I found this week’s assignment to be quite interesting. Bonk’s book The World is Open is easy to read and the author incorporates personal experience into the book. Our discussion forum this week (in a chat room) discussed the three trends for the concept of WE-ALL-LEARN. The chat room itself was a little frustrating but the conversation was enlightening. The moderator did a good job of asking questions and keeping us on track. The three trends we discussed were pipes, pages and, participatory learning culture (Bonk, 2009). In our discussion we talked about each of these trends individually.
The pipes are the internet access availability and the portability of this access. I-phones, I-pads and laptops make this a very portable, easily accessible access to an infinite amount of learning.
The pages are the content or resources available to us to access. All the virtual learning communities that we can choose to actively participate in or become a lurker that learns from the periphery.
The participatory learning culture is basically you can I. We are the culture that keeps this going. We access it, we expect it to help us and, we collaborate with others to improve it so we can share knowledge and information (Bonk, 2009).
The concept these three trends represent are WE-ALL-LEARN (Bonk, 2009). WE-ALL-LEARN is an acronym that represents “ten learning technology trends across the planet that are opening access to both formal and informal education” (Bonk 2009). The ten openers are as follows:
“1. Web searching in e-books
2. E-learning
3. Availability of open source and free software
4. Leveraged resources and open course ware
5. Learning object repositories and portals
6. Electronic collaboration and interaction
7. Alternative reality learning
8. Real-time mobility and portability
9. Networks of personalized learning” (Bonk 2009).
This concept represents a learning culture that is rapidly changing and opens up education to everyone all over the world. I think it is exciting to be a part of a culture that has the capability to get on-line, access a virtual learning community and, exchange information with someone on the other side of the world.
Suzanne, great posting and I like how you've listed the ten openers from Bonk. The book and the power-point by Bonk really opens our eyes to the potential for learning and the global aspect of on-line learning. The power-point states Rwanda has some 40,000 new subscribers per week to mobile technology which will open it up to free learning since learning is now crossing over to our phones. I find it all mind blowing and amazing. I also think I'll check out some to the websites listed to see if they are as neat as they look!
ReplyDeleteYou did a wonderful job of putting all of this in an easy to understand format. Thanks for sharing.
I like the way you presented the trends and openers. The examples you used made the trends easy to understand. Phyllis mentioned the amount of subscribers added weekly and the ease of access available to us, the participants.
ReplyDeleteGreat job Suzanne :-).
The simpleness of the trends outlined makes the progression of learning easy to visualize for the future. It seems as if the importance of participation is not emphasized or discussed in the trends. I feel it is the collecting of individuals and their thoughts that is the greatest advantage of the Internet, and it is not mentioned in the trends. Am I missing soemthing??