P/S my apologies for the late post.

For learning to occur there has to be a question to think about and content to interact with, and by content I mean credible online sources with which one can reference one’s thoughts or argument to build upon or challenge.

In Web 1.0, content created became very accessible. Then came Web 2.0 technology which allows for people to interact with contents shared; Brown and Adler described it as “a new kind of participatory medium that is ideal for supporting multiple modes of learning.” The affordances of Web 2.0 has made a great impact on social learning, which Brown and Adler described as “understanding of content [that] is socially constructed through conversations about that content and through grounded interactions, especially with others, around problems or actions.”

Prior to Web 2.0 there were some social learning in / outside traditional classrooms but with Web 2.0 more people can now interact in or contribute to a conversation.  Web 2.0 has made possible for the community of learners to have access to more ideas and learning from peers whom you don’t normally hang on with. For example, in a online course I took in Fa’12 where three generations of pedagogy was discussed, I could not understand what connectivism is even after reading the article. For one thing I have never heard of it like I have the social-behavorial and socio-cognitive approach. The instructor gave his take on it but the concept/pracitce was still unclear to me until one student described and explained his reading and understanding of connectivism from another book. That was when I first felt the power of sharing in social learning. This affected me as an instructional designer as I embark on a project to develop an open course in iTunes U. I would push for an open platform to allow the community of learners to discuss and share their thoughts in the learning journey.

Rachel

What constitutes learning for me is meaningful/purposeful use of knowledge acquired. Learning facts and or concepts without meaningful application will be forgotten quickly, after the exams. When projects are included as part of the formative and summative assessment, it allows the students to process information more deeply and in a context that is meaningful to them.

I think learning should take place in a collaborative environment (face-to-face or online) whereby more ideas/thoughts can be generated/shared through discussion on a topic prescribed by the instructor. There should be required readings before the discussion/class so that students would have some information to process during class with peers and instructor. For on-campus courses, this approach would be called a flipped-classroom when content is read outside class and discussions during class can go deeper. As students share their thoughts on the given topic, they are participating in the learning process. In physical classrooms, seats should be arranged to facilitate small group discussions so that every student have a chance to participate (an example of a collaborative classroom design)

We can know that learning has occurred when students are able to describe the concepts and explain their understanding for application. Some visible signs of learning are: high student motivation and the questions they ask about the topics given. Sir Ken Robinson made this statement that “curiosity is the engine to achievement” -when students are curious about a topic or subject, they are more likely to learn.

I appreciate what Douglas Thomas shared about giving students “opportunities for exploration, play, and following one’s passions.”  When I took the course Introduction to Distance Education, I was allowed to write about learning objects for my final paper. At that time in my previous job, I needed to learn more about LOs, so researching articles on that topic was meaningful for me.

My philosophy on learning is that it should be engaging (interesting and meaningful), in manageable chunks (from simple to complex), involves group discussions, include assessments for learning (formative) and assessments in learning (summative), and should not be hindered by use of technologies that are unfamiliar.

P/S what is the url for Wordle? I still cannot figure how to use it since 3 months ago and how do we create a blog category for week 3

http://worditout.com/word-cloud/212548

Thanks, Rachel

Greetings from Asia

I am an Instructional Designer at the National Institute of Education, Singapore, where all student teachers are trained. At the Centre for e-Learning (CeL) we provide consultation services for faculty members on instructional strategies and use of Blackboard and Web 2.0 tools. There are three IDs at CeL and my focus is on strategies for Blackboard LMS.

Our mission is to support, initiate, and sustain e-learning on campus. The team of IDs, ETs, Multimedia & Video Content Developers, and Programers at CeL are on rotation to post every week   the emerging technologies and open tools, platform, etc.

These are the social media platforms we use to connect with NIE staff, students, and educators

http://bit.ly/celgoogle (created last month by our Multimedia Team)

http://facebook.com/centreforelearning (created last year)

http://twitter.com/cel_nie

http://youtube.com/celnie

I am looking forward to learning more from this class as my ID experience is limited (career switch).

P/S Phil, I appreciate your feedback and have forwarded the compliment to our MD cc Head CeL