allison, Gail Desler, and Paul Oh.
• “Sharing: The Moral Imperative”: These are Selected Clips from Dean Shareski’s K12 Online conference keynote presentation that looks at the act of sharing from a pedagogical and moral perspective.
• “Amazing to You, Obvious to Others”: This short video from Derek Sivers is an excellent starting point for dealing with the anxiety of sharing by students and educators.
• “Open Education & The Future”: TEDx Talk by Dave Wiley discussing the significant changes that have happened regarding the ‘opening’ of content, resources, and educational opportunities.

Week 2:

• My PLE: This is a screencast by a 7th grader who describes the layout of her personal learning environment.
• Twitter in 60 Seconds: This short video demonstrates how Twitter is being used as a social network for idea sharing.
• Global Netweaver, Curator, PLN Builder: This post from Shelley Terrell outlines the importance and development of personal learning networks for educators and students.
• “Where Good Ideas Come From”: This short video is an excerpt from Steven Johnson’s book (by the same name) which outlines the importance of sharing in networks, and how the act contributes to new innovations.
• “Social Media and Peer Learning”: In this video, Howard Rheingold discusses the transition from mediated pedagogy to peeragogy, where students who are empowered in shaping their own curriculum become active participants in learning environments.
• Robin Good on Social Curation: This is a video interview with Robin Good by Howard Rheingold on the topic of social curation as it first emerged.
• Everything is a Remix: This video series (there are 7 short videos) is an excellent introduction to how our modern ideas are remixes of ideas that came before them, that everything comes from something.
• “Laws that Choke Creativity”: In this TED Talk, Lessig discusses current copyright law and its effect on innovation. Near the end of the talk, at 17:36, Lessig discusses how current copyright laws may affect our kids (“… ordinary people live life against the law, and that’s what we are doing to our kids … they live life knowing they live it against the law”).

Texts: Week 1:

• John Dewey “The School & Society”
• Howard Rheingold: Toward Peeragogy
• Twitter Literacy

Week 2:

• Social Bookmarking and Annotating
• Paul Mihaliidis & James N. Cohen, “Exploring Curation as a Core Competency in Digital and Media Literacy Education“
• Edward J. Brantmeier, “Empowerment Pedagogy: Co-learning and Teaching” : Excellent guide to the development and maintenance of personal learning networks.
• Ultimate Guide to All Things Twitter: Excellent guide to Twitter that covers all of the basics as well as the “why” of tweeting.

Other Resources:

• Guide for Twitter Chats (This is What We Did in DCMOOC)
• Peer learning
• Beth Kanter, “Content Curation Primer”
• Robin Good, “Content Curation Tools: The Newsmaster Toolkit” Summaries of Learning & Other Examples of Student Work

Activities:

• Read Organizer blog posts (one each per week) and participate in comment thread.
• Write at least one blog post per week.
• Prompt for week 1 blog post: What might co-learning look like in your classroom? What specific pedagogic changes have you/will you make to encourage a co-learning environment?
• Prompt for week 2 blog post: How does networked learning support co-learning? How might one utilize a networked learning environment in order to establish co-learning and peer-learning?

Live sessions:

• 11/10,  7 PM Pacific — Live session via w/Alec Couros, Howard Rheingold, Mia Zamora & #etmooc guests
• 11/13, 5 PM Pacific — Twitter chat with Mia Zamora & Lee Skallerup Bessette using hashtags #colearning #ccourses #fycchat
• 11/17, 5 PM Pacific — Live session withLee Skallerup Bessette, Joseph Corneli; Charlotte Pierce; Alec Couros; Howard Rheingold; and Mia Zamora (provide link here)
• 11/19, 5 PM Pacific — Live session with Cathy Davidson & students, David Preston & students, Alec Couros; Howard Rheingold; and Mia Zamora 

Makes (due Thursday of each week):

• Make challenge #1: Blogging on co-learning. The “make”: Make a blog post that features student testimonials (interview your students on how they would feel/react to a classroom that embraces co-learning). Add your reflective perspective. This could be a medium length video, or simply a text transcript, or audio). Examples: Here is a link from #CLMOOC which provides guidance for how to produce reflective “making.” (See the link to “Annotated Dialogues” for a way to capture an interview and add a reflective commentary): http://clmoocmb.educatorinnovator.org/2014/type/reflections/
• Make challenge #2:  A crowdsourced mosaic of  “co-learning testimonials.” We will string together a series of brief clips or mini-interviews (1-2 mins) to create a multitude of voices on co-learning. The result will be a quilt-like glimpse of the power of co-learning. The “make”: Record a student or a colleague as they consider what it means to be a co-learner. Capture a short quotable observation. What do folks have to say about co-learning? How has co-learning changed their own understanding of what it means to learn? Our inspiration/models for a crowdsourced compilation: -Lipdub concept (maybe do one on the power of co-learning?)  http://educationaltechnology.ca/couros/2317 –Darren’s “What Does a Digital Storyteller Look Like?”
• Make Challenge #3:  Co-learners will self-organize their own co-learning resource(s). The “make”: Further develop your own network in the Connected Courses community. Reach out to your developing Connected Courses professional learning network and decide on your own collaborative project(s). What kind of collection/resource/collaboration/make would be most helpful to all of you? Name it, make it, post it. Example of collaborative writing activity: A collaborative resource for learners — (“Infrastructure and Collaboration: On Crafting an Assignment Sequence for a Web-Based Final Project in a Composition Course” http://www.hastac.org/blogs/danicasavonick/2014/07/27/infrastructure-and-collaboration-crafting-assignment-sequence-web-ba)
• Make Challenge #4:  Help design an assessment measure for co-learning. The “make”: A crowdsourced student self-assessment survey. The self-assessment survey will be an open collaborative writing project.  Jump into this survey document and add/edit/enhance. Examples: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1c4qARKshj7kGL7OXpJlCT1tzJONjrETuXUniecdJMEY/viewform Curation: In Leslie Madsen-Brooks’ “Make students curators” post she asks the following question: “What would happen if we made students practice curation — actual curation?” “How would instruction change if part of how we approached the process was to expect that students work was part of an ongoing, open dialogue wherein students engage and narrate their process of “creation, contextualization, argument, and engagement” openly online?” http://docs.umwdomains.com/courses/spring-2014-faculty-initiative/week-three http://www.cluttermuseum.com/make-students-curators/ Diigo tag for organized list of resources around co-learning (include how-to resources): co-learning, Make: bookmark and tag 3 resources that are helpful to co-learning.