Connectivism
How Connections Faciliate Learning
With technology having changed so much in the last few years, you
have access to information without ever having to pick up a book or even leave
your house. If I were to teach a lesson on tornadoes, I would look online and find
a few videos to help show and describe what a tornado is and how it works. I
would then reference the students to a book. The internet plays a huge role
today for helping students to better comprehend. When I was in elementary
school, we did not have computers in the classrooms or a computer lab to look
up information, instead we were given books. When I got into high school, I
maybe had a computer in one or two of my classes, but we were never allowed to
use it. That was only for the teacher to use, we had one computer lab with 15
computers in the library. When we had big reports to do, we were only allowed
to use the internet for one source; the other sources had to come from books.
In college, I bought a laptop and I started using the computer for everything,
to search, write papers, and talk to friends. It is funny, just this week some
of my students were told to look up eight vocabulary words in the dictionary.
Many of them did this but struggled because the students are not used to using
the dictionary. The ones who did not even attempt to pick up a dictionary, was
asked what they were doing and more than one said, "I would rather do this
for homework, so I can go home and look them up online". The internet is a
great source, but I feel many kids do not even know how to locate information
in books because the internet has given them everything at their fingertips.
Being a teacher,
I like to utilize the internet or computer as much as possible in the
classroom. Many times when I am using the internet, I only like to use the
Google search engine. Google is very interesting with the changing of logos
almost every day, and very easy to navigate. On the computer, I like to use
Microsoft Word, Power Point, Excel, and Smart board Apps to create Smart board
activities. In my school, every room has a Smart board. This board is one that
is interactive and you can do everything from the Smart board as opposed to the
computer. When I have a question, I always search for the answer in Google. If
I want to find a new activity on how to teach the students their nouns and
verbs, I search the internet. There are endless amounts of ideas or activities
online and many teachers use this to help with teaching.
Connectivism is
described as a learning theory that integrates technology, social networks, and
information (Laureate Education Inc., 2009). My mind map helps describe the
technology I use, the social networks I have and information that I find
important. All the ideas I listed on my mind map are important and I am always
learning something new. Something that may have taken a long time ten years ago
can now reach millions of people around the world within a matter of seconds
(Davis, Edmunds & Kelly-Bateman, 2008). It is incredible how fast something
can travel across the internet, and just imagine in years to come what it will
be like.
Davis, C., Edmunds, E., &
Kelly-Bateman, V. (2008). Connectivism. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging
perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2009). Introduction
to scholarly writing: Purpose, audience,
and evidence [DVD].Connectivism.
Baltimore, MD: Author.
