This is my response to reading the article:
Connectivism:
A Learning Theory for the Digital Age
George Siemens
http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/article01.htm
Before the digital age, pretty much any knowledge that we obtained was done in the traditional classroom setting. The teacher stood in front of a class of students and lectured for half an hour or more. We had boring textbooks to read. Subjects like history, usually gave us only the dry facts. The only output of our knowledge was taking tests or writing compositions. What we learned in those twelve years of school, our college years, etc. were expected to get us sufficiently though the rest of our life. If we wanted to learn anything outside of the realm of the classroom, we were pretty much limited to looking in library reference books: encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc.
With the advent of technological sources, our world has opened wide-up! We are finding the information in an online format...web sites, journals, communicating with experts online, etc. This is all done pretty much instantaneously. Now instead of just reading one page about the Revolutionary War, we can go online and find all sorts of "behind the scenes" information available in all sorts of formats.
For me personally, I am pushing the Connectivism Theory for educational use, because it makes the students more aware of what all the Internet can provide for them now and later on in life. They need to know that learning a subject doesn't stop the day you finish a class or the day you graduate. Students should be aware of the resources they have at their fingertips to keep expanding their knowledge. We need to teach the students how to be life-long learners.
For example: I am not able to retain everything I've ever read or learned in the classroom or had the time to learn things I want to know or need to know. But, as long as I KNOW WHERE TO FIND IT....if someone in my network is able to help me out...it is a resource of learning or refreshing my knowledge, then I can use that info to reach out to others.
When Nina and I recently went down to Panama City Beach, we followed Google Map's suggestion and took Hwy. 91 south. About 20 miles south of Albany is a field designated for "Re-enactment" exercises and demonstrations! We were going too fast to catch all of the sign, and we didn't come home that way, but the gist of it seemed to suggest that it had been set aside for some time for this regular activity. This memory came to mind as I was reading your comments on researching the Revolutionary War. An on-site visit, enhanced by students keeping notes/video about their day would go a long way to making this distant subject real for them.
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