Collaborative knowledge-building (CKB) in online social networking sites is an area of concern among educators and researchers alike. The focus however, seems to be on how social networking sites mediate the process of CKB in informal settings, while neglecting the role of design in making such knowledge-building and collaboration a sustainable activity. The relative lack of attention to design, points to the need for methods to guide the development of CKB environments. Thus on June 17th 2011 I presented my work to some of my colleagues which drew on my experience on an action research study which aimed to establish possible benefits from a framework-driven approach, given that the development of informal online social networking environments are not traditionally driven by any particular theoretical or design frameworks. Using the research findings, guided by activity theory (Leont’ev 1978; Engestrom 1987), group cognition (Stahl 2005; Stahl 2006), community of inquiry (Garrison et al 2001), I advanced a conceptualisation of the CEN e-mediating framework. This framework is presented as a mediating artefact in sustaining CKB in groups within the Caribbean Educators Network. The framework is a focus on processes (what is done) and presences (the environment or condition) and is expressed along 4 themes: community presence, cognitive presence, moderating presence and ‘artefactization’ presence. I share the following slides which formed part of this presentation.

Open education initiatives are becoming popular offerings on the web. Found about this from my Twitter steam and thought it must be worth the look. And a good look it ended to be. From January 10th to February 20th George Siemens, Jon Dron, Dave Cormier, Tanya Elias, and Sylvia Currie are facilitating Learning & Knowledge Analytics 2011. This course is an OPEN course and introduces individuals to the growing field of analytics in education sector.

Topics up for discussion include:

Week 1 (Jan 10-16): Introduction to Learning and Knowledge Analytics
Week 2 (Jan 17-23): Rise of “Big Data” and Data Scientists
Week 3 (Jan 24-30): Semantic Web, Linked Data, & Intelligent Curriculum
Week 4 (Jan 31-Feb 6): Visualization: Tools for, and examples of, Analytics
Week 5 (Feb 7-13): Organizational implementation
Week 6 (Feb 14-20): What’s next for Learning & Knowledge Analytics?

To get started:
Please join this group: https://groups.google.com/group/LAK11/. Once the course begins, daily emails of course activity, readings, and other highlights will be sent to this group.

Course Tag: LAK11 (for tagging resources in delicious/diigo, Twitter hashtag, and tagging blog posts)