4.1 Fitting your Teaching Philosophy within an Online Context
Read the articles by Kanuka and Anderson & Dron. Write a blog post that presents your initial reflections on the readings and your initial thoughts on how you teach (or would like to teach) would fit in the pedagogies presented. Keep it short – you don’t have to commit yourself to a hard position – but consider the options and relate them to your circumstances or to a future role. Republish this post on the course blog by putting it in the ‘EDDL 5101’ category.
4.2 Networked Learning Discussion
This week presents three short readings on MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses. These have been in the news lately and, while they are mostly applied within the post-secondary context, the basic precepts of connectivist pedagogy presented by them could have applications down to intermediate grade school. In this unit we have a short introduction to MOOCs by Educause and then a critique of MOOCs by Keith Brennan followed by a rebuttal from Stephen Downes.
Write a short blog post (up to 500 words) that expresses your reactions to the critique of MOOCs (and by extension connectivism) presented by Brennan and the rebuttal offered by Downes. Does the connectivist pedagogy stand or is it flawed? Then examine the issues presented in relation to your own teaching context. What are the possibilities and challenges presented by connectivism if it were to be adopted for some portion of your teaching environment. Remember that the ideals of connectivism are enabled by technology but the ‘connectiveness’ that is considered the goal of learning can be modeled in non-technical environments as well.
