Get some time to meet

 Get some time to meet and work together 

I always hoped for more activity between our meetings - a place for the group to meet, discuss, play, or just hang around together. Maybe there could be a place where PBL-group members from all the PBL-groups could go - a kind of an activity house... always someone there - always something to do...

Well we didn't have that place so the FISh-document had to do as a way to get some "in-between meetings activity". It didn't go that well but there are of course reasons why.

We all are working full time - no one had time off for this course - work as normal. That really is contra productive when it comes to learning. Time is important! Focus is important! Communication is important! Practice and Testing is important!

We have to stay in the "world of learning" sufficiently long to "live it" not just mechanically "do it".

We see, in the horizon, the need of a deeper presence is entering the scene

Immersiveness 

To reach out for this we decided to try our next PBL-meeting in a Virtual environment. We all made us an avatar, M created the room and in to the virtual world we went...

With VR-goggles and some more training it could work - maybe we could create a sense of total immersion in the ONL-environment. Maybe it could become a place where we meet to learn and test our knowledge and hypothesis? Well it was worth testing anyway.

For me?

I had to leave

First I felt like I was in prison - just one room with no doors (why would I need that anyway?),

Secondly I couldn't talk, I just walked around randomly listening to the others in my PBL-group and some strange noice coming from a green monster avatar flying wildly around in the room... it was Björn :-)

In the end I found a pen and wrote "HELP" "BACK TO ZOOM" on the white board

AND

one or two group friends saw my avatar writing the message, told the others and we all went back to our zoom room and shared our thoughts and experiences there. It felt like home...

What a good group it was - and maybe we can try to meet in the virtual reality again some times...

---

Still I believe that it is worth trying again - GOING VR

Just think about it...

• you could become your avatar and see your friends wherever they are in the real world...
• you could leave your body in the real world...
• you could bring your experiences from the virtual world back home with you
• you could bring home everything you learned in the VR to the real world - and maybe even use it...

And what is real life anyway? Isn't it just imagination inside that aging avatar of yours?

Trees, cubes and rubber bands and some other stuff

 

THE individual

The cube of learning symbolizes the process of individual learning.

Every process of learning exist somewhere in the cube but never in the same place.

As soon as one need is filled another need will appear and call for attention and keep that process of learning going.

This means that there is a constant movement in the cube.

The cube also moves, it grows and changes as the individual learn and adds knowledge, skills and preparedness to handle even situations never encountered by the individual.

If Creativity is the highest level of knowledge - there are different levels of Creativity

THE highest being preparedness for situations never encountered and never thought of.

This is what that little cube of learning aims for ... when it is fully functional ...

THE group

Is a group just a bunch of individuals...? Just a bunch of CUBES??

YES and NO

It depends on the group - or actually on the individuals in the group

If the individuals don't communicate, don't recognize each other...

If they just mind their own business ... THEN YES

But if the individuals do communicate, recognize each other, cooperate and even collaborate... THEN

NO - a group is MORE THAN THE INDIVIDUALS TOGETHER

THIS is were we want to go! 

THE individual in the group

All these cubes in that cluster becoming a group that is more than the individuals taken together...

WHAT is holding them together?

WHAT is making each one of them want to stay in the group?

ITS THE RUBBER BAND!!

The Rubber band allows the individual to explore, to take a tour

The Rubber band will bring the group to the individual when needed for help and assistance

The Rubber band will bring the individual to the group when needed to get back on track

The Rubber band is the dynamic relationship giving

FREEDOM and SECURITY

SUPPORT and GUIDENCE 

   

When the group work together - helping each other, sharing with each other, gaining from each other

becoming greater than the sum of individuals 

FROM cooperative learning to collaborative learning

When we work on the same learning process together, when our cubes are actually affecting each other, changing the building blocks of learning and not just adding new blocks to it...

when the cubes jumps in and out of each other so to speak...

THEN 

we exchanged the cooperative learning process for the process of collaborative learning

THE END

for today at least

Using the FISh-document for collaborative work

 

I have now updated my calendar so hopefully I will not miss out any more PBLs 

We agreed that we should use our FISh-document (Topic 2 FISh-document) more actively, as a “whiteboard”. I would suggest if you want to add more elaborate thoughts in the FISh-document – put in a link to your elaboration-document (it could be to your blog e.g.).

We also discussed today what to do if we where just a few meeting up at our Zoom-meetings. You could think about this till Friday and we will spend a few minutes on this then. Actually I can’t find our agreement – please help.

To restrict our “field of search” we made the assumption that every legal aspect was taken care of. 

With that in mind we agreed upon the following Focus Points:

● Defining the context where one’s writings are being used or shared.
● How do we ensure privacy, trust and a secure setting for the students.
● Resources, what resources do we share and what do we not share?

See you in the FISh-document and on Friday.

Your track keeper for this topic, even if I was late (sorry…)

Hans

---

Reflections

Defining the context we thought was important - and it is to some extent - but at the same time some basic needs are always there.

We need a platform, we need a fast internet connection, we need a way to communicate and collaborate, we need trust and security, we need sometimes to be more private and sometimes to find company and someone to reason with.

Those, and more, basic needs are general, but sometimes the context is also very important. 

What if we are going to create and play music together?

What if we are going to create something with our hands?

