Connected Learning Reflections

My network has not only changed what I learn on a daily basis; it has totally revolutionized the process by which I learn as well as who I learn from. It wasn’t all that long ago that I relied on a daily newspaper subscription to inform me of what’s going on in the world around me. However, these days, I no longer bother paying for a newspaper subscription. In this sense, I am definitely not unique. The print newspaper industry has taken a major hit over the last few years with the continued mainstream acceptance of information technology. In a sense, this is unfortunate. Reading online is not the same as reading print. A print newspaper or journal provides more of a realistic chance to gain a deeper knowledge of a given subject. Conversely, modern networks make it easy to become informed on a wider range of topics. This is great in that technology provides us access and connections to on an infinite number of topics whenever we need it. However, the fact that we have access to so much information may cause some of us to skim past the details, which prevents us from becoming deeply informed on any given topic.

The tool I most commonly refer to when seeking new information is Wikipedia. As someone who has spent the last 12 years working in education, I am keenly aware of how controversial Wikipedia has become. To most academicians, Wikipedia is not a legitimate source of information. When it comes to citing sources to support claims, it's hard to argue with the point they are making. For better or worse, it is an encyclopedia built on a daily basis by anyone who wishes to contribute. That being the case, the tool has to be used wisely. If I were writing a paper for a class or even posting to a discussion board, I would never directly cite Wikipedia to support an argument I was making. However, there are ways (both academically and personally) to credibly use Wikipedia. Generally speaking, those are:

• to quickly find foundational information about a topic, person, theory, etc.
• to look for credible articles and web sites to support and build upon that foundational information that are linked directly from the topic's entry

This is especially useful to someone who doesn't have access to a rich online library like students at Walden University do. The benefits of Walden's online library are immense. The writers, publications, and research that I have access to as a result of my being enrolled at Walden surpasses what Wikipedia can provide. However, a couple of years from now, I imagine I'll no longer have access to this library, which will cause my Wikipedia usage to up.

Assuming the sources I have mentioned will never be able to provide all of the answers I'm looking for, there will, by default, be times when I am left with questions. In those situations, the nature of my question will dictate how I go about gaining the knowledge I seek. If it's an academic issue, I'll likely exhaust all of the online resources I have access to before I ask an instructor for guidance. At that point, I wouldn't necessarily expect my instructor to provide "the answer" (if a simple answer exists). Instead, I would expect them to guide me in the right direction to find the answer I am looking for. For matters of a more personal nature (namely sports and politics), there are a few key sites I access on a regular basis as well as a few key blogs that I access. Blogs generally provide a good opportunity to interact with others who have interests in similar topics, whether it be the blog author or knowledgeable visitors of the blog. There have been a few times where I've posted questions to blogs and received meaningful feedback from individuals I have never seen or met.

My personal learning network generally supports the central tenets of connectivism. The very first thing I do after waking up on a daily basis is sit down at my computer and log on to the core web sites that I access and read on a regular basis. This includes blogs, social networks, e-mail, and IM tools. Each of these provide me with a chance to acquire information from others, share information with others, ask questions, answer questions, let people know how I'm doing, etc. Again, this is generally the first thing I do every single day of the week. In that sense, I think it's pretty clear how the connectivist world has had an impact on me. All of these tools/sites that I now access on a daily basis were not available even as little as a few years ago. To that end, it's pretty amazing how technology has totally changed the way people like me interact with the world around us.