If “connectivism” as a learning theory is new to your eyes, MOOCs are probably not. Though most of the attention trained on MOOCs in the last two years have been focused on the x-brand (Coursera, Udacity, edX), cMOOCs, or connectivist MOOCs were the original flavor. Beginning in 2008 with the course “Connectivism and Connected Knowledge,” Stephen Downes and George Siemens began experimenting with what Siemens has called “a learning theory for the digital age.” I’ve followed Downes’s and Siemens’s work along with the work of Dave Cormier (who coined the term “MOOC”) and Bonnie Stewart, and it’s had a strong influence on my professional development.
More specifically, I’ve been adapting connectivist learning methods into my composition classes at Southern Polytechnic State University. I’d like to briefly introduce some of the principles of connectivist learning/teaching practice, demonstrate some examples of from my classes, and open a larger discussion about the pedagogical implications of connectivist principles to other disciplines. My sense, echoed in Stewart’s “Massiveness + Openness = New Literacies of Participation?”, is that connected learning experiments foreground digital literacies that benefit teachers’ and students’ research, publishing, and collaborative endeavors.
