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Hello & Systems and Network Theory January 11, 2011

Hi Darren

I agree there is a lot to be said for starting off discussion in the location where people are already naturally meeting - such as this group (Coalition of the Willing - http://www.dadamac.net/network/coalition-willing).>

Like you, I also see a lot of overlap between the kind of group learning that we will be doing around the topic of Systems and Network Theory and the idea of a MOOC. The learning style is the same - regarding sharing resources and knowledge and different people learning different, but related things, etc. The big difference of course is that with a MOOC there is already some kind of "event" and structure (week 1, week 2, etc).  We are at an earlier stage of our shared learning and therefore much more fluid / chaotic / emergent / agile.

I think it is exciting that we have "tech-heads" in the group - as they can advise us all on what to do next, as we "grow out of' the "online space" available to us through email.

For instance - we are already generating some links - we don't want them to be lost.

For a start the important thing is to simply find the most effective way to extricate them from the dynamic flow of emails and park them somewhere,  I guess we all have our pet ways of doing this - all with various benefits and disadvantages.

Safely parking them is a useful first step - but really we need to cluster together the various links that connect naturally with each other - so its easy to find what you are looking for - even if you don't know what it is. Again I guess we all have our pet ways of doing this - all with various benefits and disadvantages.

We also have quite a few people here - and it would be helpful to have easy access to some kind of personal introduction/profile.  (I think we've already got some kind of collection of COTW introduction/profile things somewhere - it would make sense to link to that info, but tweaked or added to in some way to make it obvious how/why the person relates to this group.

I wonder if we want to just explore the topics in a general way, or if it might be fun to set ourselves the task of preparing a MOOC on systems and network theory.  This would also of course give us a learn-by-doing opportunity of "how to prepare a MOOC" (and once we know how to do that we could prepare MOOCs on other topics as well). It would also give us a a learn-by-doing opportunity to study various aspects of systems and network theory in a wheels-within-wheels, systems-within-systems, and networks-of-people-and-systems-and-ideas, kind of way.

I am looking forward to being part of this group - or maybe it is more accurate to say that I am already enjoying being part of this emerging group.

Pamela

On 11 January 2011 12:22, Darren Hill  wrote (to Coalition of the Willing):
Nice to make the acquaintance of all the newcomers and to see the 'old timers' come out of the woodwork.  Happy new year to everyone.

Quick post....

I've been busy with one thing or another for a while and have been meaning to respond to quite a few COTW posts..... hopefully I'll find the time soon......

Also sticking my hand up for the idea of the learning group.  I like the idea of the MOOC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Networked_learning#MOOC - collaborative open learning (like much of what I do now - browsing around the web for information connected to things that interest me/stuff I'm working on)) but with some structure to try and pull it all together.  I would suggest that we could progress without the need of an 'expert' facilitator.  Maybe we can invite some people with specific areas of knowledge to interact with us (movementcamp?)

I guess we can centre it at the e-mail list here?  or would that be a bad idea?  We are all here and email doesn't  give problems for people with low bandwidth connections.

On 10/01/2011 15:52, Gabriel Quiroz wrote:

Hey guys,

Reading your past emails got me thinking that if there are several people who want to dive deeper into systems theory, networks theory, game theory, etc. then it would not be a bad idea if we formed a small collaborative learning group for people that are scratching the surface but would like to know more. As is my case.

If you like the idea, raise your hand.