# CSCL-intro "The Biweekly" #1


![](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2618/4085532798_ce444d93e3.jpg)
*CC BY aussiegall @ flickr*

This course is inspired both by "Wiley wikis", and by
["MOOCs"](http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/connectivism/?m=200807). One of the
innovations that Stephen Downes brought in with his first MOOC back in
2008 was the concept of "The Daily", a daily e-mail that would summarize
the readings, the events, and some of the most interesting blog posts or
other artefacts that course participants had created.

This was especially necessary in the MOOC, because of the almost 2000
participants (although not everyone participated actively, there was an
incredible amount of postings generated). We will not have anything near
that size, but people often feel a bit "lost" in P2PU courses too (or in
online courses in general). It can be easy to "fall off", and not be
sure what exactly you are supposed to do, what is going on, etc. So we
thought we'd try to do a "bi-weekly" newsletter. I am posting this on my
blog, because the broadcast feature on P2PU right now does not allow for
rich text. I will blast out an announcement on P2PU each time I post a
bi-weekly, which should reach all of you (we are still experimenting
with the various communication systems, thank you for your patience!).

**We're off**

So for Monica and I, this is a very exciting time. We have been planning
this course for a very long time, and to see people sign up, begin to
blog, engage with the readings (and each other), tweet, comment on the
P2PU site etc, is very exciting and rewarding! And since we are both
committed to participate fully in the course, it's also exciting to be
sitting down to actually read these resources that we have found, take
notes, think about what to blog about, discuss with others, etc.

**Participants**

****So far, we have 13 participants. There are two or so participants
who applied, but didn't supply enough information - I left comments on
their applications, and hope they got them, and will complete the
applications. We decided to extend sign-up until Sunday night this week,
so we might still get some more people.

We also have 26 followers. They have not committed to go through the
course, do all the readings etc, but they are welcome to the Big Blue
Button meetings, and we hope to hear from them occasionally (or
frequently). If they blog, it's best if they tweet the URL with the
\#csclintro tag (or check the Netvibes page to see if it shows up in the
blog search). I will include links to blog posts from network
participants in the bi-weekly as well.

**This week's topic**

****This week, we are both warming up, getting used to the platform
(we've already had to make some adjustments), getting our blogs set up,
etc. But we are also starting out with constructivism, which is an
important educational philosophy often bandied about, but also often not
very well understood. I really enjoyed sitting down with some of the
texts, taking notes, and writing some blog posts, and I look forward to
reading more of your thoughts.

We are also looking at Communities of Practice, which is another very
well known concept both within CSCL and the sister discipline
Computer-Supported Collaborative Work.

**Resources for this week**

-   [Constructivism](http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Constructivism) on
  EduTechWiki (feel free to explore sublinks)
-   [Communities of
  Practice](http://www.infed.org/biblio/communities_of_practice.htm)
  on infed - the encyclopedia of informal learning
-   [Weekly video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUQ6fSvLBVM)

**Blog posts**

****We had a number of people posting "introductory posts", talking
about their participation in the course, their expectations:
[Jennifer](http://jenniferclaro.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/210/),
[Monica](http://reganmian.net/monica/projects/csclintro-course-at-p2pu/),
[Rebecca](http://web.me.com/rebeccacober/Rebecca_Cober/Blog/Entries/2011/4/25_Jump_in_head_first_and_make_sure_you_get_your_feet_wet%21.html),
[Nate](http://ottonomy.net/blog/2011/04/25/welcome-to-cscl-intr/), [Martin](http://kaffeikampala.blogspot.com/2011/04/intro-to-cscl.html)
(who also wrote about a [neat
way](http://kaffeikampala.blogspot.com/2011/04/organizing.html) of
making the course feeds part of his daily Internet reading), [and
I](http://reganmian.net/blog/2011/04/25/new-p2pu-course-intro-to-computer-supported-collaborative-learning/).

Monica added some [great
questions](http://new.p2pu.org/en/groups/introduction-to-the-field-of-computer-supported-co/content/w1w2-intro-to-course-and-to-field/)
on the weekly task, and
[Nate](http://ottonomy.net/blog/2011/04/25/cscl-intro-wk-1-questions/)
jumped in trying to answer them. (For future weeks, we hope that others
in the group would like to formulate some reading questions as well).
[Monica](http://reganmian.net/monica/csclintro/communities-of-practice-situated-learning/)
also had a nice post about communities of practice herself.

[Martin](http://kaffeikampala.blogspot.com/2011/04/i-want-individual-accreditation.html)
grappled with the concept of group or individual grading, especially
from the perspective of medical education, and
[I blogged](http://reganmian.net/blog/2011/04/26/cscl-intro-week-1-constructivism/)
about constructivism (see also some of my [[constructivism|wiki
notes]]).

And one of our participants, Joe Corneli, is actually [running another
course on
P2PU](http://hyperreal-enterprises.posterous.com/p2pu-the-course), about
P2PU as a platform, that might also be of interest to some of you.

**Meeting in Big Blue Button**

Sorry about the scheduling confusion. We used Whenisgood, and got about
six replies. Everyone else are of course welcome to attend, but don't
complain if it doesn't fit your schedule :)

We will meet twice in the first week, to make sure everyone can meet and
get the course off on a good start. We will probably only meet once in
future weeks. [This is the
URL](http://p2pu-bbb.osuosl.org/bigbluebutton/demo/create.jsp?action=invite&meetingID=cscl-intro%27s+meeting).

-   Friday 9 AM EST
-   Saturday 5PM EST

(Everyone who signed up to Whenisgood should be able to meet at one of
these two times). We will spend some of the hour introducing ourselves,
discussing the design of the course, badges, responsibilities, etc
(pretty much anything is up for discussion/change - don't be shy!), and
some of the time discussing the readings.

**What else?**

I am still missing blog feeds for about half the class, please add them
here. I have set up a [Netvibes page](http://netvibes.com/csclintro) to
make it easier to track all the blog entries etc (trying to suck in the
activity streams on the P2PU course page was a mess - a valuable lesson,
we're having [lot's of
discussions](http://lists.p2pu.org/pipermail/p2pu-dev/2011-April/000827.html)
on how to do this better in the future).

Looking forward to hearing from all of you, and learning with you. If
you have any doubts or problems, leave a message on the class wall, and
we'll try to resolve it. See you soon on BBB!

Stian