How much learning is enough?

Thanks to Jay leaving a comment on my post about our first bus-ride:

“As to missing things, well, we are beyond that stage. We will all be missing things all the time. The objective is not to learn everything; it’s to learn enough.”

I presume he is not suggesting that we should stop asking for more if we feel it would support our efforts, bring us closer to our goal or further in our undertaking.

So the question is how much is ‘enough’ learnt? My ideas on this for further discussion:

• It is enough, when we are on track to reach our goals
• It is enough, when we have reached our goals
• It is enough, when we had a conversation that leads us ahead, i.e. to find new paths worth following
• It is enough, when we have been able to contribute something and/or to get something out of it (i.e. Jay’s suggestion to always have a safety net available)
• …

Thanks for your input to this interesting topic.

P.S.: Yes, I have learnt enough on our first bus-ride. Thanks.

The Arrival – The real Questions I heard in my inner Ear:

O.K. it is past midnight now.

However I would like to reflect on the event we just had:

I have to admit: The questions I had been confronted with had been of a lower quality then expected. So:
What were the questions ‘in my inner Ear’?

• Can they hear me?
• Can I he hear them?
• Do I see the same as they are seeing?
• How can I ask for permission to speak?
• How is this going to work next time?
• Is there a better way, if we would be using our Interwise platform next time? If yes – how about Mac users?

The third question (how do I raise my hand?) has remained unsolved for me and has been preoccupying me during the whole presentation. I have tried to overcome it via the chat feature in Viewy but did either not get the attention or did not see the answer (someone promised to let me have a screen-shot on the Wiki – thanks for it in advance!).

Was this because we had two applications for visual and audio? And audio was part of an application I am using on a daily basis (Skype) and the Skypecast is somewhat different but basing on the same application?

My conclusion:

Let us take away ALL contextual elements from the first contact and just fix ALL the technical problems (the ones we did expect and the ones we did not expect). This will allow us to arrive at ease, knowing we did not miss anything PLUS knowing that next time, when the real content gets started we shall be ready!

This would reconfirm step one of Gilly Salmon’s model.

Resources:

• My Questions anticipated for the first Bus-ride
• 5-stage-model in e-tivities from Gilly Salmon

Global Bus-ride on Swiss Independence Day

My anticipated Question the little man in my ear is going to ask me tonight at 1030 pm while entering the bus:

• Who else is here?
• What are we all doing here? Where are we heading to?
• What are we expecting from the UnWorkshop?
• How is this UnWorkshop going to work?
• What makes us collaborate?
• What makes us learn?

Who can help me out and give a definition: While reading Harold’s post on “Blog References” I came acorss a word I did not hear so far: infovore?

P.S.: The Swiss Independence Day is dating back to the year 1291, where some native Swiss decided to get rid of their superiors. I wonder if our undertaking (tearing down bounderies to facilitate global collaboration) shall also have an impact for the live of people in some 700 years.

Gilly Salmon’s 5 Stage Model

In her book about e-tivities Gilly Salmon presents a 5 Stage Model I find very useful when designing arrangements for learning and collaboration:

1. Access and motivation
2. Online socialisation
3. Information exchange
4. Knowledge construction
5. Development

Let’s have a look at the UnWorkshop and find out how this model fits with the development of the activities within the group.

Two days left …

… until our first Bus-ride. Being impatient and curious I have so far:

• Viewed some of Jay’s presentations on Informal Learning(*)
• Arranged for the Technology to be ready (hope it is!)
• Visited some of the Blogs form UnWorkshop alumni(**)
• Started this Blog (and again: it took me MUCH more time to find and to arrange a skin from the many themes available)

(*) I like Jay’s form of presentations on Informal Learning (recordings): The ideas I see him develop are very well structured, visualization of the content and quotations supports my understanding. Duration: The recordings and are long enough to bring the message through but short enough for me to revisit others of his presentations without any fear of losing too much time.
(**) Angelika from UnGroup2 links to an interview with Etienne Wenger on Communities of Practice (and further down you can find the recording of a full 1.5 hour lecture by Etienne Wenger on “What if we assumed that society itself is a large-scale learning system?”)

While watching the video of the interview I hear me asking: What does it help, to see the person talking in the interview? Would I have been listening to 3 of the 7 sequences if they would only have been published as audio clips? Maybe I would have downloaded all of them to listen to it on my player while commuting?

Audio and Video are sequential / linear: How important is it to see the whole (long?) sequence? Do I miss something, if I do not spend this time? What is the essence of the content transmitted?