Group items tagged

Student news diets are increasingly digital, social and mobile. In 2007, for example, only 8 percent of students surveyed reported consuming news and information daily through mobile devices. This time around, 62 percent do – an all-time high.

Groups require coordination. They require a leadership or a leader which is why we get all of this stuff on leadership.

Networks, by contrast, require autonomy. That is to say each individual in a network operates independently.

I’m not a Constructivist, Behaviourist, Cognitivist, or Connectivist. This is not a call for a return to an older theory. I’m a pragmatist, like many educators. I flirt outrageously with every theory that will have me. I’m ideologically promiscuous.

A recent study suggests that our modern lifestyles are making us “less intelligent” than our ancestors, at least at a genetic level.

When it takes a mere few seconds to find information about almost any topic, the value of knowledge and expertise is being devalued as information becomes cheaper and more accessible.

Our relationship with and understanding of knowledge and expertise has struggled to keep pace with the rapid democratisation of information.

networks

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

teachers who are more inclined and better prepared for what are known as student-oriented teaching practices, such as group work, individualized learning, and project work, are more likely to use digital resources. But in many cases, teachers were not adequately prepared to use the kind of teaching methods that make the most of technology

Overall, the most successful plans were incremental and built on lessons learned from previous plans.

There is increasing recognition of the important role of teachers in education. But we need to go beyond the idea that teaching is an art that requires exceptional talent. There are exceptional teachers, but we need to support the professional development of all teachers, and we can do so if we invest in the scientific base of the teaching profession and empower those very exceptional teachers to become leaders who inspire other teachers.Technology offers great tools in this respect. I'm thinking of platforms for collaboration in knowledge creation, where teachers can share and enrich teaching materials; of the amount of data that can be collected to measure students' learning; or of the increasing use of blended learning models in teachers' training, in which online lectures are combined with individualized expert support and feedback from peers. Because they enable feedback loops between theory and everyday classroom practice and are supported by a network of like-minded peers, these models have been found to be much more effective than the traditional model of courses, workshops, conferences and seminars

Nick initiated this experiment to convince others at his school that students need space to drive their own learning as part of their education

"By explaining something to a peer, synthesizing and concretizing vague concepts, it strengthens my confidence in the mastery of a topic."

We can go much farther, and get there far more efficiently, with self-paced study.... We can often reach more ambitious goals if we are given the latitude to set those goals for ourselves.

The "Hole in the Wall" project demonstrates that, even in the absence of any direct input from a teacher, an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge.