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Post 3: Connections, going down the rabbit hole

Have you ever seen or read Alice in Wonderland?  I am pretty sure most of us would say we have at least seen/read a version or form of it.   When I think of Alice, she reminds me a lot of what I would like my students to be in my classroom.  I want them to see something which sparks their interest (the white rabbit) follow this interest wherever it takes them (down the rabbit hole), learn something about this interest and hopefully experience something which transforms their previous thoughts, misconceptions, and challenges them to think in a new way or build from this experience.  When thinking about Alice, the idea Siemens brings up about connectivism really rang true.  As learners we are trying to connect our interests to a wealth of information available to us via the web, each other, the classroom, essentially the world.  “Constructivism assumes that learners are not empty vessels to be filled with knowledge. Instead, learners are actively attempting to create meaning” (Siemens, (2005), p.3).  Through this process our students/learners are achieving more than we ever did in our previous learning experiences of just being given information.  Learners are connecting, creating, and building on each other’s thoughts, actions, experiences.

I really liked Siemens’ article, so I decided to jump down my own “rabbit hole” and read a few of his blog entries on www.elearnspace.org/blog.  His blog titled Learning as an Artifact Creation talked about the article we read and added to it.

“One aspect of connectivism that has great potential for development is the role of the artifact in learning. With CCK08, we found fascinating activities arising due to student created artifacts. One student creates an image to detail the architecture of the course. Another updates it and adds to it. Another comes by and critiques it. The artifact serves as a social learning object. This process reflects my earlier point: big trends unfold behind the scenes over time and in education, they map and mirror to what people do with information that is digital and networked”(Siemens, 2017).

This quote sums up his blog entry pretty well with the idea of what our students and learners today have at their fingertips.  They have the ability to take someone’s artifact and update it, add to it, critique it, and by doing so they find new meanings and experiences which were previously unavailable.  This is essentially the new learning ecology.

I found this idea of artifacts in learning also connected with the Thomas & Seely Brown article.  The examples within the article almost always started with an artifact and talked about how people changed it, added to it, or critiqued it.  This was seen through the example of Sam and Scratch, Doug Thomas and his lecture series/game, the family playing games together in second life.  “Something larger was always being addressed, built, created, and cultivated.” (Thomas and Brown, Seely, p. 31).  So, you ask what is this new learning ecology and how can we incorporate it into our own learning environments.  I go back to Siemens’ blog.  He says, “Educationally, this provided new opportunities for students. That class lecture that didn’t make sense? There is a better resource online. That stats textbook that is confusing? There is a MOOC for that. Don’t like a class? Tell the web. Don’t like your instructor? Tell the web (rate my prof). Have an important thought to share? Upload a video to Youtube. An awesome song? Upload. Share. A terrific painting you’ve been working on? Upload. Share.” (Siemens, 2017).

So, we as educators can help our students share their knowledge, their interests, their learning with each other in the classroom, through blogs, by informal and/or formal settings.  We show them how they can access the other forms of knowledge through Youtube, the web, blogs, other students/educators.  We want them to be able to navigate the information available to them and know where to go when they have a question or need to address a new learning standard.  We also want them to know when they need to dive deeper into a topic or what to learn.  Going back to where I started on Alice.  Alice in Wonderland is a great example of an artifact that has been changed, updated, added to, and we still continue to learn more and be intrigued by her story.  I think this idea of building on each other, connecting to each other is the key to our future learning and I am excited to be a part of it.

References:

Siemens, George. (2017). Learning as Artifact Creation. Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/

Siemens. (2015). Connectivism.

Thomas & Seely-Brown. A New Culture of Learning. p. 17-38.

Published inLDT 467

4 Comments

  1. Sonya Brown

    Hi Megan! I love your analogy to Alice and Wonderland! I too am excited to be a part of this movement, however it is daunting. My biggest concern is the time constraints within the classroom. If this means students will have to complete more work outside of the classroom, I may have an issue. I am finding more and more students are just not doing any class work outside of the classroom. Any thoughts about this aspect?

    • Megan Strickland

      Yes, my students rarely take work home. It is extremely difficult to get them to work outside of the classroom. I try to have them do as much in the classroom but you’re right that this movement is really about them learning outside of a formal setting. I think that this aspect starts becoming more prevalent as students get older but how can we foster this at a younger level? It is a challenge. I’ve tried getting students online to places like khan academy, good you tube channels, and remind to start initiating use of learning that could happen outside of class. Sometimes it takes, sometimes it doesnt.

  2. lir5064

    Hi Megan,

    The Alice in Wonderland reference was a really great way to look at these concepts, and thinking about going down the rabbit hole made me wonder if I assume that my students aren’t curious simply because I don’t see them delving deeper into my subject? I’m glad you mentioned helping our students share their knowledge, because their world is all about sharing; snapchat and instagram seem to rule their days. It is important for them to understand the what, where, and when of sharing, and building those skills from a young age definitely sets them up for success later. Just a side thought, how do you feel about a class instagram? I was just trying to think of how to encourage sharing and exploring academic content through a medium that they use socially.

    • Megan Strickland

      Lir5064,
      I originally had a Facebook class page when I first started teaching. It was mainly used for reminders and questions before remind came on the scene. I never used it for sharing but I think that would be a great possible use for Instagram. I think the only thing I become worried about is what gets posted or shared through the common site and the liability of it since we are not able to screen everything. My students really like when people follow them on social media sites, do you think you could have everyone maybe share their Instagram or Twitter handles at beginning of school year as a way to be connected? This might lead to more sharing of ideas as the year becomes developed as well?

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