Key ideas

Study of MobiMOOC, some statistics, mostly theory. Complexity theory and self-organizing systems, collective scaffolding and ZPD

Vital conditions:

• fluid realm
• openness to the information flow
• turbulences and changes; freedom within flexible boundaries
• richness of possibilities
• interconnectedness of all parts of the system
• collective emergence

(Laroche, Nicol, & Mayer-Smith, 2007, p. 74)

Self-organizing MOOC displaying emergent properties to interact with the environment in which it finds itself (Bertuglia, 2005).

Reigeluth (2004) writes, Chaos theory and the sciences of complexity can help us to understand our present systems of education, including (a) when each is ready for transformation, and (b) the system dynamics that are likely to influence individual changes we try to make and the effects of those changes.

For a system to be open to its environment, must actively seek information from its surroundings and make this knowledge widely available.

For the system to adapt, it must be pushed out of balance first. The further the system is from equilibrium, the stronger the chance for self-organization. Fluid environments blur distinctions between schools, nature, society, informal and formal learning (Laroche et al 2009).

We are certain combining technologies that embrace the complexity of knowledge production with pedagogical formats that allow learners to build knowledge by filtering that complexity will encourage a new educational balance to emerge.

MOOC as a complex system, continuously interpreting events of the external world.

Based on Davis and Sumara (2008).

“One cannot specify in advance what sorts of variation will be necessary for appropriately intelligent action, hence the need to ensure and maintain diversity in the current system”

Enhancer for fruitful discussions and successful knowledge creation.

Among humans, vastly more redundancy than diversity - which enables interactions among agents.

Interesting to think about how different students should be in terms of interests, level of knowledge. Link to ZPD, "most books have 10% new material". Difference between new information and new concepts ("Cameroon has 5 million people living in cities" vs "Slon is a nematode in respesis")

Must be able to affect one another's activities in order to activate internal dynamics of a collective learning system.

The neighbors that must interact with one another are ideas, hunches, queries, and other manners of representation”, in the hope that these interactions will trigger other insights. They also said “the critical point is that mechanisms be in place to ensure that ideas will stumble across one another”

There was centralized coordinator, each week facilitated by different mLearning expert, but participants had control over part of the advancement of the course. Could propose discussion topics.

“One of the properties of complex systems is that they allow emergence of smaller complex systems within them” (Laroche et al., 2009).

This happened as a result of decentralized authority and the fact that the participants were in control of their own learning. The dynamics of the MobiMOOC resulted in smaller complex subsystems that arose. This paper, for example, is a result of MobiMOOC participants who volunteered to join and engage in an emerging, unplanned action.

Through a process of collective scaffolding (Donato, 1994) participants assisted others to expand their understanding of mLearning, also helped them implement their own mLearning projects. Constructive feedback to classmates - enabled participants to work within ZPD, expand capabilities.

The successful development of online communities also requires

• common goals or interests
• repeated participation
• discussions and feedback
• multiplicity of possibilities
• flexible thinking structures
• interpersonal connectivity
• collaboration
• interactions
• distributed leadership
• assigned roles
• shared outcomes

(Abel, 2005; Farrior, 2005; Kelland, 2006; Kim, 2001 as cited in Laroche et al., 2009).

Conversations at the center - learn from each other through dialogue.

MobiMOOC, April-May 2011

556 participants joined Google group, 74 active contributing members

Data from final survey, 40 completed