After revisiting my reflections to the first week discussions about the way I have been taught and the way I learn best based on the overview of the learning theories I had explored up to that point, I realized that my reflection at that point was only on the way I taught not the way I learn best. After seven weeks of enthusiastic reading, research and discussions about different learning theories and learning styles, now I have a deeper understanding of the different learning theories. l still believe that the behaviorism theory was the way that teachers followed to educate us in the elementary school where learning is focused around understanding and changing a learner’s behavior. “Behaviorism equates learning with changes in either form or frequency of observable performance. Learning is accomplished when a proper response is demonstrated following the presentation of a specific environmental stimulus.” (Ertmer & Newby, 1993). I also still see that Cognitive learning theory was used to educate me from the Under-Graduate level to the end of my Post Graduate Diploma studies back to 1980, where “Memory was given a prominent role in the learning process, learning usually results when information is stored in the memory in an organized meaningful manner. Memory will use the knowledge when specific instructional or real world events trigger particular responses, but the learner must believe that the knowledge is useful in a given situation before he will activate it ( Ertmer & Newby, 1993).
The difference I see right now is that my job related learning over twenty some years was following the constructivism and social learning theories, where learning resulted from the interaction between the existing knowledge, beliefs, social interaction and the new ideas or situations that I encountered in different life situations and this was pretty much my own personal learning preferences. But I think I started to add a new style few years ago which is leaning towards a self directed learner who also uses Connectivism. As for the Adult Learning Theory, learning occurs through motivation for acquiring the knowledge, training content and learning environment. Connectivism learning is greatly influenced and encouraged by the advancement of technology and the more time I spend in my network for different social interactions, researches, readings, and different internet resources.
Identifying my learning style as a visual learner was a quite interesting experience for me. From research, I knew that approximately 65% of the populations are visual learners who commonly use visual aids, such as graphs, pictures, videos and diagrams to assist them in remember the content later than if they had just heard the information. I always knew that I learn better by reading or observing and I’m good at seeing pictures in my mind of people, places and pictures. Now I know why I can easily remember a face rather than a name. Understanding my ability of efficiency will help me maximize my learning potential, overcome limitation in the classroom, improve self-confidence and self-esteem, develop motivation for learning , maximize natural abilities and skills and learn how to develop and deliver effective presentation.
To describe the role of technology in my current learning, I can say that all my daily learning activities are supported by different technological tools. The online master studies for example use the discussion board which replaced the traditional classroom through many asynchronous discussions. I also use many online research resources such as encyclopedias, e-libraries, e-books, articles and blogs which have greatly increased my ability to share, understand, and develop my knowledge in an exceptional way that is easy and fast. The information gathered provides more knowledge towards different viewpoints and guarantees efficient information that is gathered from different perspectives. Also the regular use of online resources for work and social communication have replaced many of my traditional methods and has made it fast, current, less costly, reliable, and more effective.
Connectivism
Connectivisim has shown a significant value towards producing learning connections that are important for different life applications. The application of both personal and work related connections are provided with aspects that give us information throughout our daily learning cycle. With the use of connectivism, we are provided with different networks that are vital towards our lrarning and social success.Many individuals develop different networks throughout their learning process in order to achieve their development objectives. My networks contain different social and working as well as learning envirnments. My home, my computer, my work and the university are the main networks that allow me to gain a vast amount of knowledge in different perspectives. My network has provided me different areas of which I can obtain information as well as showed me different types of answers or information that form a final answer towards a certain question posed. It not only provides me with information but also increases my experience towards developing my network connections for better use.
Digital aspects pose a significant factor towards the development of the learning process. In accordance to how my network has developed my learning skills, digital tools such as the online library from the university as well as the Knowledge Managment website from my company have completely excelled my references towards the learning environment. The use of the internet, specifically Google and other external resources from the course such as journal articles and scholar blogs, promoted my level of research and gave me variety in choice and information.
Gaining knowledge through questions requires social activity as well as in depth research towards the actual solutions. Through my social connections, asking my family at my home network and my work mates through my work network as well as asking my classmates poses significant varieties towards producing my answer. If social connections do not provide me with enough information I resort to using my computer connections, such as internet blogs, email, and the university's online library which provide me with even more information towards answering my questions.
In comparison with my network and Connectivism, the support goes towards the following:
1. Supports learning and knowledge through diversity of opinion. Ex: Family, Friends, workmates, Classmates.
2. Supports the process of connecting specialized nodes or information processes interconnecting all of them into an answer.
3. Supports in nonhuman appliances. Ex: Online learning, University library database, my home library.
4. Does maintain and nurture connections due to the constant use and development of the network through time.
5. Supports the ability to see connections between fields since the environment is recognizable and can be easily developed throughout time by yourself and the others and resources around you.
