#CritLit2010 | Moebius connectivity

On the story that came from a book ( a university student  once lend to me)  called “Subway Named Moebius,by A.J. Deutsch ”  I found an interesting relationship on the bases on connectivity (S. Downes):

“The principles of connectivity state that as a system makes more connections to other parts of itself, the connectivity of that system increases in an exponential fashion to staggering levels.(1)”

Moebius strip by warwick

The story was about “the subway under Boston had been growing in complexity for years. It was so complex, in fact, that the best mathematicians could not calculate its connectivity” (*). It was like the phenomena I lived on  connectivism on CritLit2010. There was a subway “CritLit2010 Course” that let me to connect to many topics, contents and people that I could not imagine. And this experience, which is moving, is expanding  any time that I find a new connection.

Since I took part on the course, I experienced inter connectivism from different levels. I called this entry Moebius connectivity because of the similar effect of the experience on learning on  #CriticLit2010.That is because I passed from the inner  to the outside space. I connected from the private to the public place. I took part on the conversation that was on the multi dimension PLE.

I knew about the course  at a Conference Stephen Downes gave on May at Fundación Telefónica in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Alejandro Piscitelli who introduced Stephen Downes and commented about CritLit.  I realized that it was the opportunity to learn about connectivism. Then, I listen from him at his conference at Book Fair at BA.

Connectivity began when I knew about the CritLit2010 course at the conference and follow when, by change, I met Professor “Jorge Crom” who took part on a previous course CCK08 and encouraged me saying: “It was something interesting that you should experience”.

After submitting on the Moodle Course, I could see that connectivity experience was more off the platform than on it. In other words,there was two ways: a lineal or synchronic  mode  (on Moodle and   WordPress, Diigo, The Daily,etc.) and a  non linear or asyncronic mode (with Twitter, Facebook, etc.). So I had to manage the information to not to infoxicate (Alfons Cornella).
I had a summary it on my post “Managing connectivity”.

The experience of CritLit 2010 was interesting . I had  to use my technical skills and  to keep in conversation through different platforms. This is crucial to follow the move.

I think, there were different connectivity modes:

• CONNECTIVITY from a lineal discourse respecting the causality principles and relationships due to the connectivism. For example, the one established on Moodle Platform;
• CONNECTIVITY from a non lineal discourse. As participant  of the course I felt connected among the objects on the web, sharing  meanings. The interchange me had, went far than the concrete meanings we gave on what we wrote and said. It includes infinite social and technology semiotics.

On both groups we can find social interaction and collaborative work.

On the first group, we follow an order and structure. On the contrary, the interactions on the second group are aleatory and chaotic. They are established by the user itself and the possibility that provides folksonomy knowledge.

Moebius effect is on the constant movement from the inner to the outside place.It develops on different levels, especially on Connectivist Learning and Teaching (Stephen Downes):

• Public and private are mixed
• Self and common is a mashed up
• Subjectivity and objectivity depend on the point of view
• Map and territory are disolved: references changes
• Author y lecturer: mixed to a prosumer and collective production

In my opinion, Connectivity on CritLit2010 was the opportunity to learn to apply the Critical Literacy on distributed conversations that took part on the Personal Learning Environments.  I learned about Stephen Downes ´s Connectivist Principles:

• relevance: what it was relevant to me. I found interesting to follow The Daily, Stephens Downes halfanour, Moodle Contents and the Literacy provided. Also the posts from my colleagues blogs. I could not follow most of the course blogs -in fact I had to look for them with Google Alerts- but I choose some : Heli Nurmi,Steve Mackenzie, John Mak, Ruth Howard, Ulop O’Taat, George Siemens, Jenny Mackness, Dolors Capdet, Abdrahamane Traore,Claudia Guerrero , John King)
• interaction: the capacity to communicate with other people interested in the same topic or using the same on line resource. Human content + Human contact. I builded my own interaction on the distributed network (Moodle, wordpress, twitter,facebook, group on delicious, I tried Connectivism social net by John Mak,  etc…)
• usability: was a challenge to find consistency (clarify the principles, organizing my knowledge and summarized it) and simplicity ( to know how it works). After a while, I catched it since I opened my blog and began connected! I use RSS, hashtags, Google readers, Google Alerts, etc.

I found interesting the post from Ruth Howard who developed the meaning of “MEME” on his entry called: Is Critical Thinking a meme to counter memes? .In my opinion this relevant because it is what seems to remain on the course. It is any time you reflect about authors contents, do to find and establish relationships with people and collaborate to share meanings.New meanings emerge from the symbolic environment and we are the agents to connect it.

In the end, I think that PLE of CritLit2010  experience ( as immersive way to introduce myself and being one of the people characteristic of the community) is not complete at all. It can´t be concluded because it could be only in an actualization process, as a virtual experience.  That is why the topic of my post is called Moebius connectivity.

Moebius connectivity seems to be related to serendipity but,this is a topic for another post.