Connectivism - Reflection on My Learning Network

This weeks blog assignment was to create a mind map of my learning network and then right a reflection on it. Below you will find my mind map.



While creating this mind map, I was very surprised at what mine consisted of. I never thought about my learning network or specific things that help my knowledge grow, but this was definitely a good eye opener. I'm sure that if I would have created one a few years ago it would've been very different considering the Internet didn't have a huge part in my life then. Therefore, one major difference in how I learn is through the Internet. I am able to truly use my kinesthetic learning abilities to try things out on-line and search for the answers on my own, which allows me to grasp the knowledge better. A brand new part of the Internet for me is blogs. I never realized how much information is out there in blogs. Being able to communicate back and forth between a wide range of backgrounds is excellent and broadens my learning network farther than I could imagine. I'm able to post questions on-line now and get many different viewpoints and answers. It's great!

One part of my learning network that I will always count on is "Courses". I like to think of myself as a sponge and the more knowledge about things that will help me in life and my career the better. And for me, the best place to learn new important skills is in some kind of a classroom - whether on-line or in the classroom. I love the interaction with the knowledgeable professor and classmates. Bouncing off ideas of one another is one of the most successful ways I learn.

My learning network supports the central ideas of connectivism, which was one of our topics in class this week. The idea it fits the most is the importance of networks. In our course reading Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching, and Technology, the authors state that "this new viewpoint on learning is the idea that we can no longer personally experience everything there is to experience as we try to learn something new. We must create networks..." (Davis, Edmunds, & Kelly-Bateman 2008). This statement nails my thinking of my network. As much as I take away from personal learning experiences, it isn't possible to experience everything and even if I did, it would only be through my viewpoint. With the network, I am experiencing things but also getting the "out of the box" thinking from my networks such as, courses I take, co-workers, the Internet, etc.

If your in any kind of education field or just want to learn more about your own learning networks, I would highly recommend sitting down and creating a mind map of your own. I used the Webspiration mind map program and it was very user friendly.


Resources

Davis, C., Edmunds, E., & Kelly-Bateman, V. (2008). Connectivism. In M. Orey (ed.), Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching, and Technology. Retrieved December 2009, from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/