CCK09: The Daily is Down - What is the impact on the course?

The Daily newsletter was not available for some days. What do you think is the effect over participants? Do we need The Daily newsletter? Are we getting support from the instructors? Do we need their support?

Our assignment for this week is "...Participate in week 2 discussions in the Moodle forum…in particular, share resources on networks that you encounter in your browsing this week".

Are you using your PLE to find these resources on networks?

Note that I am not complaining. I just think that this is a great opportunity to assess how useful is The Daily newsletter to the participants in this course

	Re: The Daily is Down - What is the impact on the course? by Mary Rearick - Wednesday, 23 September 2009, 10:17 PM
	I think the Daily enhances the dis/course among participants. I am not able to connect to downes.ca. Are you receiving the Daily Eduardo? I haven't receive the Daily this week. Show parent \| Reply

	Re: The Daily is Down - What is the impact on the course? by Richard Jones - Wednesday, 23 September 2009, 10:26 PM
	Hi, The only site I was able to find that was still functional is his blog, Half an Hour. No mention of the crash of '09. I suspect his aggregator, gRSShopper, went down with the rest of the code. I think one of the readings from this week described this situation quite well. /RJ Show parent \| Reply

Hello Eduardo. I participated in CCK08. I recall complaints from some participants at that time that the Daily was censoring some of the blogs in a sense, by highlighting those blogs that seemed to favour the agendas of the courses facilitators, Downes and Siemens. I'm not sure I agreed with those complaints. I did enjoy the Daily, as it collected some reading for me and I didn't have to create a PLE or search or whatever. I am not doing much this year other than participating in the Moodle forum, a playground I like.

I think CCK09 is proceeding differently from last year, in the sense that there was a large focus on theory in CCK08 and it appears that CCK09 will trend in the direction of pedagogical usage of connectivity tools with less focus on the theoretical debates and positions.

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Hi, in a sense we are already doing this with all the conversations happening everywhere, but we could wikify the Daily in a different way - if anyone who felt like it, went off and found one person that they haven't connected with yet - maybe a blogpost, tweets, on the forums here - wherever and wrote a Daily 'post' with some commentary and references, either on the official course wiki - we could create a page? or any of the other great wikis which are appearing ?

Could take it a step further and add a ratings widget to each post as well - that may address any concerns of balance that anyone may feel they experiencing ?

Just a thought...

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Given connectivism is (if nothing else) about connecting, minimum and sufficient work required would be to facilitate the potential connectants and let the people use what works.

Bruno Latour a sociologist renowned for work on networks, said “….anything can become more or less real, depending on the continuous chains of translation. It’s essential to continue to generate interest, to seduce, to translate interests..."
If there is not continuous translation (seducing or adapting interests) things (practices, innovations, theories... etc) die.

With the neurological metaphor, when there is brain damage and the person is young enough, alternate pathways compensate.
Perhaps when a theory is young enough, alternate means are also more likely to be explored, later in a network (according to actor-network theory - known as 'ant') the ruts become more established and less easy to get out of. This would explain why we have schools still following patterns of education that are archaic.
That OlDaily is down doesnt matter, there are sufficient other pathways to connect.

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	Re: The Daily is Down - What is the impact on the course? by James Neill - Thursday, 24 September 2009, 04:04 PM
	Daily Down? No problem in a world of network plasticity (aka neuroplasticity). What are we missing? Downes' personalised collection of daily notables - he or others can and do post just as much elsewhere. Could even be seen as advantageous as other connections step up. Show parent \| Reply

	Re: The Daily is Down - What is the impact on the course? by Frances Bell - Friday, 25 September 2009, 03:43 AM
	Intrigued by the nearness of down and Downes, it occurs to me that what might matter is if Downes was down, if he was so busy fixing the problem. In that case, loss of the technology Downes.ca might matter less than loss of the presence of Stephen Downes the person. Apologies, Stephen if you were connecting in ways that I did not notice. Show parent \| Reply

The course is elsewhere. The Daily is great reading for breakfast: it gives you an order, makes you feel that even if you can´t participate on discussions, read posts, comments or nothing, you are still with the flow...you can still be connected. The truth is that CCK09 keeps on going. Let´s think they did it on purpose to let us get something out of this. The instructor is the network you can make?

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	Re: The Daily is Down - What is the impact on the course? by Maijann Ruby - Friday, 25 September 2009, 04:15 AM
	I thought it was very generous to provide 'a Daily' in the first place. Show parent \| Reply

	Re: The Daily is Down - What is the impact on the course? by Sia Vogel - Friday, 25 September 2009, 06:08 AM
	I am glad the Daily is back. Instead of last year I now can find my way without but I like it very much to see there what is important and what happend. Stephen Thanks. Show parent \| Reply

This week the postings are noticeably fewer. Is it because the Daily is down or are people struggling with the theories or has the first flush of excitement given way to work pressures? I confess some of the theoretical arguments are way over my head so I'm struggling to find my place. I wonder how many lurkers are feeling the same?

I think for those of us who are new to this way of working, any anchor point is useful. I'm a bit of a list person (sadly) and having a place where I can consider my day is useful. Come to think of it, maybe I should make my own Daily - or is that what a PLE is?

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	Re: The Daily is Down - What is the impact on the course? by luz pearson - Friday, 25 September 2009, 09:03 AM
	I feel the same Jane!!! A wayyyy over my head. But I don´t know if this causes the low amount of comments or is also the effect of not having the daily, or the second week. Third week will tell us more. For me the Daily is like a reader, but Stephen´s selection so you trust the filter. Your own PLE it´s your own filter. Show parent \| Reply

If the pattern follows last year, you'll become more confused then things will begin to make some sense. As for the low amounts of comments, it might be that there's less contributors to this year than last. Also many of the people who I noticed contributed a lot are not participating at the same level as they were last year (which I suppose is to be expected, a lot of discussion happened last year).

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Last years participants may be holding back to see who will emerge as the new core group of participants from the class of 2009. I think the first-timers should be leading the course in the direction they would like to see it go because it's their turn. We had our kick at the can in setting the moodle topics and hopefully there will be a shift in direction each year as a fresh group with different perspectives set the discussion topics.

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	Re: The Daily is Down - What is the impact on the course? by Diana Thorsteinson - Saturday, 26 September 2009, 06:48 AM
	As a fellow lurker...I also find the Daily useful to help me navigate through the course resources. As a participant, I'm trying to "break free" from the traditional course model with reliance on a lot of structure, but old habits die hard. Show parent \| Reply

	Re: The Daily is Down - What is the impact on the course? by Fred Haas - Saturday, 26 September 2009, 07:54 AM
	I for one have felt the squeeze of work pressures this week; so The Daily being down didn't help. Yet, I don't want to make that the excuse. It is a great reminder everyday of the course and always provides some worthwhile links. I definitely missed it, but it doesn't explain my lack of engagement this week. That all came from work. Show parent \| Reply

	Re: The Daily is Down - What is the impact on the course? by Cosimo Urbanowicz - Friday, 25 September 2009, 12:12 PM
	The most useful way to think about it is to imagine that the daily is down intentionally -- to provoke us to build our own! Where do you think the conversation is most visible/ active right now, beside this forum? Show parent \| Reply

Nice "glass half full" way to look at the crash, Cosimo. I think maybe an unintended benefit of the way the course has been structured is that learning continues despite one of the instructors being temporarily knocked out. Had all conversation depended on Downes' server, it would have been a catastrophic disruption (for us, I mean. I'm sure it feels like a catastrophe for Downes...) rather than a temporary inconvenience.

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