Sunday, June 20, 2010

Fitting the Pieces Together

The connectivism theory helped me understand my learning process.  One the most common way is the online searching.  People search about related topics.  Learning about these theories guide me to perform in a better way as a teacher.

Understanding learning theories, provides me the opportunity to observe and compare each of them as a learner and as a teacher.  In the past I had the opportunity to learn about some of the theories.  In this class, I have explore them in a deeper level.  Together with some workshops, I have a better understanding of Social Learning and Connectivism.  The educational system that I work with is starting to give emphasis to Social Learning.  As I plan for my daily lessons, I ask myself what activities can I provide to satisfy the different learning styles.  Establishing effective objectives will help my students have a better understanding about the presented topic.  I use Essential Questions to guide my students to establish connections in class.  Reviewing each theory helps me analyze each student learning style.
The learning process describes what happens during the learning process.  Each theory defines particular characteristics of learning. In psychology and education, learning is commonly defined as a process that brings together cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences and experiences for acquiring, enhancing, or making changes in one's knowledge, skills, values, and world views (Illeris, 2000; Ormorod, 1995).  In my learning process, Connectivism plans an important role.  The use of the Internet, facilitales connections made during a research.  One of the examples studied in class, was about Bobby and the research about restauring a Mustang Car 1967.  I do the same thing, when I want to learn about an specific topic.  One example, is when I want to purchase a technological equipment, I read the features and reviews of the product.  I search for videos about the product and the feedback of customers.  Sometimes, I am able to find blogs, related to these products.  Many persons, do this on a daily basis without knowing that they are learning in the process.  Using strategies we can model and guide our students to learn through connectivism.
The use of technology is part of my daily life.  We need to considerate that technology works for us and not us for technology.  We need to be careful, that we don’t become totally dependant of these tools.  These days people depend on their cell phones, if they loose it by accident; they are lost.  They don’t know phone numbers of their friends or relatives.  In the past we use to memorize phone numbers or keep a phone numbers notebook.   Technology has to be part of our Instructional Design.  
Today many information could be retrieve with a click or an Enter of our devices.  Is not only the computer, it includes many other devices as mobiles, palms, and others.  The cell phone has taken importance with the use of Internet.  Many pads have become popular, thanks to the access of the Internet.  One of the newest technology is the TV with Wi-Fi access.  This tool will provide Internet access from the TV for easy access of movies and social networking.  One of the biggest challenges these days is to be updated with the new technologies.  Our challenge is to be able to share these new technologies into the teaching style.

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