Marisa's comments:
Meaning of terms: do you use the term crowdsourcing to refer to peer-production? Do you think the two terms can be used interchangeably? Some do, but I am not sure. I suggest this paper: Open Source Software Collaboration: Foundational Concepts and an Empirical Analysis, at http://en.scientificcommons.org/50121986, if you have not read it yet. It might be useful for the definitions of concepts.
Commons-based peer production: production organized on a voluntary basis rather than via firms or markets.
Peer Production: Benkler uses this as a more general term than CBPP; "peer production" that could describe the activities that take place within a firm that has been organized in a certain way (e.g. a team of people work together as peers to create a given product which they then sell). In any case the emphasis here is on the peers, not on the common resources. A "barn raising" is the prototypical example in this category (here the community works together to co-create a barn primarily for use by one homestead). One might say that the peer relationship is itself a common-pool resource, but at least if we look at things in a simple way, it isn't itself being "produced", but, rather, applied to produce something else.
Crowdsourcing: Going the other direction, I think crowdsourcing can take on more market-like characteristics. E.g. in the PlanetMath setting, we could create a market where people to pay for tutoring or marking of papers, on the condition that we get to re-use the materials that the tutors produce. At the same time, I don't think that money necessarily *has* to change hands in crowdsourcing.
My use of these terms: Note that CBPP can itself see money changing hands, e.g. firms paying other firms for software development, so long as the software is contributed to a commons. I would say ultimately that the crucial "difference" between CBPP and crowdsourcing is the question of who owns the resource at the end of the day (think of the difference between Wikipedia and Amazon.com). If the resource is a common resource, then CBPP is a better (i.e., more precise) term. That said, since the resources I'm talking about in my proposal *are* commons-type resources, "crowdsourcing" was for me simply a shorthand for "commons-based peer production". (There are some further subtleties: If we're talking about a "personal" learning environment, e.g. for privacy or other reasons, maybe that isn't useful to think of as a commons-type resource, even if it is formed through engagement with a broader commons.)
P. 4: It would be interesting if you elaborated a bit more as to why it is important to overcome the “learner centric” model so popular these days. Why is it important? I think that readers would appreciate to know the theoretical or other reasons underpinning this argument! I personally failed to connect this statement to the preceding sentence where you talk about the need for a multi-level adaptability.
I'm glad I delayed answering this question until today! This is similar to the difference between
(I only found out about heutagogy after the paragogy paper was already submitted!)
The way I see it now is that paragogy is focused on "context", i.e. on creating a useful context for learning. On the other hand, heutagogy is meant to be a theory of self-directed, self-determined, learning. I don't see heutagogy and paragogy as being in conflict precisely, but that said, a supportive learning context has a lot more to it than just individual learners working in a self-directed fashion. This is similar to McLuhan's "The Medium is the Message" idea, and also similar to the following idea (this is a quote I left out of the paragogy paper because of space constraints): "[T]he traditional Theravada view of the various stages of progression toward eventual enlightenment are broadened to include the society of which the individual is inextricably a part. One cannot pursue one's own enlightenment without pursuing equally that of the village's, and first their mundane suffering of poverty and hardship must be addressed." -- http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-EPT/gbar.htm
Motivation (p. 6). My take on motivation is influenced by activity theory (Engeström). In Engeström’s theory of expansive learning, motives and motivations are not be sought inside individual subjects, but they are in the object to be expanded and changed. The object is both a material entity that makes resistance = contradiction, and the purpose of an activity = solving the contradiction. The object is the true carrier of the motive of the activity. Of course this position is by no means better than the one you have taken, but it helps think of the learner not as an individual but as a part of a system, and see problems not just in the gap between individual intentions and realizations, but in the whole activity system which each learning peer constitutes.
Yeah, I like this view, and it seems consistent with the context-centered focus that paragogy talks about. I'll be curious to see if I/we can further sort out the difference between "object" and "context". (BTW, I have requested the Engeström book you recommended from the library -- someone else has it checked out currently; I hope they return it soon!)
SECI model. I would elaborate a bit more on the reasons for this choice. It is not entirely clear to me what you have gained from using this model. Is it the same SECI developed by Nonaka and Takeuchi, by the way?
So, yes, this is the standard SECI model, though I use slightly different terminology to make things simpler. (Socialization is replaced with "what I do in this context", Externalization is replaced with "What we do in this context", Combination is replaced with "What we do it with in this context", and Internalization is replaced with "What it's all about" -- or even more simply, the shorthand I, We, Its, It -- from Ken Wilber: An Integral Theory of Consciousness, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 4(1), (1997) pp. 71--92.) A typical application for me is to describe a given context in terms of roles, e.g. here's what I had to say about the role of a facilitator at P2PU:
I come up with a course I'd like to facilitate, and then facilitate it
We discuss ideas about how our courses might work and what "facilitation" means (e.g. as opposed to "teaching")
Its discussions on a community mailing list and other settings (including discussions with participants in the course as it runs)
It helps me improve my skills at a course designer and facilitator (and it's fun talking about and practising this stuff!)
(page 18 of the submitted version of the report)
Now as for how exactly this sort of thing is *useful*... #1 I'll definitely look forward to seeing the Engeström critique, #2 I do have another book chapter in progress that will develop my approach further... my very initial grappling with the ideas might be informative, it's in this talk: http://metameso.org/~joe/docs/crowdsourcing-education.pdf
About the use of a survey of the “wished for” topics (p. 18). Isn’t it a bit of rationalistic slant here? I mean it reminds me a bit of a rationalistic approach to computer design as a process of transforming a representation from a requirement through design specifications. I am influenced by Lucy Suchman here, and I think that a list of wished for course topics could be used just as a roadmap and it is probably useful only at this level, but not much for planning the details of actions of the peers. Because, as Suchman would probably argue, the “wished for” topic is going to interact with the unique circumstances in which the course experience is happening. So, it is necessary to account not only for the topics that peers report to be interested in (perhaps even without much awareness of what they really want to learn, as you also say), but also for the circumstances (with respect to what happens in the course and in P2PU, as well as their subjective experiences of problems and opportunities).
I think balance is useful. At the extreme of no prior knowledge about participants (no "organizational memory" primarily because nothing had happened yet), we have something like DIY Math -- survey people's interests on the fly and try to accomodate them. That MIGHT work out if it was combined with some cool ways to support/generate commitment. Otherwise I'm afraid people will just drift away. Then there's something in the middle, like using an informal survey that turns into partial course designs, starting from my report's appendix on Some interests of "DIY Math" participants and turning into the sketches at http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Arided... but these sketches don't say anything about how the courses themselves will run, they're like "skeletons" and even the "bones" can be rearranged. I completely agree with you that the challenge is also to account for circumstances!! Perhaps "wished for" topics could be gleaned from looking at what people say in their learner profiles, where such wishes would be combined with various statements about commitment and so on.