Learning Mind Map

http://mywebspiration.com/view/494806a1679f

My Learning Network Resource Map outline

• People

• Family

• Colleagues

• Friends

• Sounding Boards and fellow learners

• Common Sense Gurus

• Experts

• Educators

• Producers of theories and discourse

• e.g. Vygotsky

• Authors and Content Producers

• e.g. Laureate Education, Inc., Dr. Jean Ormrod

• Also fiction like Ursula LeGuin and Terry Pratchett

• Researchers

• e.g. Piaget, Siemens

• Students (reflection)

• Seminars (temporary learning communities)

• e.g. CTAP on the Road, webinars, PD conferences like AVID

• Preservers and Agitators of a Common Culture/Environment

• Myself

• Experiences

• Loosing my first tooth

• Getting along with mom

• Dad's death

• Life...

• Previous Knowledge

• My Brain (that is conditioned and primed to learn, makes connections between prior knowledge and metaphors and models) and my "habits" that make me an expert learner:)

• Reflection

• Identitiy as a Learner

• Culture

• Conforming/preserving

• Resisting/critiqueing

• Technology

• Basic

• phones (connect to other people)

• emails

• TV/Movies

• e.g. documentaries, characterizing fictional accounts of life like Boston Public

• Cameras

• Computer

• Programs

• e.g. Adobe, Microsoft Word

• Content Producers

• Publishers

• e.g. Writer's Inc.

• Youtube, teacher tube, forum for experts and others to publish materials

• Internet

• Google!

• email, search engines, web 2.0

• Blogs, RSS Readers

• e.g. http://www.connectivism.ca/

• online courses

• e.g. Walden, Phoenix, Capella

• collaboration tools and sites like wikis

The Brain and Learning

This week has been fascinating in terms of learning how learning works from the inside. I found a really interesting site that posts news and video segments that center around the brain and learning that I thought might be interesting for my classmates: http://brainandlearning.blogspot.com/ The segment about how we are easily swayed to think alike is worth the few minutes to watch.

Shirelle Stadel (http://aaaclub-learningfromeachother.blogspot.com/) suggested two fantastic sites that I found useful as well: http://blog.cathy-moore.com/ and http://www.iddblog.org/?p=475. These sites offered practical applications for the interesting information we are learning. I suppose, to use this week's jargon, that the sites are helping me to encode the learning in a variety of ways to make retrieval easier.

Practicing, still not perfect

This is my very first blog - an assignment from an elearning course. I can see that I need a little more practice with this stuff. Fortunately, I had a gmail account already, and love Google just a little more. Here goes:

ELearning Curve Blog, I'll admit, seemed to be written for this assignment. I loved hte title, and the homepage has a graphic organizer for the learning theories and pedagogies we've learned this week. I was especially interested in the analysis of formal vs non-formal learning, and was impressed that Michael Hanley was looking at solutions to the problems presented instead of just harping on the inadequacies - as so many of the site I reviewed seemed to be doing.

After browsing for a LOT longer than I would have thought, I found a blog that was linked with EDSITE, a site I am familiar with when one of my colleagues let me use her computer and the page was still up. It has tons of info on the humanities (on practically ever subject I've ever cared to search) so a blog about it seemed a natural fit for me. 21st Century Educational Technology and Learning is also interested in social networking for teachers around the world to open up our collaborative powers. This site also had a link to ISTE, or International Society for Technology in Education so I also subscribed to their daily news feed for their reports on technology in the classroom. Along with the Daily Bell from NEA, I have plenty of reading to do!

I think the biggest challenge in the elearning atmosphere is going to be staying abreast of the changes in technology. These sites, I noticed, provide readers and subscribers with both philosophical opinions as well as updates on what is changing and developing. CTAP, or California Technology Assistance Project, has been a standby for me on some of the most user-friendly instruction in using technology in the classroom as well. It's not exactly one I had to research for this assignment, but I've always enjoyed their seminars and conferences.