Learning | It's About Learning

Connecting the dots vs collecting the dots

Dwayne Harapnuik — April 15, 2014 — 3 Comments

The difference between an expert and a novice is that an expert has a fully developed conceptional framework and a novice not only has a minimally developed conceptional framework they may even have some of the concepts wrong and not fully understand all the connections. If we understand that learning is the making of meaningful connections then role of the expert teacher is to provide the context for learning which means they may provide the broad conceptual framework and also create the environment where the learner can start to make the meaningful connections between those concepts. Ultimately the expert mentors the novice in building their conceptual frame work. If you consider the above graphic this notion can be simplified as the process of connecting the dots.

For the past several weeks I have been considering and exploring the best way to convey this idea so when I read Seth Godin’s post Connecting dots (or collecting dots) this morning I was immediately struck by the elegance and the simplicity of his argument. I copied and shared the entire post because it deserves repeating:

Without a doubt, the ability to connect the dots is rare, prized and valuable. Connecting dots, solving the problem that hasn’t been solved before, seeing the pattern before it is made obvious, is more essential than ever before.

Why then, do we spend so much time collecting dots instead? More facts, more tests, more need for data, even when we have no clue (and no practice) in doing anything with it.

Their big bag of dots isn’t worth nearly as much as your handful of insight, is it?

The teachers role is then to help the learner to connect the dots not to simply collect the dots. Enough said!

In Learning, Meaningful Connections Conceptual, conceptual framework, expert, framework, mentor, novice

Can You Solve This?

Dwayne Harapnuik — March 19, 2014 — Leave a comment

In Learning Innovation, patterns, proof, truth

Most popular books of all time

Dwayne Harapnuik — March 14, 2014 — Leave a comment

Source: Visual.ly
Designed by Datadial for Lovereading.co.uk

In Learning books, classics, popular

If you don’t have a 21st century infrastructure you won’t have 21century learning

Dwayne Harapnuik — March 13, 2014 — Leave a comment

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-beta/five-ways-21st-and-20th-century-learning-will-differ

Five Ways that 21st and 20th Century Learning Will Differ | Inside Higher Ed via kwout

In the Higher Education blog post Five Ways that 21st and 20th Century Learning Will Differ Steve Mintz, the Executive Director of the University of Texas System’s Institute for Transformational Learning and a Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin, points to the 5 ways teaching and learning in the early 21st century differ from its 20th century.

There is a fundamental presupposition that Mintz did not mention and is essential in realizing the predictions that he has offered. A 21st-century education requires the use of 21st-century tools and infrastructure. The reason he didn’t mention this was that he didn’t need to—21st-century tools and infrastructure are foundational to most institutions in Texas.

Having taught and spent time as an administrator in the Texas Higher Education system I need to point out that the University of Texas (UT) system adopted the Google Apps for Education in various locations as early as 2009 and fully by 2011. Abilene Christian University (ACU), the institution that I worked at, is outside the UT system and it adopted Google Apps for Education in 2007 as did many other colleges and universities across the US. It was this cloud based infrastructure that made it possible for ACU to implement its mobile learning strategy in 2008. By 2010 all ACU students and 95% of faculty and staff had and used an iPhone in the learning environment and by 2011 when the iPad came out that fall nearly 60% of the institutions students adopted the tablet as well. Mobile learning at ACU and all that comes with this initiative was built on a foundation of 21st century cloud based technology.

ACU faculty, students, staff and administrators have a 7 year head start on using 21st-century tools. UT students have 3-4 year head start on BCIT students. Eastern Canadian institutions like Lakehead University adopted Google Apps for education in 2008 which means their students, faculty and staff have a 6 year head start on BCIT. We are seeing a move in K-12 in this province to the cloud through Microsoft’s 365 platform so in the next few years we will have new students coming to BCIT who have this experience. This time frame on the head start assumes BCIT will be moving to a 21st-century cloud based infrastructure soon, but this is unlikely given the privacy paranoia that is preventing our move forward. Building our “own cloud” really doesn’t help because as good as simulations are nothing compares to working with and in the authentic environment.

The bottom line is that in the global marketplace in which we live not using 21st-century tools puts BCIT students, faculty and staff at a huge disadvantage.

In 21st century learning cloud, Google Apps, microsoft 365