Group items tagged

This article from Sh!ft Learning explains the differences between Personal Learning Networks, PLCs, CoPs, and PLEs. Anyone unfamiliar to the terms/acronyms would find this article useful in discerning the differences. The article also gives several reasons for why PLNs are needed, and ways they can help educators grows personally and professionally.

Gutierrez defines what a PLN is, what does a PLN do, and what a PLN is not. Lastly, Gutierrez explains why building a PLN is increasingly important. A PLN is where educators can gather, collaborate, communicate, and share information anywhere or anytime. PLNs are formed through social media and across the world. They serve three purposes including connection building, connection maintenance, and connection activation. A PLN is not a CoP or PLE. A Community of Practice is with people that have the same profession, vs PLN connections are more informal. A Personal Learning Environment is much broader than a PLN. A PLN is within the PLE. PLNs help professional development, expanding your thinking, find answers and advice quickly, and stay up to date.

The business blog post defines and contrasts PLNs, CoPs, and PLEs. It discusses the importance of building a PLN. The post points out that connections in a PLN are intentional with the purpose of learning from the other person rather than just meeting by chance. Several good references are provided. Included is a nice illustration showing the relationships between PLNs and PLEs and Personal Web Tools.

Stephen Downes, in Learning Networks in Practice, details a concise history of personal learning environments, including communities of practice. He also ties this evolution in thought and practice to Web 2.0. He emphasizes creation, not consumption, as well as context, not class. Learning becomes more informal and multi-disciplinary. Downes acknowledges that the "theory" of PLEs can't specify an organization that will facilitate learning better than any other organization. Instead, he presents 4 parts of a 'semantic principle'. These parts will support personal learning environments and, in his opinion, will be more effective for learning: diversity, autonomy, connectedness and openness.

Beth Transue, a librarian at Messiah College, begins this article with the suggestion that librarian educators reflect the tenets of the connectivist learning theory when designing their information literacy instruction. Transue mentions how the adoption of this theory in the development of library instruction can happen very easily as many of the connectivist principles are already evident in the steps of the research process. Transue spends the majority of the rest of the article talking about how the connectivist theory is connected to the model of the networked student proposed by W. Drexler in 2010. According to Drexler, a student uses information from four different domains: information management, contacts, synchronous communication, and RSS. The information management domain essentially covers the traditional library resources. The contact domain covers those who should be part of the student's personal learning network such as teachers, librarians, and classmates. The synchronous communication domain covers platforms like Twitter and the RSS domain covers blogs, wikis, and other social networks. The author spends the next couple of pages offering very specific directions for librarians to address individual domains in their information literacy instruction. Transue concludes the article by talking about what an information literacy session rooted in the connectivist theory might look like.

Hi Kelly, Interesting article. In one of the videos I found, the connection between research and connectivism was highlighted. I had not thought about that before, but it makes sense! And I've always enjoyed research, so good to know I've already been practicing connectivism on some level.

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!

This article supports the argument that connectivism, which is often used as a guiding pedagogy for MOOCs, does not meet the criteria of a true learning theory. As such, connectivism should be abandoned as a pedagogical tool for Web 2.0 environments and replaced with a valid learning theory, specifically the Vygotskian cultural psychology. MOOC future pedagogy would, thus, consist of two initial principles: 1) the visualization of objects and 2) sustained dialogue and joint activity.

Hi Jennifer, I came across a similar article as well. What I do like about the idea of connectivism is that we are trying to reimagine learning processes and education and trying to make sense of it within the digital world. But it will be interesting to watch how this debate progresses over the next few years.

The Half an Hour blog is a blog site by Stephen Downes where he explores various topics in education. His take and theories on education and learning can be somewhat complex, but he does a great job of breaking them down in to smaller chunks for the reader. This is true in his post on connectivism and learning theory, where he explains how connections are formed in a network.

The author of this blogspot begins by defining exactly what is meant by a 'learning theory'. They then go on to discuss what learning is and how connectivism relates to learning. The learning theory of connectivism goes beyond simply looking up facts on Google. Learners are now connected (through nodes) and learning is not linear, but instead, "the ongoing development of a richer and richer neural tapestry." This article is an interesting look at learning theory and connectivism.

This blog deals with the shift in classrooms from memorizing to using resources. It discusses what connectivism is and how learning is formed through it. It also shows how it is different from other learning theories,

This article gives an overview of what Connectivism is and how learning happens in the digital age. Siemans describes the basic principles of how learning is a network of information sources referred to as "nodes." It doesn't describe how learning occurs within but how learners connect with the networked world of people and information.

Connectivist theorists argue that the way in which individuals acquire knowledge has changed. Academic institutions (which have historically been considered as the place in which individuals acquire knowledge and information) are being supported and/or replaced by groups of people within a learning network. The process of learning involves the creation of knowledge through these personalized networks and identifying the relationships between one's own knowledge and the knowledge of others within a network. These connections can occur in a variety of ways and with a variety of learners.

This article helped me to understand how to apply connectivism in the classroom. It also pointed out misconceptions that educators have about using social networking in the classroom.

Written by Kegan Remington, an Instructional Designer, the article discusses what connectivism is and how it can be applied in the classroom. He lays out the four simple ways of introducing connectivism in the classroom.