EDTECH at Boise State University

SUMMARY: This page found on the Education 2020 Wiki details Connectivism theory and provides resources that help clarify the unique components of this theory compared to others. I found myself exploring the site more deeply and I appreciated the vast amounts of resources and clarifications available on this wiki. Feel free to get lost in it too!

This is a neat little article on connectivism. The best part is that it has a video contained within it by George Siemens that really helps you understand what this idea is getting at.

Connectivism is learning for the digital age. This article does a great job at explaining the principles of connectivism."Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements - not entirely under the control of the individual."

Although this site is dedicated to knowledge management, this particular page focuses on what Communities of practice are, and it explains what learning is like within communities of practice. The bulleted lists are particularly helpful in summarizing the key concepts of CoPs.

I like this article because it addresses legitimate peripheral learning. The idea that we don't directly instruct new members, but instead allow them to do basic tasks within the community and then learn more important roles through daily observation. This idea and set-up reminds me heavily of an apprenticeship. New Members start at the bottom and learn until they are no longer on the outside but fully included within the community. Nice find with this article!

Great read on how we learn in COPs and the essential parts of COPs.

Not only does this resource provide a solid description of what a PLN is, it also answers the important "why do I need one" question. It was particularly helpful to get an idea of how social media is essential to a strong PLN.

A great article that offers many valid and important reasons that an instructor should join PLNs.

This article supports why we all need to join PLN! Great read!

A lengthy article, but it does a good job of explaining the theories behind PLNs while also providing case studies of how PLNs benefited teachers. It connects PLNs with connectivism as well.

The graphic on this site does a great job of helping my to visualize Communities of Practice and how they function. The graphic shows one CoP session and how the teachers involved work together on so many different areas.

This article looks at the effects of personal learning networks on students. It describes a research study that found PLNs help students to get together to work through information and understand the content on a new level. The study used tools that are mostly free and online such as Google Docs.

This text composed by George Siemens, an entrepreneur of the connectivism learning theory, explores the traditional learning theories of behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism in order to reveal a more modern learning theory that encompasses the digital age. Connectivism, simplified, is the idea that individuals engage in learning processes that hold real world application via various resources and contacts to which valuable information can be extracted to create new learning that builds lasting knowledge applicable to a diverse number of circumstances. In this academic article Siemens explores the basic principles and implications of the connectivism theory and heavily emphasizes that this type of learning doesn't necessarily occur within the human, but can be drawn from different nodes which then connect to build individual understanding.

"The pipe is more important than the content of the pipe." Siemens says that it is more important in a digital world to know how to find the information you need, when you need it, than it is to possess the knowledge itself. And he recognizes that our current educational system needs to change to accommodate new ways of learning and new technology.

This article provides an interesting view of connectivism as an alternative to behaviorism, constructivism, and cognitivism. It argues that in the digital age, these theories don't properly meet the requirements of modern learners. Connectivism corrects these theories faults and looks at learning as a group activity.

A great introduction to connectivism through illustrations. It shows the importance of employing connectivist strategies in the classroom so that students are able to strengthen the learning process.

This article discusses Connectivism and its place as a learning theory. It discusses its principals of how individuals acquire information through reservoirs of information such as learning platforms, social media and online classrooms. Through a series of studies, the author hypothesizes that Connectivism actually has a dual role in education - both a learning theory and an instructional theory.

This article explains connectivism and its benefits to education. It examines three "reservoirs of information" that connect with the principles of connectivism.

Communities of Practice are becoming an important focus in organiation development because of the learning and collaboratiave aspects of CoP. Theory and practice of CoP's are reviewed. The model of situated learning is reflected upon as CoP's are viewed as a process of engagement.

This is an article that dives deeper into the theory and practice of communities of practice. The article hits the main components of domain, community, and practice but dives deeper into the thinking of the researchers Lave and Wenger. I appreciated how the article dives deeper into the process of these communities and how many of us join COPs as periphery learners and then as we gain competence through out interactions with the COP we move to full participation. The cornerstone of the theory being that learning not is solely acquisitional but rather a process of social participation. There are extended quotes from the researchers that provide a deeper context to their theory and more is discussed about the processes of their research.

