After going through this week’s readings and looking at some of the terminology, I believe distributed learning involves two main concepts, technology, and collaboration. We have so many ways to access technology today and even more applications and software programs that can be used to communicate our learning but at the end of the day, real people are behind the scenes! ‘Learners should be allowed to construct knowledge, rather than passively receive knowledge through instruction. Constructivists view learning as the result of mental construction where learners learn by integrating new information with what they already know.’ (Hirtz 2008). Collaboration and blogging are ways in which this learning style can be utilized. The junior high schools in my school board are continuing to go away from concept based knowledge teaching and focusing more on how to access information and use that information to make critical thinking decisions. Distributed learning in my opinion, is using technology so that learners can ‘construct knowledge’ in a collaborative way.
*I couldn’t figure out how to upload or link my concept map so enjoy the JPG!
Hi Markku
Your map is so well constructed, thanks for sharing that. I’m going to look at it more closely to see where I could make clearer relationships with mine. I agree that it is more effective to utilize resources to construct our own set of knowledge contextually. I found reading about the various learning theories was interesting, and the distinctions between behaviourist, cognitive and constructivist. Tools and technology along with resource accessibility allow us to construct a knowledge base, as you mention. Moving away from behavioural theory to teach is more effective way to learn.