PLEs and Connective Environments

With a little help from Jatinder, a kindred soul in the making of simulators that happen to attract Brandon Hall Awards, I tried to visualize a model of PLEs operating in a connective environment. It started with a reply I made to Janet and Carmen on what I think should be: …let us contrast the [...]

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New models for Indian Education

In this post, I would like to propose some new models/directions for Indian Education by addressing some core problem areas that I have been able to identify. I would like to focus on, in particular how some strategic new models could change the way we are addressing the huge scale and diversity in India. The [...]

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Modeling the Education Sector

There are doubtless many models put into use to try to analyze the working of the education sector and there is significant interest in this space. Here are my initial thoughts on how we could create a useful analytical model. I consider three dimensions to be vital for this model. Infrastructure This first dimension concerns the [...]

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Alternate Reality Games (ARGs)

I had not heard of  games of this genre before, but they are pretty exciting and I must thank Ulises Mejias for my first introduction to  this medium. There are many definitions including the one here where ARGs are contrasted with serious games. Apparently, the first such “game” dates back to 1996! Wikipedia defines it as “is [...]

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Our shame

Violence in the classroom. How many of us realize how unsafe our children are in their classrooms and schools? How many of us are still silent spectators to child sexual abuse, corporal punishment and all forms of safety violations for children going to our schools? The recent horrifying stories of corporal punishment (15-year-old girl assaulted by [...]

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Connectivist Metrics

I thought I would take a stab at defining what connectivist metrics could include. Having read in Stephen’s post, Connectivist Dynamics in Communities, that connectivist networks produce connective knowledge and that four elements  (autonomy, diversity, open-ness and interactivity & connectedness) distinguish a knowledge-generating network from a mere set of connected elements, I thought it would make sense to [...]

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On communities, processes and technology

A recent set of conversations with customers and colleagues around communities of practice, networked learning, tools and platforms has provoked a lot of thought. One perspective, that was heavily process oriented & steeped in real life experiences, argued that unless processes and workflows (and related metrics) were established, implementing these tools in the enterprise would [...]

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The Slumdog Post

This post just had to be written. After hearing about Slumdog Millionaire and (both sides) of the debate surrounding this film, I finally decided to watch it hours before the Oscars ceremony. It is a gut wrenching, sad yet triumphant story for a young boy whose only source of learning was informal, connective, but which [...]

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The digital life

I came across two ideas today that are part of a stream of developments that continue to amaze and intrigue me immensely. Mostly because of their impact on how we will be, perhaps, 10 years or so from now. The first was when my colleagues at work showed me www.visualcomplexity.com and the second, a few minutes later in [...]

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Connectivism and social action

In the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks, I have witnessed in graphic detail the many aspects of socio-political crisis. On one hand, there is the actual terror and consequent military action. On the other is the political shakeout because of mass opinion that reflected in the local elections and change of power positions in [...]

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CCK08 Week 2

End of week two of the “course” and I think I have come some way. While Week 1 was about Connectivism and the changing face of the web at an introductory level exposing me to some interesting ideas and getting me acclimatised to a massively online course, Week 2 has been the process of getting my [...]

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