Connectivism Mindmap

My personal network has changed the way I learn. It puts more information at my fingertips at any time. I can easily contact someone in the network and ask questions or request more information. With some of the individuals in my network our main form of communication is digital. The element of time is nonexistent, when the information is needed it is easy to locate the answer, I am not required to wait until the library opens.

The tools that best facilitate learning for me are electronic libraries and the Internet. Google Scholar makes it possible to access scholarly articles without an affiliation with an educational institution library. Siemens (2004) discusses the significance of informal learning and that it is a large portion of our learning. As I have questions about a myriad of topics I can find answers with well worded searches.

I watch my 11 year old son when he is interested in a new topic; he uses a variety of resources to learn. He starts with the Internet (I hear a lot of Mom, how do you spell?) from there he is interested in seeing his topic face-to-face. That may mean a trip to the museum, a park, the woods, the local car garage, the location is determined by the subject. He is incorporating both technology and nontechnology sources to encompass his topic. When I compare what he does with the resources I had available at that age – encyclopedia or if lucky a print book on the topic in the library. What I could learn about something was very limited. His learning borders are essentially limitless.

When I learn new knowledge I use a variety of sources; print and digital books, Internet, other people, to name a few. Really the way I learn about something new is determined by what the topic is. For example, learning about a new plant will involve an Internet search, a talk with the person at the nursery, purchasing the plant, planting it and observing its growth. While technology is a great tool to use to supplement learning actually “getting your hands dirty” is as valid (for some students even more so).

Siemens, G. (2004, December, 12). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. Retrieved from: http://elearningspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm.

Collaboration and Constructivism

As a student in high school I remember sitting in the back of the classroom, especially math, and not interacting with anyone. I could do the work (sort of) without listening to the lecture and my reading book was by far more interesting than my math teacher’s lecture about quadratic equations. As a senior, going into my last semester, when I dropped PreCalc, my teacher, who was also the town mayor, said if you would just pay attention you would easily pass this class. Oops! I guess he saw me reading my book. As I think back about those experiences I can’t help but think about how constructivism and collaboration could have affected my learning. Would it have been possible for me to sit isolated in the classroom and read my book, if other people were expecting me to do something? I don’t think so. For the most part humans tend to cluster together. When clustered together they need to figure out ways to live and work together – collaboration.

If my teacher would have used collaboration in my high school math class it would have been very different than collaboration is today. Then we would have still been an isolated island in the building; today students are using technology to reach outside their classroom and outside their building to find out what others are saying. Howard Rheingold talks about the new power of collaboration. Before technology people would have to be physically together to collaborate easily, now with the technologies that exist on the Internet we can collaborate anytime, anywhere. Allsop (2011) found that students working collaboratively online, who were physically in the same room, worked collaboratively both online and face-to-face. This type of working together on a wiki allows the students to see what others are doing and to work together to build their collective knowledge.

Constructivism is about students being actively involved in their learning and using their experiences to build new knowledge. Students using technology to work collaboratively, being actively involved in their education and building on experiences are students learning regardless of the tag attached to it.

Allsop, Y. (2011). Does collaboration occur when children are learning with the support of a wiki? The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 10(4), 130-137.