Connectivism and our Flat World
One of the most influential books of the 21st Century has been Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat (2005) (@tomfriedman). While Friedman focused on economic markets, his premise that "globalization" has exploded onto all aspects of culture, is an insightful foreshadow of this century. In fact, an argument can be made that in the past 10 years our world has become flatter.
Friedman's influence includes education. In fact, the digital natives that we teach have a new learning theory, connectivism (Siemens), that fits their digital, flat world. The way that they learn is through connecting (and this goes way beyond "collaborative learning" of the 20th Century), and their first "connection" is not with the people in the same room. They are connecting in the "cloud" to learn, gain clarity, network, share ideas, and further their own education. As facilitators, the easier we make these connections, the closer that we get to truly helping our students learn. An example of using connectivism in the classroom is to hyper-link documents so that they can explore other resources ... I tried to do that with this blogpost (how many of you digital immigrants actually clicked on the links to help you understand this post?)
Social Media tools are another example of how to teach with connectivism in the classroom and with professional development. As the faculty lounge become younger, connectivism will become a more vital and vibrant part of professional development. While we may currently find some resistance to Twitterchats among our current teachers, the resistance is quickly coming to an end. Ironically, the digital immigrants (those born before 1980) still think that they are in a battle with digital natives on this issue (with diatribes about how this generation is getting dumber and statements, like "I don't need no 'stinkin' smart phone") ... fyi, digital natives don't even care. Ever have an argument with someone who has his/her headphones in? Yeah, that about sums it up ... cue the teacher from Charlie Brown.
