Authors discuss connectivism as a framework for how students learn. They note that learning is making connections within a personal learning network and knowledge is recognition of these connections. They also note that knowledge is stored outside of the learner. They discuss connectivism and its origins as well as the role of connectivism in the work of librarians. They discuss how connectivism informs pedagogical practices in the library and defines the library as a node within student PLNs.

Authors present evidence that social media facilitate the development of personal learning environments (PLEs) in higher education. The community is the curriculum, not the vessel. Learners are in charge of self-regulating their experiences because PLEs put the responsibility to organize information on the learners. Authors present a framework for use of social media to support self-regulation in PLEs in higher education.

Authors discuss advantages of personal learning environments in facilitating collaboration and fostering learner control. PLEs are facilitated by technology, networking, and self-regulation by learners. Open network learning environments from instructors allow PLEs to form. Focus of PLE is not information consumption, but information creation and participation. Authors relate PLE and ONLE to the theory of connectivism and discuss various applications and limitations.

David Warlick discusses the advantages and uses of new social media technologies as key components of growing PLNs. He focuses on synchronous, semi-synchronous, and asynchronous platforms. Asynchronous platforms allow us to domesticate the information landscape as opposed to hunting and gathering pieces of information. "Learners become amplifiers as they engage in reflective and knowledge building activities, connect and reconnect what they learn, add value to existing knowledge and ideas, and then re-issue them back into the network to be captured by others through their PLN."

Authors present communities of practice (CoP) as groups with a common desire for change, as providing opportunities for collaboration and reflection, and as catalysts for development of societal products and tools. They note that CoP transcend traditional barriers/demographics and reach groups formed by individual selection. CoP, while also focused on collaboration and dialogue as well as the development desired outcomes, are more open to sharing with the broader community than other collaborative models. Discussion of use of CoP in context of early childhood intervention.

Social media environments change rapidly, presenting challenges to researchers and academics. "Social media practices" refer to those persistent characteristics of social media which can be used to define new theories explaining learning in such environments. Authors present some specific persistent characteristics of social media (or social media practices) and discuss various factors related to persistent data.

Authors discuss the random, fluid, and brief nature of most social media interactions, noting that these give little opportunity for meaning construction but facilitate information gathering and individual sense-making. The restrictive nature of social media interactions presents opportunities to find new means of utilizing the technology in learning. Circulating knowledge does not generate meaning, but collaboration does, especially on tight time scales. The authors further present and discuss the term, generative learning communities, which appear to be similar to communities of practice.

Presents communities of practice as knowledge management mechanisms, especially in geographically distributed situations. Mostly focused on application in business strategy.

Penelope Eckert discusses the value of a community of practice in linguistic studies, giving a definition for a community of practice and distinguishing it from a more conventional linguistic construct: speech communities. Communities of practice link broad social patterns with concrete, observable behavior in individuals. They emphasize individual experience over demographic generalities. They address dynamic, fringe effects within a community. They build on social constructivism as groups of people engage in active sense-making.

George Siemens presents fundamental tenets of the theory of connectivism in context of and as a substitute or followup to behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism. He discusses the principles of the theory as well as the implications of the theory and why it is superior in a digital age of abundant information sharing.

This is a website that I have been working on throughout the summer. When I started in July, the content was severely outdated (up to three years out of date) and few people in our council were actually visiting the site. Along with this ever ongoing process of maintaining content, there will be more changes coming to the CSS and the appearance of the site in the future. The principal webmaster, who still manages the domain for us, set it up using Joomla. I had never used this platform previously, so there has been a learning curve associated with the process of updating this site. I posted this URL because I visit the site daily, not necessarily because it will be of much value to my classmates.