Connectivism - Learning in the 21st Century

During my Connectivism research this week, I came across the following phrase regarding the principles of Connectivism that really sang to me:

"Connectivism is a learning theory for the digital age. Learning has changed over the last several decades. The theories of behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism provide an effect view of learning in many environments. They fall short, however, when learning moves into informal, networked, technology-enabled arena...The integration of cognition and emotions in meaning-making is important. Thinking and emotions influence each other. A theory of learning that only considers one dimension excludes a large part of how learning happens."

Source: http://connectivism.ca/about.html

There are two things that I really relate to when it comes to Connectivism; one being this notion of embracing technology in the digital age. Computer technology and - more specifically - Internet technology have become ingrained in our society. They have infiltrated nearly every aspect of our lives and it's clear that they're here to stay. The level of connectivity and sharing of ideas that the Internet has given us is truly mind boggling. Data, information and thoughts can be shared in a split second - with contributions from all over the globe! What would our forefathers think if they could only see us now?! The second thing that I really relate to is the idea that we must integrate our emotions and cognition into meaning making. Things that typically remain in my mind and in my heart the strongest are those that touched my spirit and elicited emotions. Those emotions can range from happiness to sadness, from surprise to dismay. These are the things that "touch me" and leave a lasting impression. These truly are the things that create meaning... and without meaning - how can there possibly be any learning?!

Communities of Practice

This past week after attending the CoP presentation, I have found myself searching for examples of Communities of Practice in my day to day life. I quickly determined that my department at Boston Scientific definitely fits the mold with the domain being the Instructional Design knowledge that created common ground among us, the community being all of us within our department and the practice being the focus of our group - which is the creation of cutting edge training for BSC's Endo sales force. Our practice is, at its core, our sharing of ideas, skills and knowledge.

I also see evidence of a CoP on the home front. I happen to live next door to my parents and across the street from my brother, his wife, and their seven children. We are very much like a community of practice with the domain being the successful raising of our families, the community being all of the family members and the practice being the resources, skills, knowledge & assistance we provide one another to do the job right. Examples of this range from watching out for each other (I saw a strange car in your driveway... you left a light on in your house... are you aware your two year old is outside?) to babysitting each others children... or sharing meals when we have leftovers.

It's truly a great system and I love it. I think life is really meant to be lived like this. Humans are tribal, communal beings and I believe we naturally gravitate towards this type of structure.

It seems this ideal is fading as the internet explodes and we grow more and more isolated. Personally, I find myself longing more and more for that feeling of community and I oftentimes wonder if it is only me - or if everyone has that same longing. Please feel free to comment and let me know your thoughts. It would be great to hear what others have to say about this!

Self Directed Learning - My Own Experience

When I got my first job out of college, I bought myself a Fossil watch to celebrate. Fast forward about two years and on the last day at that job, the watch died at exactly 5:00pm. I took the watch to a small jewelery store in Winchester hoping to purchase a new battery and struck up a conversation with the owners. I told them the strange story of coincidence surrounding my watch and they asked what I did for a living. I told them i was a graphic designer and they asked me if i designed web sites. I replied no, but that it was something I was interested in learning. They then asked me if I would design a site for them. This would become my first web site.

Here is where my self directed learning experience begins. I knew NOTHING about web design at the time - so I went to the book store and purchased a book on HTML and two of Lynda Weinman's web design books. I then set out to learn how to design a web site.

Through trial and error, I worked my way through the books and typed the code into notepad. When the code didn't work I kept making adjustments and testing until it did. I also joined the HTML Writer's Guild and turned to their message boards many a time looking for advice from other members.

Within three months I had completed my first site. I was thrilled with the results and the jeweler's business also showed a drastic increase and orders started pouring in from all over the US! The experience was truly transformative and launched me on a whole new (and lucrative) career path - a path which I am still walking to this very day.

Transformative Learning Question

When i read the wikipage, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about - for I had one VERY transformative moment a few years ago and it stuck in my mind - for I knew something very special had occured.

My ex husband and I had separated in February 2009. It was supposed to be a trial separation and I had hopes of continuing to work on our issues during that time. In the fall of that year, my best friend's husband called me on his cell to inform me he had bumped into my ex and he "wasn't alone". I was in denial, of course, at first - but as it turned out, he had been dating this woman for several months behind my back, all the while telling me to my face he was still going to "work on" repairing our broken marriage.

