Confusion

Connectivism and connective Knowledge 2011:
When browsing trough comments in the first week, there is a lot about confusion. And I am no exception.
So I liked Mattias' post: Confusion - a catalyst for learning? Because it was leading the way to a positive attitude towards confusion.
However as I understood it, it was descriptive, so I was wondering whether confusion can be described in terms of a learning context.
Confusion means not being in control, not being in control means a pattern (situation) cannot identified / recognized in the patterns of existing connections (is not in our knowledge). So confusion is the statement that pattern recognition does not work for a certain pattern. In a learning process this is an essential statement, because only this kicks off the conclusion: for understanding a new / extended network is needed. Confusion fades away, when a new network is established, capable of sense making for the pattern in question. Fear is the conclusion of not being capable of creating a network that is adequate for sense making for the pattern in question.

regards
gerald  

A MOOC? Can you eat it? And how do you cook it?

Very recently I have enrolled for a MOOC on Connectivism and Connective Knowledge 2011, because I was attracted by the title (actually only by the connotation of "Connective Knowledge", since I had no idea what "Connectivism" is.
Only then I realized that I had no idea what a MOOC is. To make a long story short, only for learning about this concept, it was worth affording (it was for free by the way). MOOC means Massive Open Online Course.

Also very interesting is the relation of the MOOC towards knowledge:

Having understood now the format, I was nevertheless thrown into it, not very well prepared for it. Used to more traditional course formats, I was very quickly overwhelmed by frustration: How do you read through it all and keep up with everything?
Luckily I wasn't the only one (so I started to like the format, when I found Tracy Parish's post: How do you read through it all and keep up with everything?), so one learning was to skip old style learning expectations and to replace it by the Success in a MOOC:

Frustration is gone, I am very excited about the new format - now I am about to learn.

regards
gerald