Unfortunately, my learning philosophy 1.0 from the beginning of this course doesn’t exist, because I mistakenly wrote a teaching philosophy.  It’s a bit sad, because it would have been interesting to see how my thoughts have changed.  If I could go back in time, I think I probably would have focused on how knowledge is constructed in the mind (more theoretical).  After spending the past 12 weeks in much discussion about informal and connected learning, my learning philosophy will focus more on motivation and how the learner interacts with resources/information.

The short version of my learning philosophy is:

Effective learning happens when the learner is motivated and passionate, able to access and filter the right resources, and is able to recall and apply the information at the right time.  In today’s connected world, learning is ongoing and occurs across contexts.

Motivated

To expand on this, I believe that the most effective learning happens when the learner is motivated.  This doesn’t have to mean that the learner loves the subject at hand.  Someone shopping for a car doesn’t have to love cars.  He or she just has to be motivated to find a good deal, find the right features needed/wanted, etc.

Access and filter

There is a cognitive surplus for everyone who chooses to be connected in todays’ society.  If you don’t want information, you have to be very active to shut it out.  For example, it’s almost impossible to to avoid any spoilers from the latest episode of your favorite show or the score to that sports event you recorded and haven’t watched yet.  When it comes to learning, it’s a blessing and curse.  There is so much information out there – it truly is like drinking from a fire hydrant.  Unfortunately, that fire hydrant isn’t just spewing out clean water.  Along with the unprecedented access to information, there’s also a large amount of inaccurate, bad, or simply outdated information.

A successful learner now needs to learn how to learn, and a big part of this is learning how to filter that information.  An additional challenge is to continue to grow a learning network that can facilitate this process – colleagues, affiliations, twitter follows, blogs, etc.

Not just knowledge

Finally, as we explored connected learning, there is a clear distinction that learning is different than simply collecting knowledge.  With knowledge and expertise being distributed – even in non-human repositories, it’s important to note that knowledge becomes learning in the hands of the right person who needs it.  Knowledge becomes learning in the right context.

This post is in response to some intriguing thoughts found on chapters 1-3 of “The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age”  by Cathy N. Davidson and David Theo Goldberg.

Due to my personal experience working at a university and being a graduate student, some of the sections that stuck out the most were around collaboration and authorship.

Collaboration is a skill

Collaboration isn’t just an add-on to projects anymore.  The authors argue that it is an important skill in a digital/participatory learning culture.  Teachers should “[find] ways that individual learners with individual skills and interests can share with others who possess different skill levels and interests” (p. 25).  Even though the world has changed significantly – especially through the advent and adoption of the internet, formal educational institutions have not changed.  This might explain why students can be so disengaged when they are faced with lectures with little interaction.  The authors state that there is a “mismatch between the excitement generated by informal learning and the routinization of learning common to many of our institutions of formal education” (p. 49).

Trapped by standardized testing

How can we integrate collaboration and informal learning into the classroom?  There are numerous obstacles that are not easy to solve.  First of all, the current norm incorporates much standardized testing – much of this is influenced by the No Child Left Behind act.  The teaching is usually influenced by the assessments – and if the assessments are mandated and standard, it indirectly forces standard, cookie-cutter teaching as well.  Many youth are already used to customized and multidisciplinary learning, but this is “diametrically opposed to No Child Left Behind (p. 21); how can assessments be changed to better suit collaboration and informal learning?  (I have no idea…)

The greater good

How do we change the culture to value collaboration?  “The power of 10 working interactively will almost invariably outstrip the power of one looking to beat out the other nine” (p. 62).  How do we reward and value the greater good?  In contexts like academia, achievement and progress is oftentimes measured by publications and inventions.  With collaborative output, it is sometimes unclear on who gets credit.  In particular, this can be even more complicated when collaboration is done through the web and contributions can even be anonymous.

Being digital and digitally together

I think there are more questions than answers when it comes to how formal educational institutions can move towards participatory learning.  At least part of the answer will naturally come with time as every learns “how to be digital together and digitally together” (page 69) – not just learners, but educators as well.

