The imagery created by the use of the terms 'node' and 'connection' is very helpful in this article. As I was reading, I instantly thought of my PLE image of a honeycomb. As I continued reading, however, when Siemens talks about how sometime nodes weaken or become irrelevant, I thought about a switchboard of lights. Thanks for sharing, Catherine!

This article provides insight into personal learning environments by answering seven basic questions about them. A scenario in which an avid car enthusiast uses a PLE to help him gather knowledge to restore a car provides a helpful image as an introduction. Additionally, an overview of PLEs is provided, along with some examples of institutions that encourage their use and how they are used. Web 2.0 allowed the evolution of the PLE into a digital world. One drawback mentioned by the article is that students who have never practiced metacognition in their own learning practices are said to have difficulty at times with the format of PLEs.

Communities of practice are used across a variety of groups of people. According to Etienne Wenger, there are three characteristics that constitute a community of practice: domain, community, and practice. Communities of practice exist on small local scales, to worldwide networks. This allows people to share and obtain knowledge about common practices with others who are actively engaged in the same domain.

This article provides a general overview of the theory of connectivism. It cites the work of George Siemens in describing the three components of connectivism: chaos theory, importance of networks, and the interplay of complexity and self-organization. As with other resources, there is criticism of the ability of connectivism to stand alone as a learning theory. However, a useful resource provided by this article is a table that compares the differences of behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, and connectivism.

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.

***You will likely have to sign in to the Albertson's Library to access this article! This article provides examples of how Karl Fisch uses his own personal learning network. He references electronic sources, books, and face-to-face interactions that all represent critical parts of his PLN.

The primary focus of this article is on the way blogs, wikis, and RSS can be used to create personal learning networks and communities of practice in the field of public affairs education. There are useful definitions of both PLNs and CoPs and an overview of how connectivism is contributing to collaboration within the classroom environment.

This article states the importance of connectivism in the facilitation of self-directed and self-regulated components of education. Details of a study on introducing learners to this type of learning report the necessity of student support and scaffolding when planning to implement self-directed learning into a course.

In this article, Guldberg and Mackness focus on issues that both encourage and impede an individual's ability to participate in communities of practice. These issues were addressed based on their participation in a workshop focusing on understanding communities of practice. From this, they were able to identify five areas: emotion, technology, connectivity, understanding norms, and learning tensions that contributed to each participant's active or passive engagement in the workshop's community of practice.

Exploration of the connectivist theory in relation to library media is the topic of this article. It expresses the idea that connectivism is defined by one's abilities to recognize connections, patterns, and similarities between concepts to construct learning. Dunaway argues that changes in technology, learning, and literacy make it necessary to apply connectivist ideas to library practices.

This article focuses on creating a link between the wide variety of social networking tools available and the principles of connectivism. Pettenati and Cigognini go so far as to define connectivism as "...social networking applied to learning and knowledge". To support this idea, the authors explore the role of the learner at present, how e-learning, personal learning environments, and Web 2.0 have emerged, and the stages of a connectivist learning experience. The article concludes with the sharing of a scenario in which all of the previously described stages are evident.

This is one of my favorite websites to discover and explore new tech tools. There are a number of Web 2.0 tools, apps, game websites, etc. that are useful to teachers at any level. Many of the resources shared on the 3 Tech Ninjas site have been put into regular use in my classroom!