Connectivism – Wings on Tiger
If we think of the traditional education system as a traditional corner shop – that the students are the customers and the teachers are the owner/assistants, and the knowledge is like the products sitting on the shelf. So you go there and you are told what is good what is better, what is cheaper what is more expensive and the owner/assistant probably would recommend what you should buy because they themselves prefer the same things. The shop is smallish and the choice of products are limited. What products are available totally depend on the owners’ purchasing. This is the traditional education – teachers pass on their knowledge to the students, and often the knowledge from teachers’ personal choices.
Now if we think of this connectives education as a modern supermarket – that the students are the customers and the teachers are the workers and the knowledge is the products sitting on the shelf. So you go there and what happen next? You are no longer told what is good and what is better, what is cheaper and what is more expensive? Why? Because there are so many choices there in the shop, and the workers themselves are no familiar with most of the products on the shelf. The workers can guide you to the section and area where you can find what you want but they no longer know everything. The supermarket is huge and the choices are unlimited, it’s a worldwide supermarket. This is what connectivism is about – choices. Choices lay in front of the students, hundreds and thousands of products lay in front of students. It’s definitely exciting, just think about the first time we went into a supermarket and find ourselves lost in it. The excitement and the sense of freedom is unquestionable.
Sounds exciting, isn’t it? Let’s look at the bright sides of connectivism:
- It’s like having hundreds and thousands of teachers to guide you than one or a few and all the human being’s knowledge is accessible.
- You can keep up-to-date with the latest information fresh out of any research projects.
- You can choose the time and place to study.
- With various multi-media learning tools, learning is never boring.
- Meta-learning style so you have the freedom to take control of your own studying pace and style.
- You can socialise with people all over the world to talk about and improve your learning.
- Usage of paper books, pens and papers will greatly decrease which is beneficial for the environment.
I would love to describe connectivism as a pair of wings that free the restraints of traditional education and bring unlimited possibilities into learning and teaching. Think about in a classroom, when a teacher is talking about Lady Gaga, and with the click of her mouse…Lady Gaga is on the screen talking about her view of creativity of arts. How wonderful is that? Just like transfer Lady Gaga into a classroom in a few seconds.
However, just like very coin has two sides, there are down sides of connectivism:
- Sense of lost and confusion
Just like our frustration and sense of lost sometimes when we are facing lots of choices, when so much information are laid in front of a leaner, it might cause certain sense of lost and confusion as well.
In the interview carried about by Glasgow Caledonian University students to find out about people’s view towards knowledge sharing, a Social Work students said: “I am not really bothered by what other groups are doing…we work with case studies so we might take a different approach to it than other group and for everybody to share their knowledge might cause confusion or cause it harder”. (Anoush Margarya, Allison Littlejohn, Are digital natives a myth or reality?:Students’ use of technologies for learning. 2008)
- Misuse of information technology
When not guided properly, students be slower in developing adequate skills in using information technology in support of their academic activities”( Kvavik’s, 2005).
An Australian study by Kennedy et al (2007) showed that “established applications such as searching for information on the web, email, mobile telephone and SMS messaging” were used very frequently while “newer technologies, such as blogs, wikis and social bookmarking tools that allow students to share, collaborate, produce and publish material online are used by a relatively small proportion of students”.
Sandars et al (2008) survey shows high levels of use of instant messaging (90%) and social networking sites (70%)…20% read blogs, while only 5% wrote their own blogs…low levels of use of resource sharing and contribution to wikis; and social bookmarking was rarely used.
Ebner et al (2008) investigation found…students’ high familiarity with and use of Wikipeida, You Tube and MySpace…low familiarity with social bookmarking, podcasts, blogging and virtual worlds…when students were asked what form of elearning was the most important for them, the majority of students emphasised the possibility to download lecture notes; opportunities for communication and discussion were unimportant for the majority of the students.
- Educators’ ICT skills are not sufficient.
Students suggested that while some lectures appear to post learning materials or feedback online others do not upload any resources or outcomes of assignments. As an Engineering student said: “[the lecturer] must have went [sic] on WebCT...every single night to answer people’s questions, but I think that’s the standard we all through everybody else would follow.” (Anoush Margarya, Allison Littlejohn, Are digital natives a myth or reality?:Students’ use of technologies for learning. 2008)
Barriers to integration of technologies within education. While a major barrier cited by some lecturers was lack of time to experiment with technology in teaching, lack of imagination and reluctance to change was also mentioned.
- Source of information might not be reliable.
Nowadays, wikipedia has become a source of information the majority of people are using. However, have we ever questioned the reliability of the information provided by wikipedia?
The use of Wikipedia is passive: none of the respondents had contributed or edited entries in Wikipedia…an Engineer student stopped using Wikipedia when she realised it could be openly edited by anyone. (Anoush Margarya, Allison Littlejohn, Are digital natives a myth or reality?:Students’ use of technologies for learning. 2008)
"There is so much information available that it is almost too much, and if people aren't prepared to process the information effectively, it almost freezes them in their steps." - Mike Summers, Vice President for Global Talent Management at Dell http://www.21stcenturyschools.com/7_Survival_Skills.htm
- When and how much freedom students should be given?
Many educators are concerned about when and how much freedom students should be given. Should a first year primary students just been told to browse through the internet and try to find information for themselves? Certainly not. I don't think that a 5 or 6 year old child would be able to browse through other people's webpages, read through their ideas and come up with something. But somehow, connectivism can be introduced into education gradually and be combined with our curriculum. Connectivism doesn't go against cognism and it leaves a lot of freedom into the hands of the learners. However, this freedom has to be monitored and guided by teachers. According to Jean Piaget(1896-1980) from around 18-24 month to 7 years (the preperation stage)...the child is still not able to construct abstract ideas and to operate on them solely in mind. From 7-12 years (the concrete operational stage)...the ability to tackle a problem with several variables in a systematic way is unusual at this stage. From 12 years old and so on (teh formal operational stage) learners are able to think about abstract relationships, understand methodology, formulate hypotheses, and think about possibilities and abstractions like justice. As a Chinese saying goes ‘过犹不及- too much is bad as not enough’. We have to carefully monitor learners’ studying path and give necessary support and help. Just like we still need people working in the big supermarkets to guide people where to find what they want and also to give opinions about what they think about certain products. Some of the old fashioned ways, somehow, will never die, however advanced our civilisation might become.
Connectivism is the future of our education and we have to prepare our children for such a connected future.
No comments:
Post a Comment