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The PenPal News project was able to engage students and relate it to their own lives. Incorporating technology to change old school pen pals helps students connect from different states.

Using Edmodo, students discuss with other global classrooms about various aspects of their lives. Teachers will guide chat topics, and students seek to understand and appreciate the opinions and cultures of others.

In this article, Duke, Harper, and Johnston extend the explanation of connectivism penned by George Siemens and Stephen Downes. Their argument states that connectivism, even though it is a critical tool that should be used in the learning process in order to bridge the gap that exists between behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism in the 21st century, it is not a learning theory that can stand on its own.

The section, "Why Connectivism is a new learning theory for a digital age," provided a great explanation of how learning has changed in the last several years, and therefor education as well. The explanation that, "concepts can be viewed much like a mind map... rather than as a linear progression of ideas" really stuck out to me. I tend to be a linear thinker and my school struggles with very traditional knowledge dissemination. Thinking about concepts in this way is giving me a better idea of Connectivism.

PenPalNews allows people to create an anonymous pen pal relationship in order to obtain feedback from someone or just to chat. Students can get feedback on opinions or can complete research from other areas of the world.