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George Siemens discusses connectivism and the importance that it will play in the future of education. He says that connections are more important than networks. He calls for a restructuring of the education system away from organized courses into open courses where learners explore and adapt connections to suit their own purposes.

I've seen this video previously and thought that Siemens has a great way of articulating what he's thinking and explaining connectivism. He has also done a Ted Talk that is engaging as well.

Upon doing my research for CoP I stumbled across this site that stresses the right way to effectively use technology for online communities of practice. It emphasizes that many CoP's can lose their purpose by metamorphosing into something entirely different than what was originally intended.

In this video, the audience sees first-hand a CoP in action. What seems small, a group of principals across 27 schools are working to meet, collaborate and share. Emphasis is placed on the idea of sharing because that is how individuals and schools will grow. Sharing practice and knowledge plays the most critical part in a CoP.

This article includes valuable information about the theory of connectivism and well as an introduction to PLNs. It discusses the need to externalize learning to make sense of it. The author goes on to explain how social media can help accomplish this. In addition, it gives the background of PLNs and explains how it gives teachers the opportunity to impact multiple communities

I saw a reference to MOOCs when I was researching so I wanted to dive deeper into MOOCs (massive open online courses). This article serves as a report card discussing the successes and needed improvements for MOOCs. MOOCs biggest successes seem to be the huge reach they have with their online presence. Millions of people enroll in the courses and top universities, such as Harvard and MIT, have MOOCs. However, some pitfalls are that less than 10% of people who enroll in MOOCs actually finish. The article gives ideas for improving MOOCs mostly based off the belief that online courses can be isolating and more collaboration with actual humans, via chats and videos, need to be included in MOOCs. I found this read interesting because the MOOCs are founded with the connectivism theory in mind, however many of this components that drive connectivsm and communities of practice are lacking.

Jake, I found a resource on MOOCs as well and while it was a positive presentation of them, it also noted some of the pitfalls. The fact that they draw mostly highly educated students, makes me wonder how accessible they are for all people. However, I know they are new and evolving, so it will be interesting to follow their development.

This article was extremely interesting! I was surprised to see the the high percentage of people who sign up for MOOCs and don't finish. I also strongly agree with the comment in the article, "people need people." Thanks for sharing!

I love this website! I was originally hired as a cataloger and now I do reference and instruction. I spend 90% of my day teaching and I have never been taught how to teach. We didn't have classes on how to do library instruction in my library science program. What I usually do is come up with some ideas of what I want to do and then I search the freely available resources on CORA to see if anyone has perfected what I am thinking of doing in the classroom. It's a great resource for those who are starting out in the reference and instruction arena!