This article provides a great overview of the writings of Wenger and Lave on communities of practice. Their basic points are that we are all involved in communities of practice and they are valuable tools to become better educators. They also explain how our learning never ends as education continues to change. We constantly need to adapt and change our methods to fit our learners.

This poster presents the important scaffolding of the connectivist theory

My biggest a-ha moment from this article is the importance of seeing connections between fields, ideas, and concepts. Too often we work in silos and don't look around to see what other people are doing, even in our own organizations.

This is a good video showing how setting up a community of practice saves time and resources in a mining company. The highlight for me was that one problem took a company close to a year to solve and they freely shared it with another group so that they wouldn't have to go through the same struggles.

This video goes into why an educator should create a personal learning network. He talks about the responsibility of educators to create opportunities for professional development that their schools do not have time or resources to create for them. My favourite takeaway from this video is not to bother a busy colleague when a quick search can give you the answer.

The focus of this article is on how educators can help learners set up and discover value in communities of practice. Through working with adult educators it showed learners how their previous knowledge and experiences have great value to the community. They were able to discover the value of self-directed learning. Finally they realized the networking potential of COPs.

This article takes us through some of the key components of a community of practice. The importance of clear definitions, meaningful engagement, a helpful identity, lifelong learning, and the desire for success for all are all discussed.

A chapter from Carter and Nugent at VSU which has a nice phrase, "Personal learning networks are based on the premise that learning occurs through interaction with multiple people and in multiple contexts through virtual communities." Somehow I like that. It goes into more detail and explores the, 'abstract concept that is learning.' A big read which take more time to go through but has some effective descriptions. Moves on to CoP as well. A chapter to return to.

The article begins by addressing what a PLN is where a learner joins an informal, web-based communities and they create a network so they can learn whenever, wherever they would like. This article describes a PLN in the context of adult education and the role of the adult educator. The article describes what a PLN looks like. Last, it gives ways to help adults to learn in this type of culture and implications for this. As many articles do, this pushes for a change in education and change their model of teaching to fit this digital age.

Here is a book chapter that details the theoretical implications of using PNL for Self-Directed Learners. This chapter talks about the different ways that learners learn within COP/PLN and how this learning takes place formally, informally and incidentally.

This article outlines PLNs as a tool for teachers to take charge of their professional development. It discusses what a PLN is, how to develop one, and what a teacher can gain from participating in one. The biggest take away from this article for me is to have clearly defined goals prior to joining a PLN.

This article gives an overview of connectivism and how teachers can use it to help their students gain access to more material. It introduces a new concept "cybergogie" where students connect not only to content, theory, and practice but also to technology.

This video is not strictly about connectivism. With that being said the part about connectivism was very informative even though it was rather short. It starts talking about connectivism at about the 4:25 mark.

I agree that this explanation is a good one. It describes it as Digital Age Learning and a creative process. The teachers are then responsible to nurture the connections that the students are making but still letting the students drive the process. Thanks for sharing!

Here is a very complex study. Fortunately, the highlights tell us some important findings. This study went with the understanding that teachers have organically formed professional learning networks using the Internet, and report that they like them. This study focused on putting some data behind that, which it has provided. As a teacher, I found this quote very refreshing, about a researcher that "argued that top-down teacher PD in schools often aligns with hierarchical structures that de-skill teachers from their intellectual work by treating them as passive recipients of mandates. Even the term "professional development" conveys that teachers are "deficient and in need of developing and directing." In my own PLN, I have learned much more about teaching and learning from an 8th grade math teacher than I have in any of my administration-mandated social studies PD sessions.

I'll be honest, I did not read the entire study, but the highlights from this article and the abstract once again confirmed what I'm starting to realize. We are teaching in a way that is behind the times when it comes to the current ways students learn naturally. We are fighting their expectations trying to bottle them into the box that is traditional education.