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Hey AT,

Sun FINALLY came out so I need to go get some UV but wanted to take a moment to comment on this....

In the course on Moodle I teach I try to expose students to different protocols of real time communication and much to my chagrin one student asked to have the class meet in SL.... What could I say ;=} So I tied exploring SLOODLE to the next class conference....

While the whole avatar thing was a constant irritation to me (lack of computer speed, lack of video game reflexes and what have you) the impact of environment and proximity on the class conversations was pretty amazing. Students were enfranchised in a much more collaborative environment.... which brought with it quite a bit of distraction and arguably greater demands on the teacher to be more entertaining.

But what was really intriguing was the concept of being able to watch your own lesson if you will with your students and be able to discuss that lesson with whomever wished!

I have never thought of LMS I guess the way MD argues Moodle philosophy etc.... I will try and be gracious and just suggest that there may be better ways to collaborate. The LMS is a a wonderful tool however for instructional management including curriculum organization, resource husbanding and student tracking (you are and will always be a number - LOL - the only question is whether you are irrational....)

Forums are stiffling I think not because of their format but because of their participants, because we have to deal with <raspberry>the abomination of male communication</raspberry> , with the "finality" of the written word, with the inability of so many people to express themselves appropriately or adequately in any form, let alone in writing...... while I have argued your suggestion for years, that behavior/thought is shaped by environment, that's not really a departure from my comment here in that I think what you are identifying is a new freedom to withdraw from common environments. As the boundaries of experience have expanded, I think our tolerance for experience in a sense have shrunk.

And, though I may wander 40 years in the desert for this, the "networking" I watch my children engage in is undisciplined, self-involved, and just to push buttons, narcissistic at its core. Its easy, there is no investment in the communication, no personal risk, etc.

And yes, the sky is falling! and I am going to soak up some UV before I am consumed!

Thank you for raising such a interesting point....

Quickly, as I'm getting ready for Day 3 of a workshop on intersubjectivity...

The expression "a function of the tool" isn't too far from the way I'd frame it. It pushes things a bit further from the typical technological determinism while not imposing sociological determinism on it. As a holist (and not a positivist looking for simple causes), it suits me.

Specifically on the tools we have/love... Moodle "goes well with" certain approaches to learning and teaching which are typical of the form of constructivism which remains fairly teacher-centric. The assumption being that a teacher is someone who builds a learning environment for students in which to learn. It can be used in an even more bottom-up way, but the implied top-down bears some relation to the "administrator" role of PHP/MySQL installation as well as to the fact that each instance is fairly isolated from the others. Sure, students can run their own Moodle instances on their own server (self-hosted or not). But these instances aren't that easy to connect. Using an apparently distant example, blogging platform WordPress allows for separate instances but the freely hosted WordPress.com blogs are connected directly in a simplistic "social network." "Goes well with" the participatory culture which runs at the core of the so-called "Web 2.0" movement. Everyone involved is doing. Structure comes from connections.

The question reminds me of things discussed by journalists and media analysts, these days. Now that many people are seeking (and assessing) information on their own, what are the roles of journalists and media websites? There are some very interesting answers, but it requires some thought.

It's about "unintended uses of technology," which are often more interesting than the intended ones.

Moodle could take a very interesting part in the move (on the part of certain people, of any age) to self-learning, informal learning, computer-mediated learning, and "homeschooling." The tool doesn't necessarily need to change for this connection to work. If teachers want to be involved, the easiest way is to connect with learners in any possible context.

I am a (loosely connected)  participant in the CCK course. IMHO, Moodle is being used solely as a forum so it's not really about Moodle.  Stephen Downes is, I think, commenting on people's behaviours and connections in forums and  blogs.

CCK is very interesting but hardly a PLE.

Hi A.T.

Thanks for starting this good topic.

First, I am puzzled why Stephan Downes is comparing tools. Tool comparisons died as a useful educational research approach years ago. Ecological case studies are far more useful.

Second, learning environments are primarily face-to-face, with online components blended in. It seems the discussion is assuming 100% online. Am I mistaken?

Third, much as I love Moodle, it has many poor implementations (blog) and lacks many extensions (social networking) that could be added easily. Hard to judge all of LMSs on Moodle's shortcomings. An LMS does not have to be hierarchical.

Fourth, I see a large web in each person's learning environment. Whereever intense, collaborative work is needed, or where structured, credit-bearing learning groups need to meet, an LMS fills a role. My moodle courses connect with many outside environments and contain assorted mashups.

Fifth, my Moodle classes are filled with student-provided content. And I share content with other teachers with my "Sharing Cart" block. So I am not sure we should stereotype Moodle as a teacher-dominated tool.

And finally, what is so bad with making logical male-rational lists that ignore more feminine communication styles!

I took a quick look at the reference for the Bamboo project, and have scanned some of these replies.

I think that there is another way to look both at the question, and related issues.

Perhaps it isn't so much about the conversation, as it is about knowledge capture, creation and management. If we look at all these tools in that sense, and perhaps tie them back into some of Doug Engelbart's early research into augmenting human intellect (esoteric, though, it may be), then we may start to think a little more about how we manage and evolve our courses and the learning process.

Managing online social forums is a skill that requires an understanding of the peculiarity of the medium, so not sure the structure of how conversations is linked together makes for sound debate. In contrast, a good moderator, in this case, instructor, will help to manage the social process.

However, if we think of the process in terms of the value of knowledge capture and evolution, then I would argue that using a distributed model, where pieces live in proprietary services such as google do two things.

First, it makes the management at the organizational level (school district, school, teacher's classroom, etc) that much more difficult.

Second, it fuels the value proposition of google, and other commercial services, and not the learning community involved.

While we could debate forever, the right solution, maybe there should be two goals involved with technology education as it pertains to the internet.

1) Teach students to live in "that" world - aka the various social networks supported by google, myspace, ning, etc.

2) Work with them on the idea and discipline of knowledge creation and management within a specific domain. In that sense, I think a local learning/knowledge management system such as Moodle, makes sense.