how connected learning can be a motivating factor in human development

Shelly Blake-Plock in a recent Ed Tech article on "What Will Education Look Like in 2020?" makes the following statement, "In the digital age, technology is the access point to relevance. It’s no longer simply a device — a piece of software or a cool gadget. We used to be scared of how technology might isolate us. Now, schools worry about the ways it connects us. The reason that so many schools are struggling with the change technology represents is because they haven’t adjusted to this shift, to the emergence of participatory, user-driven technologies and social media as viable communicative and collaborative tools. This shift has united leaders and followers, friends and strangers. It’s also created a new age of instant sharing and automatic ¬access that traditional institutions never could, one in which a billion citizen journalists are literally changing the course of human events."

When Bernadette Adam Yates was asked the question of what she believes might be obsolete in the year 2020 her response was simply, "Walls around the classroom." Bernadette Adams a senior research analyst, who works at the Office of Education Technology at the Department of Education states that “We’re moving towards students being able to create their own learning environments. It would be great for them to be able to put together their own learning path. So what does that statement entail. What does she mean by Classrooms without Walls? What is meant by students creating their own learning environments.

For students to gain an edge on employability, schools will need to model, design and simulate co-creative learning environments. These are the learning environments that promote web found knowledge that use information as a source to skill development. These are the future networks in "Creating the Classrooms without Walls," where students participate in a universal learning experience, utilizing mobile tools to continually access and create multidimensional patterns of explanations of the world around them.

1. Do students ever discuss content with peers and how often do they discuss topics outside of the classroom?
2. Is the classroom an exciting intellectual environment where topics are mirrored?
3. How does the classroom allow for students to make additional connections so that the student can be further immersed in using and exploring information and understanding of concepts outside of the classroom environment?
4. Is the content of schooling compartmentalized and separated from cross curriculum unit development and technology-based project learning strategies.?

Tabula rasa is a Latin term for blank slate. The epistemological thesis behind this term is that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Let’s take a look at the picture in front of us slide. What do you see? Notice there is a surface. The surface is green. Most of us would say that this looks like a chalk board, or maybe even a blank slate. True there is nothing on the slate. So what is the point. The point is made in content. We do not have any content. Nothing to relate too. Nothing to talk about, except wait, we are talking about something. It is a moment in time where we are begging to create something from nothing. Now how do we do this? We do it by simply placing some content on the board. Now let's take a look at the next picture.

In the picture we have some content. But instead of having content in the form of information we are given an interrogative. The interrogative just simply states "What is Connected Learning?" Now in the most Socratic way we are looking for a definition. In this sense someone who is a part of this dialogue will now need to add some content. Something that can be said, written, imaged or read. So let me share some content with you from what I have learned to be a close definition of connected learning. An explanation of premise.  In other words how connected learning might be some deep rooted cause. A way of looking at an idea from a different perspective, reasoning, or a basis on how something is stated which is followed by reasoning.

Connected learning is established on the premise that  that learning is ongoing and looks for the provision of  web found knowledge built on networking tools that support extended learning opportunities through the emersion of content. Content that is student curated and created. According to Connected Learning a non-profit research organization that nurtures exploration of—and builds evidence around—the impact of digital media on young people's states that Connected Learning is "real-world. It’s social. It’s hands-on. It’s active. It’s networked. It’s personal. "

To expand this thought of learning and how connected learning can be a motivating factor in human development would be to explore Lakhani and Wolf's work in intrinsic motivation. Lakhani and Wolf discovered, out of 684 surveys, "that enjoyment-based intrinsic motivation is the strongest and most pervasive drive for learning." To further expand the idea of the importance of connected learning Don Tapscott in "growing up digital ask questions that are developed for response to student center connected learning are as follows:


All of the above questions illustrate other aspects of experience in which a student is immersed in student centered connected classrooms. Classrooms without Walls. In these connected classrooms students are given an opportunity to grasp larger patterns. To experience the parts of knowledge and how knowledge is always embedded in wholes. To explore how facts are always embedded in multiple contexts, and a subject is always related to many other issues and content. These are the classrooms without walls. Where knowledge is connected to multiple content. Where resources of web found knowledge is brought together in a social network of shared co-collaborative learning experiences.