In George Siemens article Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age he states “Personal knowledge is comprised of a network, which feeds into organizations and institutions, which in turn feed back into the network, and then continue to provide learning to individual.” If I were to restate this proclamation in an analogy; I could say today’s learner is like an ant. In that an ants travels from here to there in hopes of gathering scraps of food. Today's learners hop from resource to resource hoping to gain pieces of information. Ants take the food back to the nest to feed the community, today’s learner processes information in hopes of turning it into knowledge. The work of one ant helps feed the community, the network of many learners feeds the individual learner.People are social beings, we like to communicate. Siemens in his video The Impact of Social Media on Learning states “our language gives birth to thoughts, and content is the conduit toward conversation” (The link below will allow you to watch the video if you'd like). The way in which we learn today is hugely different for the way our parents and grandparents learned. Knowledge in the 21st century is all about networking.
I joined the social network school20.ning. partially because it was a homework assignment but mostly because it looks like a great way to interact, gain information, and have conversation with fellow teachers. School 2.0 goes beyond the practical discussion of applying the read/write and collaborative Web technologies in the classroom. It is, instead, a larger discussions of how education, learning, and our physical school spaces can (or should) change because of the changing nature of our social and economic lives brought on by these technologies.
If your not sure what social networking is all about check out this video created by Chris Pirillo it does a great job explaining how we can use the experiences and wisdom of others to help us gain knowledge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp4UfBK5Zw8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grI_h88vs3g&feature=PlayList&p=3E43054A8703F57A&index=3