This week’s blog post will some thoughts in reaction to the summary of new skills on page 4 of the “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century” paper by the MacArthur Foundation.  It also includes peripheral comments from the video: Scratch, and the article Making projects, making friends (Brennan et al.).

The paper lists eleven new media skills: play, performance, simulation, appropriation, multitasking, distributed cognition, collective intelligence, judgment, transmedia navigation, networking, and negotiation.  In the following section (“The Needed Skills in the New Media Culture”), incredible success stories are listed – such as the founding of the web browser Firefox.

The idea that “[a]lll young people should have opportunities to be creators of interactive media” (Brennan et al.) is very bold.  I understand that the authors are talking about opportunity – not forcing people to create, but giving them the tools to do so if they choose.  However, some of the skills needed to provide these opportunities are, in my experience, skills that take much time and experience to acquire and refine.  I actually found the list to be quite a comprehensive list of qualities I would look for in a prospective employee.

We read about some examples of youths using Scratch successfully applying these skills – such as negotiation, judgment, collective intelligence, etc.  How can we combine these new literacies within formal education?  I think encouraging participation and play in some of these learning environments/communities would help, but this would require a tremendous amount of scaffolding.  Carving out the time required for this type of exploration would be quite a challenge, and would require rethinking how class and homework time can and should be used.  Brennan et al. mentioned that there is a spectrum (in Scratch users) ranging from socializers and creators.  If we can encourage learners to move towards the middle, they will grow in creativity and collaboration.  Although outside of the required reading for the week, the Jenkins paper provides some examples of “What Might Be Done” later in pages 22 and on (I did not read them in detail, so I won’t comment on them here).

In my specific context – where I provide IT support for building energy research in a consortium of many different partners, collective intelligence is one of the most important literacies needed.  The nature of our consortium is bringing different groups in different contexts to come up with integrated solutions.  Many experts are not used to working on systemic issues together in an integrated fashion.  Collaboration with people in different geographic locations and contexts truly requires transmedia navigation as we share information in different media, networking, negotiation, and more.

There are whispers that the current model of education is antiquated and that college degrees are increasingly meaningless.  If our education system produced citizens with these eleven “new skills,” I think that the workforce of the future would be much better equipped to not only navigate the new media landscape, but also contribute with creativity and collaboration.  As I’ve already mentioned, I think these new media literacies would be invaluable skills for employees in any field.  Last week, we’ve already been discussing learning in and out of the classrooms; similarly, all these skills can span in and out of the workplace, to enable well rounded, participatory citizens.

Context – the following is a summary of one portion of the discussion around the following readings:

1. Read Theory of knowledge, social media and connected learning… (Rheingold)
2. Read Online social networks and learning (Greenhow) – Published in “On the Horizon” Vol 19 No 1 (2011)

In particular, the discussion happened on a private voicethread discussion within the course (EDTEC 467, FA 2015).  The following it’s a summary for slides 3, 5, and 6, which cover topics around connected learning and learning across settings.

Slide 3

How to integrate learning across different contexts with learning in school?

Themes:

• There is a cognitive surplus in today’s world – the world is getting smaller.  People are more connected than ever, especially through social media.  We don’t have to seek out news, it comes to us.  (Rebecca, Melinda, Kathryn)
• Schools are not simply training the 20th century worker, but also training digital citizens who are engaged in various parts of society, government, etc.  (Kathryn, Jerry, Brian)
• Educators need to equip these digital citizens to learn (not just give them knowledge).  (Emily, Kathryn, Brian)
• Learning should be integrated across content areas and contexts even within school – it’s not just about inside/outside the classroom.  (Melinda, Jerry)

Interesting ideas:

• Learning across more contexts makes knowledge more meaningful and makes the learner more flexible on how to use that knowledge. (Deanna)

Slide 5 

Connectivism

Themes:

• We need to encourage learners to make connections outside of comfort zone/bubble. (Jamie, Jerry)

Slide 6 

Learning in communities: Example of Clarissa in connected learning (week 6). Writing in an online community. Interest based, non-formal space. Viewed differently than school.

