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This is a podcast of a lecture that George Siemens gave at the Ann Ferren conference. He talks about connectivism, learner self-organization in online courses and social networks he has been involved with as well as his efforts to connect open free personal learning networks of our social lives with a more rigorous university setting.

This article is written on the challenges people face by using the connectivist learning theory. It states that it will work for some students, but like all theories, not all students will benefit with this theory. Knowing your students and being flexible is key in having a successful class.

This case study examines which factors play into a successful MOOC (Massive Open Online Course). Some of these factors include peer interaction, professor engagement, and accessible course resources. The researchers concluded that these factors are as important in MOOCs as they are in traditional classroom settings. The article implies that classes based on the philosophy of connectivism are effective, but a number of factors must be taken into account when planning instruction.

It is difficult to maintain continuous student engagement in a traditional class setting. It is doubly so when the setting is online. This study researched what characteristics promote student engagement in online classes. Course takers identified 5 characteristics of MOOCs that encouraged their continued participation in the course. For the most part, courses that focus on problems and clear solutions, contain high levels of peer interaction and teacher participation, and include many active learning activities with accompanying course resources are well-liked by MOOC participants. The authors are certainly right to suggest that future research examine courses that are not as highly participatory as the MOOCs that are focused on in this study. I wondered as I read the article if the same level of engagement can be seen in other courses.

As this study emphasized, online courses have a unique challenge when compared to traditional brick-and-mortar courses because learners are physically separated from an instructor by a computer screen. Instructors do not just have to overcome motivation barriers, but also administrative obstacles. The article's "Table 2: Summary of Strategies Used" presented some well-designed methods to increase instructor accessibility---from the "Code Clinic" to weekly live interactive discussions.

Great resource for national and state-by-state data on K-12 online learning. I subscribe to their blog as well.

This article examines arguments made for and against online learning and what is best for creating engaging and rigorous elearning environments. It argues the need for both asynchronous and synchronous opportunities to promote optimal communication and collaboration.

This is the blog of Ray Schroeder, Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois. Dr. Schroeder offers no commentary on the blog, instead he uses it to curate articles, news and research pertinent to online learning. I subscribe to this site through RSS readers on my laptop, iPad and phone.

Research primarily focused on exploring how online learners aggregate, relate, create, and share information. Noting that connections are made with people and/or resources. And that putting learners in charge of directing their own experience is dependent on confidence and competence with the tools at hand. When comfortable navigating the terrain of the internet, there is intrinsic motivation that results from steering your own learning.

This article reports a study of a community of practice that was focused on...developing communities of practice! Excellent exploration of the factors that influenced participation levels in this CoP, including: emotion, technology, and connectivity. The authors conclude that online learning communities succeed on the basis of the level of investment of the members.

This article reports a study of a community of practice that was focused on...developing communities of practice! Excellent exploration of the factors that influenced participation levels in this CoP, including: emotion, technology, and connectivity. The authors conclude that online learning communities succeed on the basis of the level of investment of the members.

In January 2010, the Department offered a program of free, online conferences to support teacher professional learning. The program of web conferences covered the domains of Literacy, Maths, Science and ICT

The author discusses the paradigm shift of collaborative learning networks from school organized meeting to less formal communities of practices gathering through social media networks. Additionally, he discusses the need to remain connected for the benefit of the students.

This is an interesting article about how teachers used to work with one another such as going to conferences and having meeting with others in their field. Then it moves on to how they can get the same information from there PLN. This is a way to save time and money for a school district since it is all done virtual. But it also talks about how since we as teacher learned in a time without PLN we are more likely to shy away from them.

This article delivered clear and concise benefits of PLN's. These benefits included customized learning, improved online collaboration and lack of geographic barriers.

This journal article dives into the three biggest reservoirs of information based on the principles of connectivism: social networks, online classrooms, and virtual reality learning platforms. The author identifies some of these specific resources and addresses how they relate to connectivism.

I like this article. I like that the author breaks down the reservoirs of information in a graphic. I also like that the author talks about different social media that aren't as common or well-known. The examples of uses of podcasts, virtual learning and mobile devices are interesting in that I never considered using Nintendo DS in that manner.

Good research article detailing the use of social media in graduate level learning.

The SMILE acronym stands for Social Media in Learning and Education. I really like that the project was designed as a learning laboratory that looked at 6 communities of practice. They included: Social Media - What is it, Social media- school policies, Social media- PD, Social media, internet safety and responsible use and Social media- challenges to adoption.

Thought piece by Dr. Lisa Dawley published in 2009 in On The Horizon. This publication dealt with social learning in the virtual world Second Life but can be applied on other online learning communities. What is especially useful is the social network knowledge construction matrix that cover five degrees of involvement in the learning community. These levels are identifying the network, lurking, contributing, creating and leading.

This website talked about 5 key resources needed for educators to being and grow their own personal PLNs. http://ning.com offers podcast downloads, discussion forums, videos, relevant blogs, videos and more resources. Powerful Learning Practice is a professional development opportunity that teacher can attend. It offers hands-on applications and the know-how to build and use technology within the classroom. Webinars are conferences people can attend online to join discussions and offer insight to like educators. EdChat is something we can join now on twitter using the hashtag #EdChat every Tuesday. Game based-learning tutorials and talk can be found on http://edweb.net where mentors and people who've successful implemented these practices in their classrooms can offer advice and help.

Those are 5 really good resources. Thanks for sharing.

Don't let the academic sound of the title push you away from reading this article. The author, Bopelo Boitshwarelo, presents arguments: "This paper set out to propose a research framework that will aid in advancing the research agenda of connectivism, particularly developmental work. " It is very dense with lots of synthesis of research that has been done on Activity Theory, Connectivism, and Communities of Practice from 2000 - 2011, when it was published. If you need to do a content-based paper on activity theory, connectivism, or communities of practice, this has several references listed at the end that will help you find original sources of ideas.

Thanks Melissa, this is helpful. No doubt that many of us are going to benefit from this type of research in our own academic pursuits. As you said, this study is fairly dense. But I also found that it breaks things down in nice chunks. I liked the explanation that a learning community is "a group of people learning together through continuous dialogue."

The author, Bopelo Boitshwarelo, from University of Botswana, points out the interconnections of online communities of practice, design-based research, and activity theory. The author proposes designed-based research as a framework to advance connectivism. I found the first half of this article particularly helpful with definitions and key points synthesized from pioneers in the field of connectivism. Central ideas encompass the importance of learners connecting in a CoP both as providers and gleaners of information. Learning networks or communities of practice are complex and dynamic in nature, providing challenges to researchers and studying their effectiveness. The article provides food for thought about the complexities of the interconnections of these theories and the development of frameworks to monitor and assess learning success when putting them into practice.

While this article is targeted to librarians, the concepts are relevant to all educators, as well as to students. Author Nicole Cooke argues that in developing Personal Learning Networks and/or participating in communities of practice, librarians can engage in continued and essential learning beyond the terminal degree.

The authors argue that there is no difference between theories of teaching and theories of learning (rendering the debate over whether connectivism is one or the other irrelevant). The elaborate on the ideas that instructors in connectivism are participants in a class learning along with the students, rather than being the sources of knowledge, and that one important role of instructors may be to defend the connections of the past so that they will be carried forward. I found this to be one of the most illuminating articles on connectivism that I've read thus far.