REFLECTION- Week 1

Connectivism

After selecting a partner/group to work with (Karie and Cathy) we decided to add to the wiki separately after completing the reading and viewing the video individually. This is because the week was nearly over and Karie is doing the course by flex. In one aspect I regret doing it like this, as I was totally confused after completing the reading by myself with no one to talk about it with. But after I watched the video and did some more research it all came together. This again supports my learning style of being a visual/sensory learner.

After reading George Siemens article about Connectivism: a learning theory for the digital age, my thoughts was along the line of; is this a new theory overriding old theorist?

At first I didn't really understand the full intention of the theory.  I thought it had something to do with the way in which people are able to connect via the Internet to help their learning. This was partially correct from the limited understanding of the information I read.

The video explores the understanding that students need to monitor their own learning. Students should not be supplied with text books. Their learning is made possible through various tools of technology where they make new connections with peers to learn. What is taught to the students is how to validate and access the information they find to ensure its credibility. The students than post their findings to a social bookmarking site where the students share URLs on the specific topics. The student makes a virtually text book for their peers and futures students to learn from.

From watching the video too re-reading Siemens article, it finally clicked- I like it and it’s logical. We are living in the new era, a digital society where technology is “rewiring our brains”. I like the idea that students can engage with others around the world, bringing together different sources of information about the same topic. Through this idea the students are responsible for their own knowledge and learning. The teacher is there to teach the student the how's (how to build the network, how to ask the questions, how to search correctly) but the student is the main director of their learning. This method of teaching will develop better study habits and increase communication skills.

Just like we were provided with the resources to go do independent research to find the knowledge we need to know to pass on to our peers. This new knowledge can be viewed by future learners of this course. This way of learning is useful- It is happening in my prac classroom. The students have a set roster for presenting their homework speaking task- each student has a different topic to present and independently research. Their peers have to take notes and answer questions about what is being presented.

During this week’s activities I learnt new tools on the internet/computer. I learnt how to do screen captures through paint. I screen captured my results of my learning style and multiple intelligences test so I could add it to my blog and reflect back to it. I copied the screen to a word document so I could crop the screen and then copy and pasted it to paint and saved it as picture file (as I was not sure if I could crop a picture in paint). In my blog I than uploaded my picture. I really had no idea I could do that. In many other courses I was wondering how to do it, because I really could have used this tool.

I can definitely say this week I have learnt a lot. It’s only the first week and first set of tasks/activities so I am really looking forward to what lies ahead.