Group items tagged

The research found that autonomy, diversity, openness and connectedness/interactivity are indeed characteristics of a MOOC, but that they present paradoxes which are difficult to resolve in an online course. The more autonomous, diverse and open the course, and the more connected the learners, the more the potential for their learning to be limited by the lack of structure, support and moderation normally associated with an online course, and the more they seek to engage in traditional groups as opposed to an open network

he research suggests that the question of whether a large open online network can be fused with a course has yet to be resolved

This paper raises questions on levels of learner autonomy, presence, and critical literacies required in active connectivist learning.

In e-learning, two major traditions have been prevalent: one where connections are made with people and the other where they are made with resources (Weller, 2007)

since the emergence and proliferation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and their increasing encroachment on everyday life, boundaries between settings in which people learn and in which they use technology for other activities have blurred, and perspectives such as connectivism have emerged

The researchers suggest that "the haptic and tactile feedback of a Kindle does not provide the same support for mental reconstruction of a story as a print pocket book does".

She and her fellow researchers found that "students who read texts in print scored significantly better on the reading comprehension test than students who read the texts digitally".

a new European research network doing empirical research on the effects of digitisation on text reading. The network says that "research shows that the amount of time spent reading long-form texts is in decline, and due to digitisation, reading is becoming more intermittent and fragmented", with "empirical evidence indicat[ing] that affordances of screen devices might negatively impact cognitive and emotional aspects of reading". They hope their work will improve scientific understanding of the implications of digitisation, thus helping to cope with its impact.

That is, I want to talk about ed-tech as a “personal endeavor,” one that enables student agency, and not simply an “institutional endeavor,” one that sees students as the object of education

Educators Need to be 21st Century Learners Too…

I was just reviewing GG’s Blog and came across a post where GG posted a  personal teaching philosophy mind map. The philosophy matched very closely with my approach to teaching and also my aims through this course. One aspect of GGs philosophy which I had not really considered in my own context however, was the idea of Life Long learning.

Edit: 17 August – Oops, I just revised my first ‘As teacher’ post and realised I did in fact allude to life long learning as one of my teaching objectives here, although I did not consider the idea in depth at all. I am surprised that this was part of my thinking in week one and that I had forgotten this 2 weeks later. As a student of NGL, this has shown me what an excellent idea blogging is for tracking my learning, and also how valuable it is to be able to reflect and edit/build on previous posts. It has also demonstrated to me what a ‘messy’ pathway my learning follows – a concept which has been identified by Bigum and Rowan (2013) “Learning new material, developing new skills or making new discoveries can be complicated, lengthy