Many emotions went through my head - anger, sadness, denial, etc... (I'm sure you're all familiar with the stages of grief). I carried this anger around for many months. If my children came home from a visit with their father with ANYTHING this woman had given them - it went straight into the trash. I WAS SO HURT. SO MAD!!!

One day, my ex pulled into my driveway to drop off my kids and his girlfriend was in the car. I decided I was going to be an adult about the situation and go and introduce myself. I marched straight out to the car and the poor girl looked terrified! She turned her face away from me as I approached the passenger side of the car - but I knocked on the window and she lowered it. I reached out my hand and said "Hello - I'm Julia".

Something amazing happened to me at that moment we shook hands. All my anger, pain, hurt, fear... it all washed away and was replaced with an overwhelming peace. I realized at that moment that it was a blessing this woman was with my ex. She was clearly very nurturing (she had a young child of her own). She was constantly sending crafts and things home with my kids... pressed flowers, homemade playdoh, etc. I forced my brain to flip the situation upside down. I forced myself to push out the negitive energy and thoughts and replace them with all of the good in the situation. Not only did she do a better job watching my kids than my ex did, but she also helped get me past the hope that my marriage could be saved. Everyone around me seemed to know it was hopeless except me and I seemed to have gotten stuck. Meredith UNSTUCK me.

As time went on, we became close friends and confidents. She emailed me once and said "He is so abusive - how did you handle it?" to which I responded "Isn't it obvious? I divorced him!"

After dating him for 3 years, she finally left him and is now married again to someone else. We still keep in touch to this day.

Week 7 - Constructivism

All I can say is "Wow"! What a great job the ladies did on the Constructivism presentation.

As I watched in class Thursday night, I reflected back to an art project I designed many years ago during my senior year at Montserrat. I designed a poster featuring the leading Russian Constructivist graphic designers. I was always fond of this movement and the art they created.

From Wikipedia:

"Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th century, influencing major trends such as Bauhaus and the De Stijl movement. Its influence was pervasive, with major impacts upon architecture, graphic and industrial design, theatre, film, dance, fashion and to some extent music."

Here's my favorite one, a Russian Constructivist Poster designed by Rodchenko advertising replacement nipples for baby bottles:

The slogan is the best part of all:  "So good, you’ll want to suck ‘em until old age."

Perhaps the most famous of the Soviet Constructivist propaganda posters is this one by El Lissitzky titled "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge":

"The artist constructs a new symbol with his brush. This symbol is not a recognizable form of anything which is already finished, already made, already existing in the world - it is a symbol of a new world, which is being built upon and which exists by way of people." - El Lissitzky

Week 6 - Class Presentation

Our Cognitivism presentation took place March 14th. This was the very first time I facilitated a class and I was both excited and nervous. Our group had little time to prepare for this night and we lost a teammate, to boot! Nonetheless, Judy, Bob, and I managed to meet several nights and pull it together in short order.

In addition to being the first time I facilitated a class - this was also the first time I participated in group work at the post graduate level. There were many challenges, for sure - but I came out of the experience stronger and wiser. I hope to apply some of the lessons I learned as I embark on my group project in Jane's 601 class. :)

Week 5 - Group work underway!

This week has been spent working on our first group project. My team chose Cognitivism and we'll be the first to present next Thursday. We met one night last week and had plans to meet on Thursday, as well, but unfortunately snowed out. But that didn't deter us... we kept in constant contact via email and took charge of the various tasks we delegated to one another. Dan and I developing the content for Piaget and Ausubel while Bob chose to focus on Bruner and Gagne. Judy is spearheading the second hour of the presentation focusing on more modern day theorists as well as the anatomy of the brain. We came up with some great pre-work... several relevant readings, some video, and a few fun activities - with more to come in class! In fact, Dan just posted the pre-work to the wiki... so if you haven't been there yet, I urge you to check it out! Also - I used my graphic skills to develop a custom PowerPoint template. I haven't gotten feedback from the group yet. I hope they like it. :) We hope to meet this Sunday to finalize the presentation and run through it. We're all a little nervous, but very excited to present our project to the class on Thursday. It will be interesting to see how the pre-work goes and the various projects we have planned for class. I think it will be a fun, educational time had by all! 

