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I have always been a firm believer that there is a balance in all things. Quality teaching practices remain the same today as they have always been. However, we have to adapt pedagogy to encompass all of the necessary skills to be successful in a global community. Although connectivism is built on a foundation of multiple epistemological philosophies, it is essential that educators focus on technology and networking in their classroom.

This was a very good article. It was interesting that considering when it was written how things are very similar when it comes to "Connectivism". It states how it is the process of becoming connected. Thank you!

The article touches on the friction that is likely to result between older learners who have grown up without technology for learning (except maybe an overhead projector or TV) and the younger learners who have embraced technology. The connectivist model has not taken hold because staff and institutions are not fully aware of the possibilities.

The main idea of this article is to explain how and why he and George Seimens offer MOOCs to the world. Downes believes that all learning is about connections made among the learners, just we are the neurological connections that our brains make every second. He does not believe knowledge is acquired or transmitted, but rather experienced. One of his most telling statements is his belief that the process of taking the course is more important than what people may happen to learn from it--which is at the heart of what he believes connectivism is.

I was very excited to find this article! In it, Stephen Downes, Canadian Education Technology Research Specialist, describes his and George Siemens,' Associate Director, Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute, free course, 'Connectivism and Connective Knowledge' -- or CCK11. It is a twelve week course of readings and online seminars, where learners are invited to read selected materials and study the content with a connectivist's approach. Downes says, "What is important about a connectivist course, after all, is not the course content. Oh, sure, there is some content -- you can't have a conversation without it -- but the content isn't the important thing. It serves merely as a catalyst, a mechanism for getting our projects, discussions and interactions off the ground. It may be useful to some people, but it isn't the end product, and goodness knows we don't want people memorizing it." I want to register for the next one!

This is a blog post from Steven Downes about the courses on connectivism he offered with George Siemens. It offers a good argument for taking the connectivist approach to learning and explains what connectivism is. It offers an explanation for connectivist teaching and learning falling into the 4 major activities of aggregation, remixing, repurposing, and feeding forward. He stresses that connectivism is a pedagogy based on the realization that knowledge is not something you can solidify into a single perfect product to pass along because different people/communities will always interpret/learn from it differently.

George Siemens and Stephen Downes provide online courses call 'Connectivism and Connective Knowledge' to over 2,000 educators on the philosophy of teaching and learning they instill in their learners. http://cck11.mooc.ca is a twelve week course that is free for those who register. They disclose attributes to connectivist teaching and learning. Aggregation provides a starting point. Remixing draws connections to others. Repurposing is practicing the concepts learned, not just repeating them with route memorization techniques. Feeding forward consists of sharing with others and being able to collaborate on others' projects to use them as your own.

What I find really cool about this is that the content of the course is not what is important, but rather the fact that they are connecting and networking. The networking is more powerful than the content is what seems to be the focus.

I found this quote interesting, "So what a connectivist course becomes is a community of educators attempting to learn how it is that they learn, with the objective of allowing them to be able to help other people learn." I like that there is no distinction between the "teacher" and the "student". Instead, everyone is seen as both learner and educator. However, I have some concerns about how this works with middle school or high school students. Are they mature enough to really take on that role and stay on task? How do you ensure the respect and authority in the class when you are putting yourself on nearly an equal foot with the students? Kids are so used to a traditional direct instruction class they they often get confused or rebel against anything different.

This is one of the resources listed in the video I posted earlier. It is an introduction to the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge course. It explains how the core aspects of connectivism are built into the course and gives a description of each aspect.

This article introduces the term connectivism as a "network-based pedagogy" Through the article the author makes references to a course that he will be providing. Overall though there is some really good information about connectivism from both the teacher and learner perspectives.

Along with George Siemens, Stephen Downs is one of the intellectual leaders of connectivism, which he describes in this article. One of the things I really like about this article is the fact that it is written for a wide audience via an outlet like The Huffington Post, rather than an exclusively academic audience.

I enjoyed this article because it identified 4 connectivist "activities." They are aggregation, remixing, repurposing, and feeding forward. It explains these concepts clearly while also giving a succinct overview of connectivism, and their relationship to connectivism.

This article provided me with a clearer understanding of the Connectivist approach and the four activities that surround it--aggregation, remixing, re-purposing, and feeding forward. It was interesting to read under the Aggregation portion that Siemens and Downes have to tell participants to pick and choose what they read for the course. We are still very pre-conditioned to want to read and study everything that is handed to us and regurgitate it back. There is something about Connectivism that bothers me. It seems a little "loosey goosey" at times. I like the idea of people being able to gather and share ideas and make meaning from them, but I wonder if one can become a true expert in something by just solely using this approach.

