Connectivism: The Learner of Today

Technology has forever changed how and what people are learning. The classroom of 25 years ago was much different than today. Today's classroom may even be different than that of a classroom only one year ago. Therefore the learner must also change. In my opinion the learner of today must be like a sponge with the ability to soak up new information throughout his or her lifetime. People are no longer able to acquire all of the information they will need for their jobs throughout life. George Siemens wrote, "Learning is a continual process." Siemens goes on to explain that the process of learning is changing. Because of the complex environments that we live in and the social networks we are linked to, learning "is not just limited to occur exclusively inside the individual, but it also exists outside of the individual." If we think of water as knowledge, it exists outside of the sponge, and when added to the sponge, or in this case the learner, it adds to what is already known. This theory is called Connectivism. The premise of Connectivism is that we can gain knowledge through networking with others as well as organizing our information clearly in our internal neural network - again think of the connections in a sponge. Siemens goes on to say that what we know currently is important but not as important as "our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow." Keeping this in mind, the sponge, the learners of today, must be able to filter through all of the information they are bombarded with through their networks and distinguish between what is important and what is unimportant.
Click here to read more about George Siemens' theory of Connectivism
Click here to see George Siemens talk about the Changing Nature of Knowledge

Blog Post #2 - Safe Blogging

It is important to protect the safety of the students whenever using the internet. Between the book and the link I feel they have really covered the main safety concerns so I'm sorry if I sound a little repetitive, but here is my list of things to remember about safe blogging:
1) Do not share student's last name/address/pictures/other personal information
2) Obtain administrator and parent approval before using online sites
3) Always double check links beforehand to ensure students will be led to the correct sites
4) Tell students not to believe everything they read, show how to research blog author, find trustworthy sites to use with children.
5) As the teacher, check all comments before they can be posted and limit who can look at and respond to the blog.
6) If students are working on the blog at school, be sure to monitor what they are doing while on the computer.