Then we have added challenges on top of the basic ones

---

References and sources of inspiration

for this week

On The myths of the digital native and the multitasker

https://t.co/sHvJVH1ap2

On A Unified attentional bottleneck in the human brain

https://t.co/6qkU303NDI

On Facilitating Every Student in an Online Course

https://t.co/S77w7JxSm8

On How to Get Your Brain to Focus

On How To Multiply Your Time | Rory Vaden | TEDxDouglasville

On How to motivate yourself to change your behavior | Tali Sharot | TEDxCambridge

One extra that could be something to think about giving a lecture or a speech 

Speak like a leader | Simon Lancaster | TEDxVerona

My first thoughts continued

thoughts that any one may have

&

thoughts to take into account 

when you plan and design an ONL environment

Trust me! I really like being in my PBL-group – it doesn't matter if it is in Zoom or somewhere else...

They seem to be nice people - caring for each other and open minded.

I wonder what they think of me...

I am pretty much older and not so active in teaching any longer...

Maybe I talk to much - I often do...

What are they talking about? Where is that document they are talking about?

The feeling of not understanding is very strong, though, in the this ONL-environment...

Is it like that for the others to???

Is it okay to bring this up or will I expose myself och my shortcomings - will I become a burden...

Oh NO - now the group leader want me to say something about the todays issue and I was thinking of something else...

---

Getting into work 

Have you ever experienced the feeling of not being able to scroll what you see on your own screen?

I have!

How many times didn’t I try to write notes and modify even someone elses shared screen? And scroll up and down for that matter – I really wanted to navigate around, but I couldn´t.

Technical issues must also be taken care of obviously... good point - don't forget!

Getting somewhere

Well – near the end of our session we got our focus points down:

• How do I control my privacy! How can I set boundaries?
• How can I help my students to find information? How can I help my students to navigate in an on line environment?

---

At this point I was hopeful, thinking that we were going to let ourselves free, brainstorm and speculate to turn everything inside out and upside down to create some sort of an hypothesis

- new to the world, of course! - 

Then words like “references” and “literature” cooled down my enthusiasm a little …

New to it all?

In the ONL-beginning

ON my course to Learn

I was so exited! :-) 

Now I should learn how to use all these perfect tools that I've been looking for. There were lots of people on the course - some I knew and some were total strangers to me.

In our small PBL-group we were asked to bring a thing - a toy - and tell each other about our choice.

Already in the start I had a nagging feeling of "not understanding fully" where we were heading - they all seemed so experienced and knowledgeable...

And they were! But also very happy, open minded and - just lovely people

The First Task

The structure of problem based learning is there - but somewhat changed - we should test the FISh protocol.

Using the FISh-recipe to cook

We met up in Zoom, shared the FISh protocol, got our chairman and secretary for the meeting, identified focus points in the scenario.

The first notes looked like this:

Meeting:          Topic 1: meeting 1

Date:               2020-09-30

Time:               12:00 – 13:00 CEST

Attendees:       MG;TR;HH;BH;TP;HS;SI;MF

Lead:               TP

Absent:

Note taker:      HS

No

Agenda & Notes

1 Topic 1 Meeting 1 (T1M1) – Sept 30: Identify the “focus” in the fish model.

T1M2 – Oct 2: Investigating stage – questions to think about: 

1. What do I want to read?

2. In which angle we should use as a group?

3. How to investigate?

BETWEEN T1M2 and T1M3, we should work on investigations on our own, with results to present on T1M3. 

T1M3 – Oct 7: share what we have found, talk about what we should share within the community.

T1M4 – Oct 9: collaboratively put work together

2 Identified focuses (Topic 1): 

1. How can I control my privacy? How can

2.  I set boundaries?

3. How can I help my students to look for information? How can I help my students to navigate in an online learning environment?

   
   

3 Some other key words/points that were brought up:

1. Creating work flow

2. Boundaries

3. Emotions

4. Information overflow

5. Multi-dimension model, missing time axis. With different situation, there will be different action which can change over time, and interpretation of the action will be changed also.

6. Personal

7. Privacy

   
   

5 Looking ahead

Review the focuses (point 2 above), and think about the following questions for T1M2.

T1M2 – Oct 2: Investigating stage – questions to think about: 

1. What do I want to read?

2. In which angle we should use as a group?

3. How to investigate?

4. Any suggestions for possible presentation tools and ideas?

Then chaos came to visit me...

 

Presence

"to be where you are expected to be"

Why is Presence so important?

 Why do we want Presence?

A good thing with "presence" in a group, working together, is that you will, at least ruffly, respond to the same stimuli, same tasks and same questions and approximately at the same time as the rest in the group.

But are you really always present to the same extent and manner as the rest in the group?

What if this presence of yours fluctuates?

What if only some parts of your mind is present?

What will happen then?

Let's say

You hear what people say

You see what they write/show

You listen to the task and questions put forward...

But that's the end of it!

Your mind just want to go out on a tour!!

The questions and information just triggered it!

 You suddenly became present in the world of your own...

After such a detour...

Is it possible to get back on track?

To find back the group?

Can the group benefit...

Can we make the group enjoy and benefit from your diversion?

To make your diversion part of the collaborative learning even?

 

Do our courses have a room and a way 

to allow and take care of "free associations"

or

Are such associations banished and put in prison?

Lets find a way to incorporate them

They do exist, they took some effort to create and

they might be of IMPORTANCE 

Vote for presence in every meaning of the word

Learning 

is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, attitudes, and preferences...

LEARN! LEARN! LEARN!! WHAT? WHAT FOR? My little monkey has started the journey. I don´t know why really...maybe just because he wanted some change? Next book will maybe be a step to far for him... - but "monkey" doesn't know that yet - and maybe I'm wrong in my assumption. Maybe monkey will find a way to extend his understanding to a level that is for us unimaginable? Maybe monkey can manipulate the network of his brain and become a "multiverse thinker"? Maybe monkey will find a way to involve all materia and anti-materia in all those parallell universes and use every little bit of deviation from "nothing" to feed his thinking and understanding?

Or maybe monkey just want to go climbing...