Themes:

• Informal learning communities (such as Clarissa’s) are different than traditional school settings, where the teacher is usually the only audience.  When peers and, potentially, the entire internet is the audience, learners put more effort into their assignments – trying to put their best foot forward.  (almost everyone mentioned something similar to this)
• Even in this class (EDTEC 467), many of us put extra effort into the blog posts/podcasts, because the teacher is not the only audience.  (Greg)
• In learning communities, motivation and interest can be increased.  Again, using our course as an example, some learners get ahead of reading, do outside/extra reading, and are more engaged.  (Jerry, Benjamin, Caris, Brian)
• There is also a fear of invading personal space – teachers may not want to see some of the deeply personal things in social media.  Some social media platforms are used for a different purpose. (Ryan, Brian)

Interesting ideas:

• One of our peers, Brian, is already integrating across contexts and using some of the learning tools we’ve been exploring with his basketball team players.

This week’s assignment was to interview a colleague regarding the use of social media/web 2.0 tools in teaching/learning.  I had the pleasure of interviewing my colleague, Parhum Delgoshaei.  He is both a career educator and, in my opinion, also a career techie.  He is the manager of educational programs at the Consortium for Building Energy Innovation – http://cbei.psu.edu and GridSTAR – https://smartenergyacademy.psu.edu/gridstar/). He had many interesting things to say, so, while the guideline was to try to keep the podcast around 10 minutes, I felt that his responses were valuable and worth going over the limit a bit.  So I hope you don’t mind the extra six and half minutes it will take you to listen to our podcast, but I believe it’ll be worth the time.

I had some optional questions in case my original list of questions was too short, so I have a bonus podcast if you are interested.

The podcast (16 minutes 36 seconds in length) answers the following questions:

• Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
• More specifically, can you please tell us a bit more about your background as a learner and educator?
• Have you used social media and web 2.0 tools for teaching and learning?
• Ideally, how should social media and web 2.0 tools for teaching and learning?
• Why do you think there’s a gap between how social media and web 2.0 are currently used and they should ideally be used?
• What have you learned as a result of working with these tools?
• What suggestions would you have for someone who wants to incorporate social media/web 2.0 for teaching, learning, or professional development?

The bonus podcast (6 minutes 8 seconds in length) answers these questions:

• In your personal learning or professional development, what technologies do you find most valuables?  If you could only pick ONE tool (hardware/device, software/app), what would it be?
• Can you think of a technology you tried that was a “failure”?  Why?
• Can you think of a technology you tried that was very successful?  Why?

Aside 1: Power of Access

Today was another reminder of how powerful the web 2.0 can be in accessing resources (and in this case, people) that you couldn’t normally have access to.  Parhum is someone that is “out” working in the field of online, asynchronous courses, and, while I personally learned a lot from my conversation with him, now this knowledge is available for ANYONE ANYWHERE.

Aside 2: Motivation

Motivation has come up over and over again over the last few weeks.  Parhum brought up the concept of student motivation as well.  He mentioned that students are motivated when they have control, autonomy, and caring Relationships (Self Determination theory).  While this is especially important in an online setting, I could see how they could also contribute to increased motivation in a face to face setting.

Aside 3: Recording Hardware

I used a M-Audio Microtrack II (http://www.amazon.com/M-Audio-9900-52278-00-Micro-Track-2/dp/B000VXKPZ6) with a stereo microphone (1/8″ input) to record the podcasts.  I also recorded them simultaneously on my smartphone just in case.

Before we recorded, Parhum and I discussed that the goal was an informal conversation.  With that in mind, the goal was to just ask the questions and record the conversation – the recording was the second take only because I messed up the introduction on the first take.

This week’s entry is a response to the following three resources:

1. A systemic and theoretical view of knowledge building using Wikis (Cress & Kimmerle, 2007)
2. The power of wikis (Schweder & Wissick, 2009)
3. How to use Wikipedia as a teaching tool (Wadewitz)

“The Wiki” – Wikipedia

Let’s address the elephant in the room first – when anyone thinks of wikis, the first thing that comes to mind is wikipedia.  One of the three articles in this week’s reading was dedicated to wikipedia.  While Wikipedia exemplifies many of the uses and features of wikis, the power of wikis (and many other web 2.0 tools) lies in its versatility.

