Week 1 - What will I learn? Introducing myself.

What will you learn this week? By the end of Week 1, you will be able to:

• identify requirements of the course,
• describe your personal formal and informal learning experiences, and
• reflect on past learning experiences.

When should you complete each learning activity?

• Poll: About You (all)
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• Discussion: Introduce Yourself (we need to have differentiated discussions for non-verified and verified.  All discussions are the same, just need to be able to track each group separately)
  
  • What do you hope to gain from completing this course?
  • I took a learning theories course some time ago as part of my own studies in Online and Distance education so I'm really looking to that this course as a refresher on the basics of learning theory and more specifically as to how they apply or are adapted to online learning. No shortage of material on learning theory in the context of traditional face to face instruction. I'm just hoping to see what changes if any have taken place since I last studied it.
  • What do you know about learning theory prior to taking this course?
  • I'm already familiar with behaviourism (associative), constructivism, even connectivism (George Siemens) 
  • What are two questions you have about learning theory?
  • Key questions about learning theory are 
  • just what precipitates a change in the popularity or common use of a learning theory in one period of time with that of another. For example, typical over reliance on behaviourist approaches because they are easy to measure and assess yet do little for promoting higher order thinking. So there is some push back from others in the form of promoting the application of another theory like constructivism yet the problem here is that it isn't always right for everything either. 
  • another question which is likely to be more provocative .. just how important are learning theories anyways? Isn't the instructional design created in many businesses formulaic because of time and efficiency pressures - thus there is a tendency to use what already works and not to change it (albeit, at some point someone has designed the instruction based on some learning theory)?
• Please post no more than 300-400 words in your initial post. 
• reply to at least two colleagues using questions or adding additional resources to further the discussion.  Please avoid generic feedback, such as “Great work” or “Thanks for sharing this.”  See course syllabus for a description of how to create engaging and constructive feedback posts.
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• Activity 1: Learning Experiences
•  Discuss your previous learning experiences as a foundation for applying learning theories discussed during the course. 
• formal 
• structured learning
• learning about design thinking 
•  informal
• confronted with an issue 
• where to go and not go in Bali? 
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• Activity 2: Preparing for Your Final Portfolio 
  Identify a free web host site to use for your portfolio development during the course.
• Wordpress? 
• Blogger?