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First, I am struck that this 7 year old video is still current in light of all that changes with knowledge. Second, Siemens explains Network, Node and their importance to Connectivism. He also addresses this need for us to remain current. He mentions that more important and quicker means of staying current is through our Networks. He further mentions the point that if we don't keep up with what is going on in education we become obsolete. Lastly, he mentioned dropping links that direct you away from your knowledge quest.

I liked his comment about staying current in our own education, learning and teachings. Being connected to the internet/network helps us be current, up to date and we are able to do that because we can connect to the network 24/7.

I have noticed a few YouTube links, which concerns me a bit that I never thought of looking there myself. Clearly I need to extend my "web," as it could lead me to resources such as this. It was refreshing to hear the information presented rather than comb through a long article. Sticking point for me was referencing the need to stay current. I am hoping that this course, as well as others in this program, will significantly help with that.

This is a very interesting read for everyone affected by the immediate and retroactive changes to AECT. All students must now align their MET portfolio to the new standards! This examines whether the college catalog and language therein constitute a legally binding contract between college and student. Categorizes catalog litigation by cases involving dismissal, granting of degrees, tuition, admission, and course offerings. The courts appear to agree that the student-college relationship is contractual in nature and that the relevant contractual terms are set forth in the catalogs. (202 references) (MLH)

Networking in easy terms!

The Pennsylvania Department of Education was awarded a Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant. This Grant allowed several Intermediate Units to offer an Integrating Technology into Core Curriculum Skills course to teachers. Excellent video examples in a variety of subject.

This textbook provides a solid foundation on integrating technology into the classroom. It provides, research-based methods, case studies, and additional resources (websites & tools) to guide educators.

This is the textbook for the course EdTech541. The goal of this textbook is to describe how to integrate technology to it's fullest advantage using learning theory, tested teaching practices, matched learning and teaching needs, old and new strategies, and a combination of technology, pedagogy and content knowledge.

This article provides a glimpse at one instructor's methods of integrating technology into social studies classrooms through modeling and includes student responses to these methods.

This site contains detailed, step by step tutorials for many pieces of instructional software and a lot more.

A journal article from 2010 that discusses a variety of online tools for information literacy, such as embedding resources into course management software and specific academic organizations' web sites and using podcasts, screencasts, blogs, Web-based board games, and virtual three-dimensional environments. This article also explores the influence these methods have on information literacy skills of undergraduate students.

This long-term project has students creating a blog that serves as their reading response journal for the year. For this assignment, students created a blog to replace their hardcopy notebooks. As students read various things in their English class, they use this one place to do all reading activities. Once they have finished posting, they then receive time to go and comment on other people's posts. This gives students a place to practice their writing skills with an authentic audience. As the year goes on and students get more comfortable with commenting, students could end up having rich conversations based on each other's writing. I like this because it is easy to set up and use for the course of the year. This can be applied to almost any subject area. Even a math teacher could use something like this for students to summarize their learning and bounce ideas off of their peers. The functionality and utility of this project make it a must-have for educators of all subject areas.

This project involves students using Twitter to address a calculus level problem. In this project, students are asked to define what a limit is in calculus. These are very complex ideas that can be explained in many different ways. Students need to have a solid foundation with these concepts because the rest of the course builds on them. As students were researching their definitions, they tweeted questions live using the class hashtag. This allowed the teacher and other students to answer questions that were raised. Once students had their explanation they had to tweet it out to the whole class. Doing this in 140 characters or less can be very difficult. Once students all had a definition posted, they were able to go in and comment and retweet definition posed by their peers. I like this because it can be applied to many different situations. Students can be asked to define a topic or articulate their understanding of a concept in a clear and concise way. It also allows students to see their peers thinking and expand their own. This has numerous applications for students at numerous levels. I could see myself doing something like this when wrapping up a unit to check for understanding.

Canvas is a cloud-based learning management system (LMS) by Instructure. Canvas is a modern, easy-to-use, reliable and adaptable LMS that supports current and evolving teaching and learning needs. You can use Canvas to: organize your course using an integrated calendaring and syllabus system, content modules, and communication stream.

1. Keep it Simple PowerPoint uses slides with a horizontal or "Landscape" orientation. The software was designed as a convenient way to display graphical information that would support the speaker and supplement the presentation. The slides themselves were never meant to be the "star of the show" (the star, of course, is your audience).

This website contains great advice on how to prepare for, design, and then deliver a professional and effective presentation. Gary Reynolds wrote the best selling book about how to use presentation software called Presentation Zen.

This resource gives a list of 10 tips for better and more effective presentations. It is easy to get carried away when making a presentation. Referencing these tips will help educators and students keep their slides clear concise, and to the point.

This article explores the classroom as a community of practice and examines the role classroom activities have in students' collaborative learning. The study uses a graduate-level public administration course as the case.

This article discusses the use of a university classroom as a community of practice. The survey showed how leadership played an important role in increasing collaboration among the students. Learning took place during engaging and reflecting class activities. Classroom activities that were designed for social interaction promoted learning. Collaboration occurred through a diverse set of ideas leading to a common goal. Students stated that including activities that encourage students to learn from their peers by connec classroom knowledge with real-world examples creating a community of practice.

This website contains a vast library of educational videos that are designed to teach students about various topics in the world of math, science and computers. The videos are accompanied with practice problems for learners to go through after each video to assess their learning.

This article is written on the challenges people face by using the connectivist learning theory. It states that it will work for some students, but like all theories, not all students will benefit with this theory. Knowing your students and being flexible is key in having a successful class.

Participate Learning's OCLP gives you options to find and participate in Twitter chats more easily, find and curate educational resources, or take an online course. New and experiences Twitter users will love the ease with which one can follow their favorite chats with the chats feature, which also allows users to save resources shared within the chats into an educational resource collection for easy access later. Schedules for Twitter chats are posted, so one can find a chat conveniently.

This article explains how Online Multiplayer Games are the new model for communities of practice and how we as teachers should incorporate technology into our classrooms to utilize this networking capability.

MMOGs are a very interesting phenomenon to me. I took Dr. Haskell's GameBased learning course last semester. What a great way to engage students within COP and PLN.

This is a video discussion as part of a online course on connectivism.  Taken by itself, it is a little obscure, but taken in the context of EDTECH543 and in an attempt to understand connectivism, it was immensely helpful to me.  The video centers around the nine dots puzzle and the how the solution to it is a perfect example of connectivism.

Thanks for sharing this video. It made me understand that even if we think that at the beginning we are not going to need to get connected to a certain "point", you never know if in the future you are going to need information/knowledge from that source.

I really like this 'outside the lines' way of looking at connectivism. There is so much information out there that we really might not need at a certain point in time but it is still there and can be accessed. It's interesting to think that we might be that point for others, we are still there but they don't need what we have right now.

This site has a short but valuable video giving a good explanation of a PLN. It also has a short description of why they are important below the video if you scroll down.