Learning in the Network Age - Week 1 Summary

1. Understanding learning theories (which have a big influence on how we learn and how our education is structured)

The Web, social media and smartphones have led to a blurring of the boundaries between the formal and informal, the professional and the personal situations of learning. That's why we need to assess the relevance of these different learning theories to teaching and learning in the network age.

Behaviouralism (with instructional teaching approach) is best suited to topics where there are ‘right and wrong’ answers and for people with extremely good memories. A teacher acts as an expert.

Cognitive constructivism suggests that actively discovering new information by individually doing things will lead to the construction of knowledge inside our brain. This approac is known as Experiential and the teacher acts as a guide, not as ‘the expert’. This approach is dependent on the existing knowledge of the learner (their current mental maps), which cannot always be considered equal. The learner also needs high levels of self-motivation and good self-reflection skills.

Social Constructivism suggests that learning is fundamentally a social activity. With someone (a teacher) to start the discussions off in the right direction and provide guidance along the way, small groups or communities of people situated in similar contexts, motivated to work together on a challenging, yet achievable, task, and with plenty of time for discussion, will learn most effectively (Collaboratie Peer Learning). But! existing motivations, skills and knowledge within the group are unlikely to be equal.

Connectivism sees knowledge as distributed across a network of connections - networks where

humans, technologies, actions and social relationships act continuously together to create and distribute knowledge. Knowledge, in all its forms, emerges from our interactions with our connections. This includes our interactions with technology and non-human information resources.

It sees learning not as dependent on a specific place, person(s), or time, but as an unlimited action across a distributed network (Networked Learning). The teacher acts as a guide and advisor in how to build, manage and activate our learning networks in an appropriate and effective manner. They also try to minimise the effects of our digital differences by helping us to develop our digital literacies at every stage of the learning journey. This learning approach is dependent on the opportunity to access, grow, develop and use our networks of connections, and again, not all our networks are equal.

Although there is no single ‘right’ way to learn, there is a role for the individual, technology and society in teaching and learning.

2. Digital differences do exist and must be taken into consideration. 

Our online practices are linked to our offline contexts and our Web use is shaped by the nature of our individual lives as they reflect aspects of class, gender, race, age, …. and so on.

These differences are expressed in our different Personal Learning Networks (PLN). There is no single, right way to interact with the Web for learning purposes, we each have our own ways.Therefore, it is important that how and what we learn minimises the effects of our digital differences and maximises the impact of our learning networks - in the ways which suit us best.

Learning through our PLN is something we can do throughout our lives – it becomes a tool for Lifelong Learning. In the modern fast-changing world we need to develop the network skills and digital literacies which will empower us to become flexible lifelong learners, to make sure that we are fully equipped to deal with whatever the future throws at us.