Versatility

Wikis can be public or private.  They can be used for asynchronous interaction.  They can be used by one user as a personal website, or by many authors for collaboration.  Schweder and Wissick list just a few of the many uses: curriculum planning, instruction, professional development, etc.  They are categorized into collaboration, sharing, and organization tools.

Wikis in education

With all this in mind, there are a number of ways wikis can be leveraged in education.  Liz Losh provides some great suggestions on how to specifically use wikipedia in assignments.  In particular, I found the idea of contributing media to wikipedia compelling.  Students are increasingly savvy at producing multimedia content – and with the large number of wikipedia entries that would benefit from a media-rich explanation, this would provide an opportunity to contribute to the public knowledge space while increasing the students’ individual knowledge space as well.  The author acknowledges that many wikipedia entries are incomplete, so this would also teach students how to be editors.

The Princeton University case study was also helpful in seeing Liz Losh’s suggestion in action in regards to writing and contributing wikipedia articles.  The strong structure and organization of wikipedia articles make it different than simply writing papers.  Again, the experience of being a writer and editor in wikipedia in itself is a valuable lesson for anyone to learn.

Knowledge building

The social cognitive conflict theory makes sense to me.  It’s interesting to personify the wiki as something that learns.  The author states that “if she/he feels that both spaces are structurally different he/she will accommodate the cognitive schema (internal accommodation) or revise the wiki’s structure (external accommodation)“ (Cress and Kimmerle)  Furthermore, Piaget’s model of equilibration clarifies how this dissonance leads to learners building their learning space.

I believe this is only one part of how knowledge building occurs in wiki, though.  This theory addresses those who are engaged and motivated to edit wikis.  In the case of wikipedia, there are many more lurkers than editors.  In that (majority) case, external accommodation would not apply.

This post includes thoughts and reflections on the following three resources:

1. Teaching in social and technological networks (Siemens)
2. Let’s use video to reinvent education (Salman Khan, TED Talk)
3. Web 2.0 technologies as cognitive tools (Hsu, Ching, & Grabowski, 2010) – Published in Handbook of Research on New Media Literacy at the K-12 Level: Issues and Challenges

My past posts have been more focused on synthesizing information – finding commonalities and overarching concepts between articles/resources.  This week, however, I found that the commonalities were the practical applications of web 2.0 technologies, so the format of my post will be a list of practical applications from the three resources listed above.  Each of these applications will generally answer “How can educators leverage web 2.0 technologies?”

Educators can amplify, curate, and filter information

“Teaching in Social and Technological Networks” gave an example that retweeting is an example of amplifying information.  I’ve always thought retweets were silly, but, if I look at it as vetted and filtered information from a reliable source, it becomes a useful tool.  Earlier in the semester, we talked about the Enquirer and the Wall Street Journal having different levels of credibility.  If you have a great learning network, retweets and other shared links/resources would help tremendously in making sense of the endless content on the web.  Just as a teacher can choose books, readings, etc. to create a course, the teacher can be a great influencer leveraging tools to be a curator for his or her students.

Be a user

We need to get comfortable with the technology, use it, and model the behaviors we want to see in the students.  Learning curves and barriers of entry have been significantly lowered since two of this week’s articles have been written.  Many times, when signing up for a new web 2.0 service or tool, you don’t even have to fill anything out!  You can sign up using facebook or google with one or two clicks.  After that, we need to put in the time not only learning the technical skills, but also learning the nuances.   Teachers can often be the first line of support – the less we have to contact IT support, the more enjoyable everyone’s experience will be.

Increase meaningful teacher-student interaction

Salman Kahn’s comments in the Ted Talk regarding teacher student interactions was very powerful.  Integrating technology doesn’t mean that teachers are replaced by machines and interactions are diminished.  Instead, we can leverage technology to bring human interactions back to the classroom.  One way of doing this is using a flipped classroom model.  Another way is to use data to maximize the interactions already taking place.  For example, Kahn showed examples where teachers can see analytics on students’ progress, time spent on questions, trouble spots, etc.

