Connectivism
It springs from the ideas of a child psychologist named Vygotsky, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Vygotsky who put forward a theory that we never learn anything from scratch, that even young children grasp a new idea, add it to their existing knowledge and come up with a new thought. I wondered if this relates to adult learners and when I looked closer into connectivism I discovered that it's main ideas support learning as part of a social network, and that this theory sees learners as both consumers and creators, that by actively participating in a collaboration, be it something like blogging or wiki, or just interacting with another learner, they learn what is already known, link it to their own experiences and produce a new and unique idea.
By doing the above process learners can change the content of on-line and collaborative knowledge, keeping the entire body of knowledge current and relevant, it seems a bit like Darwin's theory of evolution, whatever the learner finds relevant they will use, alter, re-create and enhance, information not of use will fall by the wayside and eventually become irrelevant.
Unfortunately the use of blogs, wiki and the like rely on the learner having some knowledge of how to access these media, technology can be daunting to some people but, as in my case, if you give some extra input you can get learners using technology and even enjoying it.
Initially it would take some extra effort by staff and require increased resources, in both time, Internet resources and support staff.
On the up side, connectivism can have benefits to learners through ownership of content, relevant feedback and person to person interaction. If learners can work collaboratively there should be an increase in creative thinkers not just rote learners.
useful links
http://www.connectivism.ca/about.html
http://www.slideshare.net/Downes/connectivism-a-theory-of-personal-learning A good easy to understand slideshow giving good information.
No comments:
Post a Comment