[Disclosure: My family and I are part of the homeschooling community.]
A combination of a fairly feisty state of mind and George Siemen’s latest post on his Connectivism blog titled “Technologically Externalized Knowledge and Learning” has got me seriously riled up tonight – not at George mind you, but at the state of education as we know it.
In setting the scene for a discussion on “finding a cure for stale ideologies,” George discusses some of the issues with traditional views on learning, as well as some of the shortcomings of those …

I’ll start this by saying I’m going to sound like a broken record, but for some reason reading the Times Online’s post on “‘Self-learners’ creating university of online” (hat tip to @lisaharris) has got me feeling really irate.
The article discusses the notion of open educational resources (OERs), and the increasing trend for many universities to open up their content to the public, share their lectures, curricula, syllabi, reading lists and other course related materials.  It continues to discuss how people are beginning to reference these resources, and use them either …

This is just a quick post to jot down an interesting string of connections that Maddie (4 years old) and I just engaged in, which began with music on the radio and ultimately ended with a discussion on the sociology of the 1920s.
To me the moral of the story is to watch for learning opportunities in connections and don’t be afraid to explore them, no matter how obscure their connectedness may appear.
There were a number of YouTube clips that we watched, but this one in particular inspired the most discussion:

The …

I just finished reading Barry Wellman’s article on “Little Boxes, Glocalization, and Networked Individualism” and have a thought I’d like to explore with respect to parallels between the article and change conflicts in education.
Background on Concepts
In the paper, Wellman discusses the evolving nature of relationships and interactivity from little boxes, through Glocalization to Networked Individualism.
Little Boxes, Wellman, argues, are characterised by conditions where individuals are constrained by geography and minimal or no opportunities for transportation or communication, and as such are “socially and cognitively encapsulated by homogeneous, broadly-embracing groups.” …

Once again this year I’ve informally enrolled in two open online courses – Connectivism and Connective Knowledge ‘09 (CCK09), and Social Media and Open Education (ECI831). Having done this I’ve begun to see a number of people posting clips to YouTube in which they introduce themselves and share a little bit about their professional background, personal learning objectives, and what they hope to get out of the course. I think this is a really great idea, so I thought I’d throw my hat into the ring.
Having said all …