Group items tagged

How three theories have shaped distance learning over the years. Connectivist theory shows how learning is about forming connections with others through human and digital interaction. Developed in the digital age and assumes access to social networking technologies.

This is a March 2011 journal article that highlights the shifts in technology and theory for distance learning. First, there was the cognitive-behaviorist with it's focus on read, watch, and recall. As the web developed, we saw constructivism shift the teachers duties from content creator to a guide through the content as students synthesized. Connectivism promotes the teacher as a "co-traveler" helping students to explore, connect, and create.

The author, a Department of Media Technology research professor at Uppsala University, Sweden, forms an initial theory suggesting online participation equates with online learning. Reasoning is linked from constructivist theories from the 1990s to social constructivist research focusing on participation as a condition for learning, similar to connectivist theory. The author concludes from a survey of studies that online learning participation is a complex process requiring meaningful engagement with others. His theory of online learning as online participation opens the door for dialogue and critique to further explore and extend the theory.

SUMMARY: This page found on the Education 2020 Wiki details Connectivism theory and provides resources that help clarify the unique components of this theory compared to others. I found myself exploring the site more deeply and I appreciated the vast amounts of resources and clarifications available on this wiki. Feel free to get lost in it too!

This is a neat little article on connectivism. The best part is that it has a video contained within it by George Siemens that really helps you understand what this idea is getting at.

Connectivism is learning for the digital age. This article does a great job at explaining the principles of connectivism."Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements - not entirely under the control of the individual."

Here, Ravenscroft conducts a theoretical look at connectivism. He asks what the role of networked technolgies is in the digital age and suggests that tool selection, desired dialogue, and genre should all be considerations for networked learning. He says that "embracing connectivism means that we need to consider new design metaphors for future learning that place the person, their social behaviour, and their community at the centre of the design process and the resulting network technologies" (155).

I found this to be a particularly interesting article. The authors propose the development of a new theoretical model that integrates the foundations of social constructivist thinking, with an emphasis on dialogue, with the connectivist approach to networking. This combination in turn is meant to illicit, support, and increase in collaborative inquiry. The dialogue game provides the students just enough structure necessary to facilitate a organic discussion and critical inquiry.

This article explores three different types of learning theories as applied to distance education or learning, a non-traiditonal means of learning where students are not physically present in the classroom for instruction. While the paper discusses the cognitive-behaviourist and social constructivist theories in this learning model, it also highlights the connectivism approach. It is made known in the text that the connectivism theory caters to the constant evolvement of the act of learning as it functions on the premise of building understanding by making meaningful connections between networks of information. It is to be appreciated that this text points out the strengths and weaknesses of the theory. When applied, this theory can be a struggle for students as the theory is extremely individualized and relies on the student to act as the "central connector" in their own learning, often leaving students weary from the energy exerted and sometimes confused by a lack of structured guidance and the responsibility to take control of their own learning.

This article highlighted the different roles in constructivist theory and also helped me to really understand the role that knowledge takes in constructivist theory. It is described as a combination of ever changing experiences and information that provide a foundation for new experiences and knowledge. It also introduces PLNs as an open space that allows for intercepting and spreading competencies and skills by publishing, combining and correlating resources.

The authors examine how professional learning programs can benefit from including communities of practice. When approached from a connectivist perspective, teachers can create their own networks of practice that challenge more traditional methods of professional development offerings at universities and school districts. The theory of communities of practice learning demonstrates the changing participant's role, as each person becomes an active contributor using his/her own teaching practice in context within socially networked modalities. The changing role of the student creates a new way of approaching professional learning. Challenges include constraints of using online courses that have a definite beginning and end to the interactions. The authors point out that a key to redesigning online courses is to encourage participants to develop their own networks of practice that extend beyond the confines of the course structure and timeline.

This article examines a study done in New Zealand on 15 teachers online professional learning as part of a graduate ICT program. It attempts to draw connections between their PLN's and two learning theories. The two learning theories examined are Social Constructivist theory and the Communities of Practice Social Theory. The article describes how teachers create learning networks through their online and offline interactions with peers. The article is scholarly in nature and focuses very much on the research.

