Connectivism Plan

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My network has changed the way that I learn, by making information more available. I can email a co worker about a concern, share information or learn about new training classes that are available. My network allows me to teach online classes as well as web enhanced classes. I can also take online classes and still remain available to my family.

The digital tools that facilitate learning are the use of the world wide web to research topics of discussion. I also use email, blogs, a cell phone that has internet connections and skype.

I am able to learn new knowledge by logging on such sites as goggle scholar, yahoo, Walden library online and other search engines.

References:

http://www.connectivism.ca/about.html

http://mywebspiration.com/launch.php

Collaboration and Eucational Technology

Howard Rheingold discussed the history of people to collaborate as a form of survival of hunger or to protest unfair treatment. People have a basic instinct to work as a group if the group is involved in a topic of self interest that is beneficial to that individual. Rheingold gave an example of the use of Wikipedia across the country for people to interact to come up with solutions to diseases or discuss world disasters solutions.

Due to the hard economic times, people are willing to work in groups by volunteering to help people in need. There is a certain sense to fulfillment when a person is working with someone with the same ideas and views on a certain issue, such as poverty, child abuse, and high rate of under-educated students in low income neighborhoods.

The constructivist perspective supports that learners learn through interaction with others. Learners work together as peers, applying their combined knowledge to the solution of the problem. The dialogue that results from this combined effort provides learners with the opportunity to test and refine their understanding in an ongoing process. Telecommunication technologies easily lend themselves to constructivist principles by providing students with opportunities to communicate with people all over the world, conduct research, discuss issues and work cooperatively. Examples of technologies are goggle docs, skype, and elluminate.

Reference
Tam, M. (2000). Constructivism, Instructional Design, and Technology: Implications for Transforming Distance Learning. Educational Technology & Society, 3 (2), 50-60.

Blog
http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/2010/04/50-free-collaboration-tools-that-are.html