I enjoyed reviewing this blog post. I agree that we need to think about learning differently and be sure to embrace the potential of connect learning through professional and personal learning networks. I had a hard time with the author's claim of the shift away from internalized learning. From my take on the blog post, the view was internal learning is no longer as valid as learning distributed outside the learner. I find this a bit excessive. If we don't internalize information and make it meaningful to ourselves, how can we share anything of importance?

I think that this is a great discussion point of the ability to find the material is supplanting the actual knowledge. I feel that this important because with web tools and having all the information available at the click or push of a button it is important to focus learning in a manner that will show that having knowledge is still important.

I have taught high school for 15 years, and my role as a teacher has certainly evolved from expert to facilitator when it comes to a majority of my lesson plans. This is a good resource that demonstrates this concept. The administrators at my high school are asking all teachers to adopt the workshop model (which is the way I teach anyway), and I think this resource supports that philosophy because it is based in connectivism.

This is a resource on communities of practice and their positive impact on organizational development and group work. It highlights the work of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger. It breaks down the 3 elements that differentiate a community of practice from other groups/communities and how knowledge is generated in a community. Situated learning is the model of learning that is explained as taking place in these communities of practice.

This article gives a short history of Communities of Practice and goes on to explain what they are. It is easy to read and understand as It explains what CoP are and what they are not.

Detailed article that describes the communities of practice philosophy that Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger developed the in the late 80's that proposes learning comes from the social interactions in our daily lives. The article further explains how the interactions with various groups causes the learning, whether it is as a core member or a bystander.

I really liked this article because as an educator it spoke to what I believe in. Learning does not only take place in the educational setting of a school, but it also takes place outside of that environment. Learning is social, it's physical, it's interactive, it's communicating. There are so many different ways to learn and therefore people never stop learning. It states that communities of practice are all around us and most of the time we are involved in many of those groups at the same time.

Lave and Wenger discuss communities of practice covering many topics such as the characteristics and the relationships. EDTECH543 Communities of Practice

This article discusses Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, who proposed that "learning involved a process of engagement in a 'community of practice'." They discuss the idea of learning as being a social experience rather than an individual one, and that people are typically involved in a number of communities of practice. The characteristics of communities of practice are described, as well as situated learning.

This article clearly articulates what communities of practice are, examples of each (which I find the most interesting as it makes a very clear connection to what we know), and three main components. The three distinguishable ideas show how communities of practice are different than random groups. I like their ideas of these groups occurring over time around things thst matter to people. #EDTECH543

This source discusses communities of practice and how they can be either formal or informal. Members of a community of practice are in an organized group centered around a shared idea. Communities of practice allow connectivity because learners make connections with each other as resources to acquire knowledge when needed.

I learned about different definitions or explanations of communities of practice and how the learning happens by means of communities of practice is connected to situated learning. I also learned about different characteristics of communities of practice and how these characteristics are interconnected. I learned in detail about how the concept of communities of practice is aligned with the concept of situated learning. I enjoyed reading the examples and learning how communities of practices change over time.

In CoPs, connections are being made. Everyone is working together to get everything that they need. I think that the main focus of this descibres the aspects of collaboration and why it is so important with CoPs. CoPs is related to situated learning and that is something new that I learned.

"Communities of practice are formed by people who engage in a process of collective learning" A COP is joining in mutual activities.

3 crucial elements that make a COP: Domain, Community, and Practice. A domain is a common interest among members. A community means that members engage in activities and discussions and share information to help one another. Members practice by sharing tools and resources.is something that individuals do.

Excellent article that explains the characteristics of CoPs and how CoPs can be used in many aspects of life (both personally and professionally). This is the first article I have found that references "situational learning" as part of CoPs. The idea that learning is a social process and that we learn more from collaboration than we do independently seems to support the use and development of CoPs. Lave and Wegner illustrate that theory in the article by using examples from real-life situations.

This article really talks about the details of CoPs without going into the how-tos that many others do. I appreciate how foundational it starts- even pointing out that learning was initially thought of as an individual activity and how that has evolved. Situated learning is discussed as it is beneficial for learners to not just learn by hearing or doing, but by learning to talk about what they are doing.

Ariana, I loved how this article provided such great information and details.I also appreciate knowing the background of where foundations start. Thanks for the share!

This article gives a very detailed explanation of communities of practice. The author traces the term to its origins to Lave and Wenger. Definitions of the characteristics of communities of practice are defined. Both Lave and Wenger claim that learning requires communities of practice which create authenticity beyond models to be applied to real situations

Article does a great job of explaining where connectivism came from and how it will continue to advance forward just as society if doing currently. We will continue to learn and mold our understandings based off of the connections we are making through a collaborative network.

