IBM® Pass It Along is a peer-to-peer knowledge exchange network whose basic premise is that everyone has expertise to share. Anyone can package his expertise into bite-sized nuggets of knowledge called topics, which can be "passed on" to others. Over time, an informal community of contributors, experts, and learners develops around these nuggets of knowledge.
This is an excellent example of using Web 2.0 for PBL. This school's various groups are all contributing to intracampus website using open source tools and Web 2.0.
Connectivism also addresses the challenges that many corporations face
in knowledge management activities. Knowledge that resides in a database
needs to be connected with the right people in the right context in order
to be classified as learning.
This is so true in corporate and I would imagine in schools as well. We create "learning portals" for some of our departments at work. These are an excellent resource but only if the learners use them. We also have an issue with tracking their use. If the students register and take a class through our LMS, we can track their completion of the course. We have no way of doing this on the portal.
Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn
and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of
a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong
tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the
decision.
This is the challenge we face each day as we try to sort through our new web 2.0 tools. Which blogs do we read today? Which postings do I have time to read in Diigo? How does the post I read yesterday on this topic differ from the post I read today on the same topic? I agree that we learn through making these decisions.
This article introduces the relatively new learning theory of Connectivism. It attempts to explain a new theory of learning in this digital age of Web 2.0.