Connectivism and Social Learning

Social learning is an important learning style to incorporate into the classroom on a regular basis. Today's world demands that people be able to learn and communicate in social settings more than just face to face conversations. The Internet offers many different types of learning tools for students to use that will someday allow them to be successful in the business world.

Social networking tools such as blogs, voice threads, wikis, and facebook allow people to communicate with other people from across the world. These networking tools also allow students to collaborate on projects with more than just their school peers (Laureate Education Inc, 2008). This becomes extremely important in the fact that when working on a project two minds are always better than one.

Dr. Orey discusses with us this week about the importance of creating an artifact with meaningful conversations (Laureate Education Inc., 2008). In my own classroom I see the importance of creating a group project and how much better the result of that project is if students work together. With todays technology, students are able to not only work with people within the classroom, but are also able to communicate with other students from across the world making their project that much more meaningful to the student.

As I am working on my voicethread this week, I see how nice it would be for students to create their own voice thread about topics we cover in social studies. Once my student created their own voice thread, they would be able to receive feedback from other people which would support and solidify their learning.

References:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.