Collaboration (tagging, writing, blogging)

There were numerous examples throughout the two readings about using social bookmarking, wikis, or blogs for collaboration.  These tools can enable student-to-student, or student-to-teacher interactions that would have been unwieldy in the past.  Tagging can be used to catalog and organize information that is bottom up (where everyone can create tags) instead of top down (where teacher dictates categories).  This new means of socially constructed knowledge allows more engagement and critical thinking.  Wikis provide an unprecedented collaborative writing platform where people can co-author content and co-construct understanding.  Finally weblogs can be leveraged to not only provide an online journal, but also encourage rich conversations.

Make it a big deal

One of the tips given by Grabowski, Hsu, and Ching in “Web 2.0 Technologies as Cognitive Tools of the New Media Age” is to make using these web 2.0 a big deal.  This reminded me of Emily’s use of Educreation videos in her classroom.  If we are not excited about using these technologies and involving others, then it’s “just another activity.”  We’re getting dangerously close to beating this dead horse about passion and motivation, but it’s such an important ingredient in making all this work.

This doesn’t mean using the technology just for the sake of using technology.  The authors also advise to “design the lesson that calls for the appropriate and desired cognitive activities.”

Aside 1: Some helpful definitions

From the Literacy of Web 2.0 Technologies section of “Web 2.0 Technologies as Cognitive Tools of the New Media Age”

Technological literacy: “one’s ability to use, manage, evaluate, and understand technology”

New media web 2.0 technology literacy in education: “an individual’s ability to understand, evaluate, manage, and use web 2.0 technologies that enhance constructivist and social-constructivist communication and collaboration to create knowledge and learning objects”

Wiki wiki: Hawaiian for quick

Aside 2: Khan Academy

Disclaimer: I’ve never see any Khan Academy lectures or learning modules.

While watching the video, I wondered if the Khan Academy was successful simply because they had a very proficient and charismatic teacher (Salman Khan).  This would fall into the concept of just record the very best lectures in the world and show them to the students – which could be used as one part of a flipped classroom.

Then, as the video went on, I was able to see some of the amazing tools they’ve equipped teachers with in the Khan Academy platform.  The data and analytics they had access alone could revolutionize education.  Furthermore, the collaboration with teachers to pull out and visualize the most useful information was nothing short of amazing.  I will definitely be checking out Khan Academy for personal and professional uses.

The following resources were helpful in starting to fill in the gaps in my understanding in connectivism. 

The readings were:

• “Connected Learning”
• Personal Learning Networks by Mancabellie & Richardson (Chapter 2: Becoming a Networked Learner)

Some information also comes from the following two videos:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwM4ieFOotA
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0xa98cy-Rw

Balance

While reading the articles, I had a sobering reminder of the importance of placing some boundaries on social media/learning.  Just as we need to be judicious when to use and put away technology in the classroom, there needs to be some boundaries on how we use social media.  The web is often referred to as a firehose of information, and, even if we spent 24 hours a day trying to keep up, we can’t!  Another important aspect that is often neglected is reflection.  If we’re constantly consuming information, then we don’t have time to digest it properly.  We’ve previously discussed how learning needs to be persistent.  Without reflection, less information will persist.

With the nature of the internet, boundaries are even more important in regards to privacy.  Richardson and Mancabelli have two golden rules for social media:

1. Nothing is private
2. You can’t unpublish anything

As we live in an increasingly digital world, balance and boundaries will also become increasingly important.

Participation: Becoming a Creator

Richardson and Mancabelli have an excellent description of different levels of participation – Figure 2.1 in their book, which was adapted from Anderson and Bernoff (2010) and Elliott (2010) from Forrester Research.  The ladder shows the following levels:

• inactive
• spectator
• joiner
• collector
• critic
• conversationalist
• creator

Progressing through each of these, in general, requires more effort and time.  Where do we find the time to engage in these activities?  That was my question when reading Tony Baldasaro’s story in “Becoming a Networked Learner.”  As a school principal, I imagine he did not have much free time.  In hindsight, Tony could see how much value he got from learning networks, but I’m sure it was not easy to carve out the time to get involved – especially in the beginning.

What is the most important requirement in connectivist learning?

