#CCK11: Introductory Post--Reasons for joining

I joined the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (CCK11) MOOC a tad late. It is a 12 week course that started on January 17 and will continue till April 11. I am really excited to see what it holds. This is my introductory post. I am a bit worried that I am lagging behind in my reading but not too worried since many of the articles and posts that are linked are stuff I have already read. I am eager to go through this journey as a part of a group of people who are passionate and keen about the same things that I am.

The course syllabus was especially intriguing, and my special interest is the Adaptive Systems which is coming up in Week 7.

Week 1: Connectivism
Week 2: Patterns
Week 3: Knowledge
Week 4: Unique?
Week 5: Groups, Networks
Week 6: PLENK
Week 7: Adaptive Systems
Week 8: Power & Authority
Week 9: Openness
Week 10: Net Pedagogy
Week 11: Research & Analytics
Week 12: Changing views

Key reasons:

1. I have been reading and am highly influenced by the writings of George Siemens and Stephen Downes.
2. The theory of Connectivism fascinates me, and I see its absolute relevance in this age of networked learning.
3. I am also intrigued by complexity and chaos theory and do quite a bit of reading around these topics, which gets random at times. I tend to stray on the web. This course provides focus and a “guided” yet flexible path that will help me to do concentrated reading.
4. I wanted to experience the feel of a MOOC. I think MOOCs will increasingly become a way of sharing and learning together.
5. Dave Cromier’s video on What is a MOOC? pushed me to join. It rocks! It made me want to be a part of this learning experience.
6. The fact that I don’t need to read everything but the more I do cover, the more I can participate. This is a great motivator for me to cover as much as possible because I hate to feel left out.

10 things that Dave Cromier says about a MOOC that inspired me to join CCK11

1. The key characteristic of a MOOC as a participatory, open and distributed course
2. It’s an event around which people who care about a topic get together (although learning is not an "event")
3. All the course work gets done in areas accessible to everyone—absolute transparency of the learning process
4. Everyone gets to learn from everyone’s work
5. A MOOC promotes network creation and facilitates engagement with other participants (a key learning skill of the 21^st C where knowledge resides in friends and “knowing where is more important than knowing how or when”)
6. There’s no single path through the course—I can choose my learning path and different ideas can coexist and new ideas emerge
7. A MOOC is a lot like being on the web but it is paced, which also gives me a good reason to keep focused
8. The need to “declare” myself and create artifacts that will help me to make my learning process transparent (this post for example is a start)
9. It is a perfect blend of curated content and emergent knowledge, ideas and viewpoints
10. The 5 steps to be successful in a MOOC—Orient, Declare, Network, Cluster and Focus—are also the key learning skills required in the networked age. This, I thought, would be a great place to hone these skills. 

The points are synthesized from the following 2 videos:

• What is a MOOC?
• Success in a MOOC

So, I signed up.

What did I do next?

1. I joined the Google group here.
2. I went through the webinar recordings.
3. Saved the Twitter search for #CCK11
4. Scanned through the paper.li creations for CCK11
5. Subscribed to the CCK11 Daily

This has been my Saturday morning so far. I am now settling down with another cup of coffee to watch the 2 webinars:

• The Course Introduction and Overview
• Educational Data Mining: A Methodological Review

I will try to follow these up with some more readings from the daily. Will be back soon with my next post.