Networked and Global Learning

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.

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 problem with focusing on the role of the teacher, from my perspective, is that it misses the point.

We continue to expect educators to play an active role in learning, but it has become more difficult to characterize exactly what that role may be.

students need prototypes on which to model their own work

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

iterative analysis, design, development, and implementation,

contextually-sensitive design principles and

current real-world problems

One recurring strategy to invalidate a technology critic’s observations is to frame an issue in terms of overly simplistic comparisons. Then, all you need to do is allege the critic is blind to obvious advantages and makes a mountain out of a molehill by dramatizing small problems.

If you’re not taking deep pause to consider what’s lost if drones create material conditions that lead to moral hazards, whether sufficient oversight will ensure robotic cars can make appropriate moral decisions, and if banging the security drum too loudly unfairly stacks the deck against privacy, then you’re looking past significant issues.

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