Motivation and passion.  The common thread in this week’s readings and last week’s readings and discussions was that students were motivated and passionate.  For Clarissa in “Connected Learning,” she was looking to improve in her creative writing craft in a way that her school did not facilitate.  By her own admission, it was unnatural to do creative writing for a grade.  She sought out, in her own time, a community where she could freely write and engage with like-minded people.

In a classroom setting, this would be a huge challenge, though.  Passions are as diverse.  How do we encourage this kind of learning with a diverse audience?  I think that teachers have to be very creative on how they integrate connectivist learning.  Students can share learning goals while not sharing the same passions.

Takeaway

It really shouldn’t be that surprising that connectivist (or any type of) learning requires passion and participation.  I believe that balance is not required, but it is necessary for sustained, lifelong learning (and health!).  When you are passionate about something, and the barriers to engage are taken down, there’s an amazing amount of potential learning waiting to happen.  They key, though, is finding the time, energy, and motivation to engage in our learning networks and seeing the tremendous value of a community of like-minded people.

Aside 1: Equity Gap

“Connected Learning” made references to equity gaps, and how one must be careful how to “expand the opportunities afforded by a changing media environment while minimizing the risks.”  This reminded me of the digital divide and the challenges that many populations face.  However, I think we are still a long way away from formal education embracing and encouraging connectivist and informal learning.  We should not hold back the pioneers trying to be overly mindful of the equity gap. 

An imperfect analogy of this would be safety features in cars.  There’s a tremendous equity gap on safety technology.  High end cars these days have sensors and processors that watch out for all kinds of dangers.  These high end cars are pioneering technologies that will hopefully be standard in all cars in the future. 

I believe that there truly exists a digital divide/equity gap.  However, I think it’s an issue that needs to be tackled in parallel, without hindering the creative, infinite possibilities of connectivist and informal learning.

Aside 2: Why do you need a teacher?

This is a natural question that arises in connectivist and informal learning.  The “Networked Student” video summarized some responses very clearly and concisely.  In connectivist learning, the teacher’s role is still vitally important.  He or she models good examples, teaches and guides the student on how to build their learning network, take advantage of learning opportunities,, and helps filter and vet those opportunities as needed.

These are some thoughts based on the following two articles:

• Arc-of-Life Learning Thomas, Douglas and John Seely Brown (published in the book “New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change”
• Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age

My first blog post explored how we are moving from Learning 1.0 to 2.0.  However, when I came across the following quote in one of this week’s readings, I still thought it was a very bold statement.  I wasn’t sure if I agreed or disagreed.

“The natural attempt of theorists is to continue to revise and evolve theories as conditions change. At some point, however, the underlying conditions have altered so significantly, that further modification is no longer sensible. An entirely new approach is needed.”

George Siemens

The internet is supposed to be a transformative medium, so it makes sense that we may need from scratch.  However, the existing theories don’t necessarily have to be discarded.  I’m not sure if this was the author’s intention, but I understood that statement to mean that behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism in and of themselves cannot adequately provide a foundation for learning 2.0.  Connectivism is an alternative theory that can help provide a framework for learning in today’s world.

Learning vs. knowledge

Learning is actionable, persistent knowledge.  With this definition, learning can exist outside of the brain.  It can be stored on an institutional intranet, instructional manual, or DVD.  Where, then, can we find knowledge?  Siemens admits that knowledge starts with the individual, but, also, repeatedly emphasizes that knowledge can be found in a community.  Though, in the past, we emphasized that knowledge is gained through experience, knowing the right people (or information repository) is far more important nowadays.  However, all this knowledge is not learning until it is actionable and persistent.  In other words, knowledge becomes learning in the hands of the right person who needs it.