6. Some support towards currency due to the difference between information that is considered known and information that is considered current and obsolete.
However there is support towards capacity to knowing more due to the difference between the capacity of work and home and the capacity of what is needed.
Reference:
C. Davies, Earl Edmunds, V. Kelly-Bateman. "Connectivism, From Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching and Technology".
Instructional Design Blogs Review:
My assignment this week as a part of my Master Degree of Instructional Design is to build my own blog and to find search and explore various blogs to resource three sites relevant to the field of Instructional Design or training then write a brief overview of contents and usefulness.
Future Think for Educators is the first blog that attracted me, it will be accessible by using http://nkilkenny.wordpress.com/ . It is designed by Natalie Laderas-Kilkenny an instructional designer who has a strong interest in using collaborative technology for sharing and learning. The blog shows an interesting film from the Third Annual Media Convergence Forum in New York City Oct, 2009. The film is presenting the rising use of different Internet, computer mobile devices and digital applications opposite the other traditional devices. A brief discussion of new exciting things that could be used by educators, policy makers, parents, teachers and curriculum developers such as Cloud Computing, Leveraging Social Networking and Media Sharing Tools, Alternatives to Written Papers, Ethics & Security Education for Parents and Students is included. I found this blog very useful with many other posts and links to important educational, management, social networks and learning information.
Evaluating Learning Technology Blog; Could be accessed via http://billlafave.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/animatio-mentor-technological-e-learning-done-right/ . This blog discuss how important for the Instructional Designer or the Educational Technologist to be fluent in using the learning technology tools in order to produce learning contents that serve the learner main objectives. He also highlighting the importance of using animation tools, particularly for online learning and explains how animation is a very demanding skill set which requires dedication, software tool training and of course learning about the art of sketching and animation itself. Then he explains how the online animation school (Animation Mentor) teaches the online classes via both asynchronous and synchronous methods. The blog is a reflection on Learning Technology Evaluation; it gave me a brief idea about some of the tools used for instruction designing. The blog also has links to other posts on instruction design, animation, and Educational Technology.
Rapid eLearning Tools – Are they the best thing to happen to our industry or the worst? Published by learntoelearn. Could be accessed by http://learntoelearn.wordpress.com/2009/09/02/rapid-elearning-tools-%e2%80%93-are-they-the-best-thing-to-happen-to-our-industry-or-the-worst Interesting comparison between the hard work had to be done to develop eLearn materials in the early days of developing these courses with the new tools that has been introduced into the market: the rapid development tools. These tools enable authors to create slick, professional looking elearning much faster and better than was ever imaginable. But the ease of using these tools made corporations want to get the job done by people with little or no training and instructional design experience. The author is explaining how great to have such rapid development tools but he is warning employers that putting it in the hands of amateurs will cause far more harm than good. I liked the idea of raising the alarm about how the abuse of the new rapid development tools and cutting corners to save the cost by using inexperienced developers might end up destroying the Elearning process. The blog has useful links to other related posts as The Elearning Dilemma, Tools of eLearning, and Rapid eLearning Tools.
Week Two Assigment
This week I’m citing two websites about the Information Processing Theory and Problem-Solving Skills in Education and Life.
Information Processing Theory; an interesting article published in a website called Buzzle.Com, and written by Rahul Thadani, 5/29/2010.
It could be accessed via: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/information-processing-theory.html.
The article starts with introducing the Cognitive development as a branch of Psychology that deals with the learning abilities of an individual then defines the Information Processing theory as an approach to the cognitive development of a human being to study and analyze the way a human being learns something new. The author, Rahul Thadani, discusses how learning about the information processing theory enables one to enhance the learning process of a children and adults by explaining how the process works. This is followed by brief explanations of the Information Processing Model, Theory and Information management. The author mentioned at the closing that, “this is a tip of the iceberg as the subject is very vast and complex to study in a short time”. He also gave reading references for: Behavior Modification, Cognitive Behavioral Theory (CBT) and Aaron Beck Cognitive Behavior Theory.
I liked the article as brief and rich source of information about the subject (short and sweet). The website is also citing a lot of different related articles.
Problem-Solving Skills in Education and Life; Website that is fully loaded with valuable links to related resources by Craig Rusbult, could be accessed via: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/think/methods.htm . First he is discussing the Thinking Skills and the important goal of education to help students learn how to think more productively by combining Creative Thinking to generate ideas and Critical Thinking to evaluate ideas. Next Craig is talking about the Multiple Intelligences & Learning Styles and Teaching Thinking Skills , before he moved on to discuss the different Problem-Solving Methods. Finally he got to Problem Solving in the Education and how Problem-Based Learning is is a way to improve motivation, thinking, and learning. The website is very interesting with lots of links to useful related resources, I like the way he laid out all the resources as a part of the running discussions.
