In the wake of my last post I’ve starting thinking about the broad topic of virtual worlds and gaming and my attitude towards them. As surprising as it may sound, I’ve always looked at the topic of learning through virtual worlds and MMORPGs like World of Warcraft with a fair degree of skeptical interest.
These sorts of enviroments are a fascinating phenomenon to me, not necessarily from the standpoint of the environments themselves, or the experiences they help facilitate, but with the degree of engagement, dedication and time investment that people …

My last few posts (Part One, Part Two, and Part Three) have devoted considerable attention to outlining what I see as a viable  (or at least potential) integrated model for online learning and sharing of materials that incorporates a web of distributed, publicly-visible learning systems.
Certainly this model isn’t an original idea of mine.  It is well and truly established in the open web already, with many educators, courses, and even cohorts of students taking to the Internet to engage and participate in an open fashion.  My point in exploring this …

Several colleagues and I got into a discussion recently about learning styles, learning networks and their implications for use of technology, and it got me to thinking about my personal experiences, which I thought I might explore, document and share here.
Contemplation, Reflection, Blogging
Contemplation and reflection play a tremendous role in the way I approached learning, and blogs for me are a key way through which I reflect and contemplate.  The act of sharing these reflections publicly serves to help me focus my attention.  Somehow the idea that my thoughts will …

[Image: cc licensed flickr photo shared by Izzard]
A comment Sinikka left this morning on my last post has really lead me to thinking. She comments that her experiences with fostering self-direction amongst students have been challenging in some respects, as there seems to be a lack of understanding or comfort with what self-directed learning is and how you actually pursue it. Moreover she points out that the nature of classroom structures, and the many-to-few ratio of students versus teachers, makes it quite difficult to give each individual sufficient attention …

Cole Camplese is one of my favourite bloggers. Despite the fact I rarely comment on his posts (which is a habit I really should change), I find myself constantly challenged and inspired by the topics he writes about. One of the key reasons for this, I think, is he consciously and actively reflects on his own writing, his motives for doing so, and the trends and themes he recognises in the evolution of an idea (often times across several posts). He constantly demonstrates and models critical thinking …