This article explores Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) as a way to introduce both formal and informal learning within higher education. Specifically, research shows how using a variety of social media tools to customize a PLE can foster learner-controlled instruction. To achieve the learning experience they desire, though, students must possess the skills needed to engage in a self-regulated learning system with the help of both an instructor and peers.

This article really demonstrates the role of the teacher in modeling and encouraging effective use of social media. In my opinion, the framework created by the author would work best under a constructivist learning environment since so much of the class would be taken up by teaching how to use technology. That said, once students were proficient, they could explore class subject-related information online.

Christopher Hoadley defines communities of practice, explains underlying theories of CoPs, compares CoPs to other types of learning communities, and discusses the use of technology in the support and development of CoPs.

This chapter dives deep into communities of practice. It begins with an overview of the history of CoPs and discusses theoretical underpinnings the concept is based on. The author explores CoPs in relation to other types of learning and related technology.

In this resource, Christopher Hoadley helps to define community of practice with two approaches. The first approach to the definition is what he calls the "feature-based definition" and the other approach is the "process-based" definition. He attributes these definitions based on Lave and Wenger's book on situated learning. This resource provides a good starting point to understanding what CoP is and the theoretical approach it involves.

Suggests that understanding how members of a learning community converse is an important component of understanding connectivism. The tone of the interactions in a forum rely on the design and management of the space. Furthermore, learning depends on sharing in conversations and interactions which themselves can be meaningful activities. During communication among learners, there is a balance of what is good for each individual and the ability to move towards a common purpose.

In this article, Andrew Ravenscroft explores a "dialogue rich view of connectivism" and how we can develop learners that can "think, reason and analyse." He takes inspiration from social constructivist theory to focus on dialogue as a vehicle for learning. Ravenscroft begins by detailing Siemens 8 principles of connectivism. He then asks 3 questions: how can we understand the dialogue processes of a networked world, what dialogue features make for quality connections and how do we design to promote quality connections. He starts to explore the questions with Socrates and the Socratic method. This method has applications for 21st century learning. He reviews Hegel's dialectic as well. Ravenscroft maps these positions to connectivism because dialectic helps refine knowledge from a diversity of opinions, supports the capacity to know more, consideration of alternative viewpoints, fosters a constant evolution of knowledge, and promotes critical and collaborative dialogue. Then he discusses dialogic processes and how they map to connectivism. Dialectic and dialogic can work, not in opposition, but together in different aspects. Dialectic focuses on the epistemic and cognitive dimensions of learning, while dialogic focuses more on emotional and interpersonal aspects. The author then details dialogue game interactions and how they can foster learning. To be successful they need to balance orchestration and openness. This article proposes that language and dialogue remain a "most powerful semiotic system."

What a fascinating article. Ravenscroft's discussion of a scaffolded system to build a learner's dialogic skills reminds me of research I did for my EdTech504 class on self-regulated learning. Roger Azevedo is developing and experimenting with a similar game, MetaTutor, which scaffolds student learning as well. I think self-regulation is complex and difficult to teach in the classroom, and am amazed that researchers are creating software to build self-efficacy!

In this article, Ravenscroft adds to the conversation surrounding connectivism by focusing on dialogue. Ravesncroft argues that connectivism can benefit from social constructivist perspectives.

In this article Mark McBride, a librarian at Buffalo State College, discusses the recent changes that he made to his information literacy course. He talks about how he incorporated constructivist principles and problem-based learning activities into his course structure. In the process of making these changes, however, he discovered that he is really incorporating connectivism into his classroom. He makes the case that librarians should begin to adopt connectivist principles when teaching information literacy concepts. Additionally, he acknowledges that if librarians are going to move in the direction of the connectivist theory, the Association of College and Research Libraries must take a look at its information literacy standards and update them to acknowledge the ways in which learners can share and create information through the use of social media.