Last week during Orientation for Change 11 I posted about defining success and getting what I want out of this MOOC. I also posted what I am doing to orient myself on this network so that I can be more effective in my learning.

I hope this is a timely reminder for people getting involved in Change 11 that it is really up to you how you define your success, and become involved in the creation of knowledge that ultimately means something to you. The nature of the course is highly decentralised, networked and participatory. I had thought about responding to various frustrations about how barriers to entry were high for people that couldn’t come to terms with the fragmented nature of the MOOC, but I have done this elsewhere.

I wanted instead to focus on what you could do to make sense of the abundance of information that emanates from the course. Which brings me to Step Two to Success in a MOOC - Declare.

Declare

Dave Cormier describes this process as finding “a place for your thoughts and reflections to live”. It might be a blog or a forum related to the course, but essentially it needs to be your home base and not simply a social media outpost like Twitter, Google+ or Facebook. You will be actively creating knowledge, so it helps if you are not just simply amplifying the messages of others or adding to the echo chamber.

This tumblelog inlearning is where my contributions, reflections and other scraps live. This is where I make the critical transition from information consumer to information producer. You’ve got to be able to do this otherwise you will simply be consumed by information, unable to respond. By declaring what my interests are, and what I hope to gain from Change 11 I am naturally making decisions about the information I respond to.

Because this is my home base, you can comment here, reblog or link to my posts and you will become part of the conversation I am having. This conversation revolves around the material I am responding to. When you mention one of my posts on social media someone else might pick up on it and become part of that conversation. In keeping with my goal of building a personal learning network this aspect of declaration is crucial.

Where is you home base? How are you responding to the information that gushes forth from the course? Are you struggling with consumption, or focussing on creation? In my next post in the series I’ll be looking at the network more detail.