Week 4 - Ages, Stages, and Intelligence

Class four started out with an interesting activity where the class divided into 3 groups - Gen X, Gen Y, and the Baby Boomers. I fell into the Gen X category, (1965-1980). Collectively, we recorded our thoughts on how we view ourselves vs. how we are viewed by others and then compared notes. For the most part, we were all pretty accurate on our beliefs as to how others view us and, as a rule, both the "how we view ourselves" and "how others view us" lists matched up pretty good... it's fascinating to see how the generations to which we were born influence us. We like to think that we are all unique individuals capable of formulating our own thoughts and opinions - but the fact is we are products of our country, our culture, our class, and our individual generations. All of these influenced and shaped us into who we are today.

I shared my thoughts about the class with a colleague here at work who in turn forwarded me a great PowerPoint presentation titled "Recruiting, Retaining, and Managing a Multigenerational Workforce". It offers a great overview of the generational differences.

Here are some excerpts from the presentation:

Baby Boomer Core Values:

• Open minded and rebellious in their youth
• Conservative in their 30’s and 40’s
• Evolving and will live with a different focus in the later years of their lives
• Buy now—pay later
• Believe employment is "for life"
• Created the concepts of the "Workaholic" and "Superwoman"
• Have rewritten the rules especially in the workplace
• Experienced layoffs and downsizing - have seen the company loyalty standard change
• Divorce Rate Rises—Nuclear Family Declines
• From child care issues to parental care issues

Generation X Core Values:

• Independent—Self Reliant
• Resilient
• Technologically Savvy
• Seek Work-Life Balance
• Sense of Informality
• Sense of Insecurity

Millennial Core Values:

• Confident
• Optimistic
• Respect Diversity
• Sense of Civic Duty
• Group Oriented
• Achievement Oriented
• Structured-Scheduled Lives
• Impatient
• Sense of Morality/Integrity—Conservative Values

If you are interested in seeing the full PowerPoint, please send me an email and I will forward it to you.

Week 3 - Learning Theory

One of our assignments this past week included selecting our top two pics for our Learning Theory Group Assignment. I chose Cognitivism for my first choice and Communities of Practice for my second pick. I chose these two simply because I found I could relate to them. 

Here's a brief description of each:

COGNITIVISM

(Source) Briefly speaking, cognitivism means through interaction and self cognition development to acquire knowledge, and concern what learner know and how to use efficiency way to processing information.

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

(Source) Etienne Wenger summarizes Communities of Practice (CoP) as “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” This learning that takes place is not necessarily intentional. Three components are required in order to be a CoP: (1) the domain, (2) the community, and (3) the practice.

I wonder which theory I'll be assigned to. I almost, intentionally, chose the theory I found the least interesting just to challenge myself. I may still do this... more later.

Graphic Facilitation & Learning Theory

...and now for some musings from Adult as Learner: Class II...

My second class kicked off with a very interesting sidebar conversation with a fellow adult learner (whose name escapes me.) Upon learning of my art background, she suggested that I might make for a wonderful "Graphic Facilitator". 

I had never heard of Graphic Facilitation - so I ran right home and read up on it.

From Wikipedia: "Graphic Facilitation is the use of large scale imagery to lead groups and individuals towards a goal. The method is used in various processes such as meetings, seminars, workshops and conferences. This visual process is conducted by a Graphic Facilitator.

The early field of Graphic Facilitation was named “Explicit Group Memory” by Facilitator Geoff Ball, who “discovered” that a shared picture supported group learning or more importantly – a lasting memory in the group." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphic_facilitation

There are some great examples on the web of the artwork produced by graphic facilitators, such as this:



Adult as Learner

Last Thursday, February 7th, I embarked on my grad school journey at UMASS Boston. My first class, Adult as Learner, proved to be an engaging course replete with a wonderfully diverse group of students and an energetic instructor. The introductions were enjoyable - long live the adjectives!

I am jubilant about my Adult as Learner team at UMASS - and my future as an Instructional Designer!

These last few days I have immersed myself in my studies, eagerly digesting the chapter work on adult learning theory & models, adult development, and intellectual/cognitive development. I also joined my very first wiki and resurrected this long neglected (but nigh forgotten) blog. Stay tuned - more musings to come!

Way Overdue Update

Wow - it has been over 3 years since my last post and so much in my life as changed! First things first:

This designer was hired on March 5, 2012!

and now...

This designer is in Grad School!

Over the coming weeks I'll be repurposing this blog to chronicle my experiences in the Instructional Design Graduate Program at UMASS Boston. Stay tuned!