This article provides a balanced view of the arguments concerning the role of connectivism in the field of education. The authors have done a nice job of differentiating the types of theories and their roles in practice. Perhaps the strongest features of the entire article is the discussion on connectivism as it applies to the use of technology. I appreciated their description of the theory as a connecting piece between some of the more established learning theories and the new technological landscape that characterizes our learning environment. Excellent article - thanks for sharing!

This article by Duke, Harper and Johnston is a detailed analysis of connectivism as a learning theory. Not only is technology discussed as how it's applied to this theory, but there is also discussion of learning theories and instructional theories in general. It is also a valuable read because it explains how this theory can or should not be applied to all students or content.

This source gives a good description as connectivity and connectivity as a learning theory, and it also discusses the argument that connectivity is not a learning theory. It ends by talking about connectivity and its integration with technology and online learning.

This article from Kaplan University explains the importance of connectivism in a digital age. They reference George Siemens and Stephen Downes and their research behind connectivism as a learning theory. They examine connectivism as a learning theory, and explain how the learner is at the center and designs their own path, essentially making their own learning.

This article discusses Connectivism and the debate over whether it should be considered as a learning or instructional theory or as a pedagogical view. The role of Connectivism in the use of technology in education is also discussed.

I really liked this article mainly because they clearly explained the difference between learning theories vs. instructional theories. I think that was useful in their conclusion that connectivism really is more of a tool to be used in the learning process rather than a complete learning theory.

This article discusses the validity of Connectivism as a learning theory. It gives the very straight-forward definition as "social learning that is networked." The discussion of the importance of the Connectivism theory in today's ever increasing technical classroom is quite engaging. It has also forced educators to look at what is being done in digital education and rethink, debate, and philosophize over how each part fits.

In this article, Duke, Harper, and Johnston discuss whether connectivism is a learning theory or an instructional theory. They begin by discussing the differences between learning theories and instructional theories. A learning theory should explain how learning occurs, while an instructional theory should explain how best to achieve the learning goals. The authors summarize connectivism as "social learning that is networked" (2013, p. 6). What a person knows is not as important as the connections the person makes that will allow further know,edge and growth. Everyone feeds into the systems of knowledge and receives greater knowledge as a result. This knowledge can be held by people, societies, or machines. Basically, everyone learns through personal learning networks. These learning networks allow people to learn through collaboration rather than by having to experience everything for themselves. Being able to tap into a large amount of knowledge allows people to understand patterns they might now otherwise see. While there are several arguments against connectivism as a learning theory, the authors argue that connectivism can be useful as an "instructional guide or theory" (2013, p. 9) to develop behaviorism, cognitivism, or constructivism for "application to a globalized and networked world." The authors conclude that connectivism is useful in the learning process or curriculum planning, but that it is not a "standalone learning theory" (2013, p. 10).

This talks about how connectivism takes elements from behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. It discusses connectivism as a learning theory and how the use of technology ties into it.

This article puts a focus on the debate if connectivism is "a learning theory or instructional theory or merely a pedagogical view." Instructional theory has major elements that are discussed in this article and connectivism is analyzed to see if it in fact, is a learning theory. The author recognizes that the debate will last a long time but the fact that connectivism is valuable in the educational setting will prevail. Technology is a major factor of its success. This article convinced me of the importance of allowing my students more access to technology for educational success.

The author of this article defines learning theories vs instructional theories, connectivism, connectivism as a learning theory, and connectivism and the use of technology. Connectivism was created as a learning theory for the digital age. Siemens and Downes came up with this theory because social learning can happen through networks. In today's world technology and advancements are changing rapidly, which in turn is providing new information quickly. Educators have had to embrace this new option of networks for knowledge use in the classroom. Connectivism can be used as a tool in the learning process for instruction or curriculum.

We are at a crucial point in history. By being educators, we must constantly be discussing and managing our definition of an educator's job. We must constantly be working through our philosophy base as new tools and ideas come to life.

This paper outlines connectivism and analyzes whether it should be considered a learning theory, instructional theory, or pedagogical view. I found this article interesting as it has a good discussion the differences between learning theories and instructional theories. The paper is critical of Connectivism as a learning theory, which I think is important as you consider how to use its principles in the classroom.

This article discusses a theory developed for the digital age by Siemens and Downes called connectivism. The theory has issued a debate over whether it is a learning theory, instructional theory, or a pedagogical view. In this article, the authors discuss learning in the digital age and how the theory of connectivism fits within the world today. There is a focus on connectivism being social learning that is networked.

This article discusses whether Connectivism is a learning theory or an instructional theory or a pedagogical view. A learning theory is not whether something is true or not but if it is useful for explaining behavior. An instructional theory must list procedures to enable learning by focusing on the overall structure of the learning material and how to achieve the most successful learning experience. Connectivism is social learning that is networked. It could be a learning theory as it states how a student learns through a network. Connectivism can be categorized as a tool to be used in the learning process and not a standalone learning theory.