Connectivism and Social Learning in Practice

Social Learning comes in so many forms. The ideas of social learning are simple: Students and people learn with and from others. What kind of education would it be if we were unable to learn from others and not help guide each other through the education experience? I think about classrooms where students remain in there desk all day and struggle in uncontrolled situations because they are unable to understand how to work in collaborative groups due to the fact that they are not presented with social learning experiences. I struggle not to have social learning practices in my class because I understand that working together as a class will only benefit my students in the long run and help them to more thoroughly understand the information being presented to me. As a teacher I enjoy siting back during social learning experiences and watching my students achieve that "aha" moment when they achieve something from a peer.

Collaborative learning can be used to guide social learning theory by assisting students in constructing their own meanings of the World around them. By watching other human activity and listening to other peers students are able to construct there own meanings about a topic if they choose to be open minded.

Not one person can tell a teacher what the best learning practice is for students. I believe it depends on the student themselves. It is a teachers job to provide many different learning strategies for students to develop new and meaningful information. What may be meaningful to one student may not be meaningful to another. Using the strategies that are presented this week will allow our students to become part of the 21st century. They will be equip with tools that will make them successful in the years to come. As stated by Marzano "Cooperative learning is not so much learning to cooperate as it is cooperating to learn."

I struggle with technology day in and day out in my classroom. As I have stated before so many parents are afraid of the unknown (technology) and in turn veer away from the subject when it comes to there students and school technology. I struggle because in the small town in which I teach about 1/3 of my students have high speed Internet at there home and about 1/2 have working computers. For cooperative social learning to take place I would have my students great GMail accounts so they would be able to use the beneficial tools Google has to offer. I would have them upload assignments to google docs, I could scan in activities and have them complete them at home or online, I could use the calendar feature for assignments, plan book and tests (this would also help when students are absent) and so many more features. Our school district is so tight on our paper budget this would cut it down more than half. I look forward to the social learning experiences I have through my masters class and I look forward to helping my students appreciate social learning experiences and meaningful technology practices.