Today’s learners are like the crawling babies at our annual family Christmas Party. Each one comes with his/her own initial conditions, and spends large amounts of time observing their environment. All of this is simply leading up to the learner’s opportunity to demonstrate understanding, from their exposure to various learning methods. Will their observations, decision making, and actions done lead to knowledge and externalized task completion? Not to mention every choice made by a learner could affect the quality of their new information along with their capacity to learn more. Most eight-month-old babies probably would not understand the previous question, but they are engaging in these types of learning experiences everyday. It may seem like a lot but our entire society is overloaded daily with new “information”. The ability to decipher between fact and fiction is another task we must do better. Seimens stated that connections between disparate ideas and fields can create new innovations.(2005)
The challenge lies in helping learners develop the foundational skills needed, while making connects to rapidly changing people and tools. Connectivism offers a broad idea behind how learning can occur with a focus on how connects between individuals, society, and environment can affect learning. It’s not enough anymore to learn without being actively engaged in the process beyond letter grades or careers. In Connectivism:A Learning Theory for the Digital Age,Seimens suggest we make a cultural shift toward educational learning opportunities that are designed to adapt and move us into the next century of knowledge.
As I watched my young grandchildren grow I often thought about the "overload" of information that they were presented with. Your use of an analogy of an 8-month-old works well is making the connection between a child that age and the learner of today.
ReplyDeleteDr. Burgos