Week 6: Pulling the pieces together, Methods
Earlier in the course, we announced a face-to-face meeting on edfutures in PEI. This past week, Stephen Downes, Alec Couros, Dave Cormier, and I met with a small group at UPEI to discuss futures in education (we've posted a few notes from the discussion). We spent time discussing open courses, some short comings of the model, frustrations with EdFutures, and so on. Stephen offered a demonstration of how he organizes his OLDaily newsletter and potential lessons about literacy that educators need to consider based on this process. It was a great discussion!
This past week was a "data week". Needless to say, my focus on data (primarily statistics) will be different than what many course participants find useful. In discussions via email, on skype, and in person, most prefer an emphasis on narrative, expert evaluation, and similar "softer" methods for supporting or extrapolating trends. As with any type of research, a clear explanation of which methods were selected, and why, is important. To that end, we'll revisit a topic that was briefly introduced this two weeks ago and spend more time on it this week: future methods.
Reading/Recordings:
Here's a short recording (4 min) on an integrative view of future patterns. This video provides an overview of the course and how elements fit together.
http://www.thefuturesacademy.ie/futures/methods
Activities:
After reviewing the recording and completing the reading listed above:
1. Visit the week 6 forums and discuss methods for futures thinking. Any preferences? If so, why?
2. Update your future pattern map from week four, fleshing out the data, and methods sections. Please share an updated map with the course participants.
3. Attend our weekly live session (Dave might not be able to attend) on Tuesday at 2 pm EST here in Elluminate (...if you're unsure of how this translates into your timezone, conversions are here
