I completely agree with author’s opinion that the education landscape has to change in light of the advent of technology which students have assess to. Educators need to integrate technology to facilitate students’ learning and not shut it down.

Now that the students have access to tonnes of learning material online, the classrooms need to shift from a place for “knowledge transfer” to a place for “knowledge construction” where the educator engages the students through teamwork and collaboration instead of delivering lectures at them.

I disagree with the writer’s opinion that “learning of basic science and abstract knowledge requires memorizing definitions, equations, and simple facts.” Recent trends in the field of education are shifting toward learning based on understanding in which the learners create mental models in their long-term memory. These models cannot be constructed without understanding the definitions and equations.

Additionally, if we are looking at higher education in the US of A, connected learning can be a rather inexpensive way of providing education to people who cannot afford universities. Websites like Khan Academy and MIT OpenCourseWare are providing free education to a lot of people who cannot afford going to schools.

Turner, there is nothing wrong with the traditional teacher-centric model of learning; only that the new paradigm of connected learning gives more responsibility of learning to the students by making it student centric where they are expected to seek knowledge in collaboration with others. Such student-centric approaches lead to better understanding and effective transfer of knowledge from the learning context to the workplace and in life.

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You have a point that I agree with. During my time at Virginia Tech and at several universities prior to this, perhaps five of my professors devoted their time to ensure that students truly understood what they’re learning, while also allowing the students to voice their potentially valuable views of the subject matter without reacting defensively. Unfortunately, the other majority pretend that their views are undefiable, and being in a classroom teaching is a one way street. As an undergraduate, I was terrified of addressing my professors, in fear that if I offered a counter opinion that I would be penalized for the remainder of the semester.

However, as a graduate student, I’ve come to learn that this philosophy is gradually changing. Without challenging the previous generations, the new generations are doomed remain static and never changing.

Thank you for your comments Dr. Nelson! I agree with you in all, especially with the one highlighting the value of mindfulness regarding the use of online communication tools. I agree that it is essential to keep the balance, without falling to the extremes of each side. I think the more mindful we become about the nature of online communication, we will be more aware of its limits and will use it more practically.
yesim

Hi Katie and fdelamota, thanks for your comments! Katie, I am glad to hear there is one more low-tech person here You’re absolutely right. It is very easy to yell at people online, since the very nature of online communication allows people to be able to be more ignorant. And at the same time, it facilitates life in a lot of ways.

For instance, I know some human sexuality fellows prefer to discuss sensitive topics like abortion online, anonymously. They say, people seem to feel more confident in expressing their thoughts online, rather than in class on the sensitive issues. Yet, they say, they are very careful about the issue of moderation since it can go so wild. May be “moderation” is the key word here.

As “fdelamota” perfectly puts it, it is like a pendalum. Online communication facilitates life in a lot of ways, yet should be used mindfully. May be the issue is not about using or not-using the online communication tools, since we all seem to agree that it works :), but rather to discuss the ways of using the online tools mindfully..

yesim

The classes that I have taken so far that included a forum or some other sort of connected-discussion scheme have also not been the greatest for me. As I have mentioned in another comment on someone else’s post, my best learning experiences in a classroms have been those where the professor came to class with a bullte-point list of concepts to cover in that session. So forums, no blogs, no online material, not even powerpoint. Just a sheet of paper and a chalk board, and a fun way to engage students into the material by asking questions and responding to those questions with real life stories.

I am also in STEM education and I am looking forward to see how this course can help me engage students through connected learning while at the same time use my time efficiently. So far I find Scholar, blogs and forums exhausting for the most part. But I must say that I do enjoy writing.

I completely get your ambivalence, Katie! But it sounds to me like blogging has indeed changed your world — by putting you in touch with communities that otherwise would have been inaccessible. And I completely agree — we should never ask our students (or ourselves) to do something “just for the sake of doing it.” Any activity, whether it be blogging, or the tweeting, or sketching with pencil, or discussing an issue with another student, should always have a point — even an open-ended one (which isn’t a point, but does broaden one’s horizons ;-))

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I completely understand your concerns, Yesim. Indeed I share many of them . A “virtual interaction” (photographing the dead mole) can indeed numb and distance us from meaningful communication. And it certainly does so at times. But I think we owe it to ourselves and our students to leverage the power that these environments offer to do good — to create arenas for meaningful, substantive exchanges and interactions — because the cat videos and the disaster vines will be with us regardless. As Katie noted, the web is a tool. It’s also a medium, a powerful and ubiquitous one at that. But just as Plato feared that the advent of writing would mean the demise of memory, I think we fear that the overload of information on the web can only distract and overwhelm. It certainly can do that. But as social learners, the web also offers us tremendous opportunities to enhance our learning. We need to do so mindfully and responsibly, but I would hate to see us reject networked learning entirely.

Hello,
I struggle not only with the issue of blogging, but also with all social media and my digital image in general. The way I am facing it is to minimize my personal presence but to reap a professional benefit out of making myself visible where and in what I want to be visible. It is basically what Tom Peters says in the video we had to watch: “Blogging is the best marketing tool by an order of magnitude”.

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