Learning communities: freedom and boundaries

Thomas and Brown call this more fluid learning the new culture of learning.  The culture is something that should emerge from the learning environment.  In contrast, in the old mechanistic, teaching-based approach, the culture was the environment.  Thomas and Brown discuss play, or the tension between rules and freedom to act within those rules.  Students need freedom to explore the limitless information they have access to, but they also need boundaries and guidance.  When you play a game, you have boundaries, but it’s there is a specific goal as well.  In most games, there are multiple ways to accomplish the same thing within the rules.  In the Connectivism article’s Sam’s story, there were social boundaries (“don’t be mean”).  In the Diabetes Daily story, there was a strict policy (of not giving medical advice).  In both cases, there was a lot of freedom afforded for the users within the community.  It’s also worth noting that the boundaries can’t be suffocatingly tight.  These environments emerged because of the fluid nature of the new culture of learning.  In the case of Diabetes Daily, there are moderators who monitor posts and remove them if policies are violated.  If users felt oppressed by moderators, I believe the community would die quickly.

Takeaways

I don’t believe that connectivism or the new culture of learning are trying to disprove other theories; connectivism is not mutually exclusive with other theories.  I think that it provides great insight into our new, current context.  Additionally, it does present a new of looking at knowledge – knowledge that can exist outside of teachers’ and students’ brains.

With connectivism in mind, the learning process is as important as the learning content.  It is a way to approach modern life and work.  Information is moving at such an incredible pace, that yesterday’s answers may not be wrong tomorrow.  In the end, people in this new culture of learning need to be wise and humble: wise to know how to find and filter information, and humble to know that we just don’t have all the answers, but someone else probably has a piece of the solution.

Aside: Open source, forking

It’s amazing that kids at a young age are organically building open source software.  Sam’s story includes collaboration, but it also shows how projects can fork (where someone “remixes” your existing project).  Not only that, they have a mutual understanding and respect that is beyond their age.  I hope that this type of mentality permeates future software developers.

(Created using http://www.wordle.net/)

I do not have a lot of teaching experience.  I’ve had a lot of experiencing supporting faculty as well as training staff.  Please keep in mind that I am an not a traditional teacher in a daily basis.  I am also more than halfway done with my LDT M.Ed., so the courses I’ve already taken have greatly influenced my beliefs about teaching.  My context for the past decade has been technology/web design in a higher education context.

About 10 years ago, when I was fresh out of college, the mantra was “content is king.”  Fast forward to about 5 years ago and people around me started emphasizing being learner-centric.  I would say that being learner-centric is not necessarily the opposite of focusing on content, but focusing too much on one or the other tends to influence teaching styles.

So what does it look like to be focus on content and learners?  When you have a learning goal – which is something specific and measurable based on the content itself, any lectures, activities, etc. should work together towards that goal.  However, there are many different roads you can take when trying to achieve these goals.  All the decisions along the way should be made with the target audience/learner in mind.  The goal is not to cater to their preferences or comfort zones, but to maximize the effectiveness of the teaching.

With this in mind, technology should be a tool to achieve those goals.  I think the use of appropriate technology is far more important than using an emerging technology.  Paper, after all, is a technology that changed the world many years ago.

To summarize my teaching philosophy, I believe teaching should have a clear, measurable goal.  The activities should be customized (as much as possible) to the learners.  Lastly, technology should be chosen carefully to be effective and appropriate to reach the learning goals.

Aside 1:

I think I end up writing some “asides” at the end of my posts, because there are things I have learned that do not fit perfectly into the main points of the blog posts.

Writing out my teaching philosophy took a lot longer than I expected, and made me realize that this is a work in progress.  To quote a wise blogger, Emily Stephens 🙂 🙂

“I’m learning that the minute I stop revising my philosophy is the minute I need to retire from education.”

This leads me to the second aside of the day…

Aside 2:

Last semester (Fall 2014), I took LDT 550 (Design Studio) with Dr. Simon Hooper and one of the concepts that has really stuck with me is adequate design.  As a designer – and I believe teachers are designers (of instructional content/activities) – you can design things with limited resources and knowledge trying to strive for an ideal.  However, reaching that perfect/ideal design is impossible.  This leads to adequate design.  In a nutshell, it’s about being realistic given your circumstances.  This means compromise, which leaves room for improvement.  With this in mind, I think iteration is very important.  Once we’ve designed something, if we have the opportunity, we should iteratively improve on it.

For those of you interested in learning more, these ideas were mainly from “The Design Way” by Harold G. Nelson and Erik Stolterman (2012).