Module 6 Learning in the Digital World

(Sorry this post is not posting correctly. It is posting as one paragraph even though I keep updating it into paragraphs and references) In the video (Laureate, 2009), George Siemens stated “In a stable environment, the intent of education is to produce clarity and clear thinking.” I believe technology has a high impact on the way one learns. Everything we want to know is at our fingertips. As teachers we can scaffold learning so everyone can be learning on their own level. Students can take charge of their own education and take it as far as they want to. Almost everything we do not know can be researched and found answers to. “Connectivist teaching and learning must optimize the ability for learners to form effective networks” (Laureate, 2009). Being able to connect to others is vital to learning. The critical part is that both teachers and students need to decipher what is true and what is not true in their findings. This can be difficult for the reason that there are many convincing writers that we need to know what types of sites are reliable and which types are not. “Human existence is a quest to understand. Our spaces and structures need to be aligned with our new understanding of knowledge…and the manner in which it moves, flows, and behaves” (Siemens, p. 4). There is a slight difference in learning in an online environment as compared to face-to-face learning. All classes should strive to create an equal learning experience as far as the concepts being taught, however, with the use of technology, when going to a certain website, it can lead to another website and another website and so on so the student can have a higher order of thinking. The student can learn more than what the teacher initially wanted them to learn. The sites can lead to a totally different concept in which the student could become interested in and want to research that concept along with the original concept. In my philosophy of education, I believe that the teacher needs to fit the program to the child. Every child is different and learns in a different way. They have different interests. If you teach the way a child understands and relate it to something that has to do with them, they will be interested in learning. With the use of collaboration, based on the basic ideas of the constructivist learning theory, the constructivist suggests that instruction must take students' prior ideas, experiences, and knowledge into account while giving the opportunities for students to construct new understanding. I often wonder about students with IEP’s. When I found out I had twenty students and 7 of the students had IEP’s I thought in a negative way of how will I do this. I thought one of these days everyone will have an IEP in my class. Then thinking in a positive way, I thought yes, everyone has their own IEP but they all aren’t in writing and made official. We have to teach a class like everyone has an individual educational plan. We have to get to know the student and find out what is their way of learning and adjust our lessons to each child. The purpose of any learning theory is to supply a framework to education to help the students to learn and retain the information and then be able to apply the information they learned at a later time. “Connectivist learning requires mashups, or taking content and ideas that others have produced and reusing and repurposing them in different contexts” (Siemens, Laureate 2004). This is vital in teaching the students that will soon be running our world. References Laureate Education, I. (Director). (2009). Connectivism Learning Theory [Motion Picture]. Siemens, G. (2004, 12 12). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. Retrieved from Elearnspace: http://elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm Siemens, G. (2006). Knowing Knowledge. Copyright 2006 by George Siemens. Used by permission.