After feasting on the riches from PLENK 2010 for a whole year, I’m looking forward to the upcoming Change MOOC.

This spring my College made official the tongue-in-cheek “Computer Geek” award they gave me a year earlier. This one, titled “Innovation and College Improvement Award” is a classy-looking plaque in walnut and brushed aluminum. I got it mainly for doing stuff I learned in PLENK.  I’ve been amazed at how positively colleagues and administrators have responded to my pushing the boundaries of what’s been tried in the north.

I owe a huge acknowledgement of indebtedness, not only to Stephen Downes, George Siemens, and Dave Cormier, but to all the people with whom I’ve networked as a result of PLENK, especially Glen Gatin, Tony Radcliffe, Susan Grigor, Carol Yeager, Susan O’Grady, and, in spite of my short-lived participation in ds106, Jim Groom, Cogdog, Noise Professor to name a few. (In ds106 I learned to make animated GIFs, obtained my own domain, installed WordPress with plugins, discovered The DailyShoot, and got on ds106 Radio, all in just one month.)

Then there’s Nellie Deutsch and the participants in Moodle 4 Teachers , including Mal who promises to interact with my students this winter. I also sampled Mobi MOOC, but without cellular service in our area, chose to drop out – still, I learned what QR codes are and how to generate them – there’ll be one on my next set of business cards.

None of this would likely have happened without PLENK.  Now I’m looking forward to a new round of connecting and learning with #change11. This time I’m inviting some of my colleagues to join me in the adventure. I’m hoping my previous experience will enable me to guide them through some of the more frustrating aspects of a new learning paradigm.