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About
Myself I'm enamored
with the I have been active in corporate and higher education for over a decade. Over the last seven years, my focus has primarily been on technology and learning. During that time, I have been actively consulting with corporations, government offices, learning associations, and NGOs. I have presented at various national and international conferences, on topics which include: the role of new media in learning, blogs and social technology, elearning in vocational education, streaming media, and connectivism. For more information, please visit my presentations page. If you would like me to present at your conference or event, or are interested in consultation services, please email me. While I informally publish most of my thoughts and articles on the elearnspace site (visit my articles page, elearnspace blog, and connectivism blog) my work has been published in several referred journals, and I have contributed chapters to several texts. I've also been interviewed by numerous organizations and publications. These include: Future
of FLOSSE: Interview with George Siemens If you are interested in information on my publications, texts, presentations, or interviews, please email me. My most popular articles on this site include: Connectivism, Learning Development Model, Learning Ecologies, Communities, and Networks, Learning as Network Creation, and The Art of Blogging (Part 1 and Part 2). My current research interests include:
Why
elearnspace? Significant changes in most institutions will not come about as a result of a multi-million dollar project. Most organizations will transform slowly, probably driven by a small group of dedicated, committed staff. If I offer any service with this site, it is to assist this group. In my opinion, this is the group that will truly integrate learning and technology, not monolithic projects. Much of my work over the last six years has centered on the role of the individual in transforming organizations. This has resulted in a strong belief in the value of blogs, wikis, and personal learning networks. I use the term of "connected specialization" to represent the importance of connecting specialized nodes in the process of network forming. I'm a strong advocate of the value of diverse, even contradictory, knowledge sources in personal effectiveness and decision making. While taking my masters in distributed learning, I was surprised at how much the structure of formal education was at odds with how I had been learning. When I was in the workforce, most of my learning was a by-product of other activities - learning was rarely an explicitly-focused task, and never without a higher aim. Learning was "messy", chaotic, social, collaborative, and connected with other activities and interests. Formal education, in contrast, was artificial and structured. The experience, however, was valuable in providing a space for self-evaluation and reflection. Most importantly, I've realized that certain learning challenges, by their nature, require formal, structured processes, while others require more fluid, informal approaches. The nature of each intended learning experience should drive the selection of tools and processes. Rather than outright dismissing theories and techniques which have served the learning field well for centuries, we need to retain their value for appropriate tasks. No one concept or theory is universal in its application. April 14, 2006 |
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