Am putting the final touches on my presentation for the elearningguild on cloud learning. My talk examines the impact of MOOCs on corporate and higher education. But, it's also a primer on connectivism and where it comes from.
The more I think about the roots of connectivism, the more I think that it's a big mashup of communities of practice and self-directed learning. Others may have believed that there is a stronger basis in Activity Theory. I can see that only as it relates to how Wenger developed CoP. All of the strengths of using connectivism seem to have a firm basis in self-directed learning. Rita Kop had it right. Why did I ignore it the first time that I read her work.
Hi Christin, some musings of mine: Informal learning is about being self-directed/guided. The problem is that that doesn't help very much. If self-directedness means 'you as a learner figure it out yourself out how to study most effectively and most efficiently' then educationalists have forsaken their call, which is to help learners be more effective and efficient in their studies. The traditional (formal) answer is instructional design, lay out tasks, sequence them, organize collaboration. The problem is that there are many circumstances in which ID is not an option. So then the question remains, how to help learners who want to learn informally. Or put differently, how to unpack self-directedness so that learners still can receive some help in being effective and efficient learners. Personal learning networks is part of that answer, social media is, but I am afraid we're only starting to scratch at the surface of answering this question (and activity theory is not gonna help). More (but no answers) on this in my blog at http://pbsloep.blogspot.nl/
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