Module 4: Connectivism

When I moved overseas 6 years ago, my opportunities for professional development became quite scarce. Due to my geographic isolation and budgetary constraints, I found myself unable to attend professional conferences as I once had while living stateside. I turned to reading books, online articles, conversations with colleagues and an occasional class offered locally or online. My learning network looked like this:



I was feeling professionally isolated until one day when I found a particularly interesting podcast online. I began to subscribe to the weekly podcast called PD to Go. This podcast was primarily about using Smart Boards in the classroom. But each hour-long podcast also included highlights and tips about cutting edge technology. During one weeklong road trip during spring break, I listened to the podcasts that had been downloaded to my iPod and I took notes about all of the sites and technologies that sounded interesting to me. When I got home, I began joining and exploring the networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Ning and others. And so, the beginning of my digital learning network began. I chose people to follow on Twitter who are knowledgeable in the area of educational technology. I joined discussion boards, blogs and wikis. Now my learning is centered on my interests and allows me to explore to find the gaps in my own knowledge. I find myself grateful for social bookmarking sites like Delicious that allow me to save bookmarks and organize them for future use. I realize that each network has the potential to take me deeper into my interest and gives me the opportunity to see perspectives that I had never even considered. I am grateful for learning about Google Reader to help keep my massive network connections organized. I have moved from a one dimensional recipient of information to an interactive participant in a multidimensional interactive world. Here is what my network has evolved into over the last few years:



I have to admit that I am probably more of a lurker than a participant in many networks where I do not have an established relationship with the participants. That is probably just characteristic of me as a person and a learner. I would normally be the kind of learner who craves the face-to-face interactions and collaborative climate of getting to know my classmates in a traditional classroom, but the tools like Skype, Google Chat, Google Docs give me that immediate interaction that I enjoy. Because of the collaborative nature of these social networking technologies, it is not difficult to find answers to questions. I am comfortable asking “friends” within my networks or searching for answers on my own using search engines and tags in blogs and wikis. Though I know that I must use Google with caution, it is still my favorite search engine for finding the answers to questions. What a different experience education is at this time in my life as compared to my undergraduate days before computers, the internet and Web 2.0 technologies.

Module 3: Collaboration

I do believe that humans have a basic instinct to interact and work as a group. One can observe children (and even adults) who do not know each other, placed in a room together, who will naturally gravitate toward each other for social interaction. It does not necessarily mean that they will work cooperatively or interact appropriately, but it illustrates that by human nature we gravitate toward one another. According to James Fowler (2005), “Human beings frequently cooperate with genetically unrelated strangers whom they will never meet again, even when such cooperation is individually costly” (pg. 7047).
In his video Way-new Collaboration, Howard Rheingold made a strong case regarding the nature of and the natural evolution of collective knowledge in our society. With advances in technology and the implementation of Web 2.0 technologies, the internet is no longer a one-way giver of information. The flow of information and constructed knowledge has the potential to flow two ways as well as to branch out into further tributaries. In true constructivist form, the Web 2.0 user takes the information and reconstructs the knowledge by making sense of it based upon his/her own experiences. This knowledge then flows back into collaborative spaces (like social networks, wikis, blogs, etc.) and is processed and reconstructed by another user with different experiences and different perspectives. However, in that process other users who are in the network of the original user take that knowledge and reconstruct it based upon their unique perspectives. It is quite probable that the original piece of information has become transformed into an entirely new piece of knowledge with the process ready to cycle on. As George Siemens (2006) says, “The end of a process is a product. Our internet-era knowledge is no longer suitable as a product-we can continue to revise, connect, and alter indefinitely” (pg. 53).

Fowler, James H. (2005). Altruistic punishment and the origin of cooperation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102(19), 7047-7049. Retrieved January 10, 2010, from Research Library. (Document ID: 836453451).

Siemens, George. (2006). Knowing knowledge. ISBN 978-1-4303-0230-8. A Creative Commons licensed version is available online at http://www.elearnspace.org/KnowingKnowledge_LowRes.pdf.