For this week’s reflection, I decided to write about the theory of connectivism. Before this course, I had never heard of this before. After reading the 2020 chapter “Connectivism” from 25 Years of Edtech, I was struck by the explanation of connectivism in practice. In the book, it is stated that connectivism “is characterized by four major types of activity: aggregation, in which learners access and curate a wide range of resources; relation, in which learners are encouraged to relate content to their earlier experiences; creation, in which learners are encouraged to create an artifact of their own, such as a blog post, using tools of their choosing; and sharing, in which learners share their work with others in the network.” Immediately what came to mind was our blog post assignment. Each week, I pull together what Iāve learned from the readings and class discussions (aggregation), connect it to my own life or experiences (relation), write a blog post (creation), and then post it for others to read (sharing).
This made me realize that Iāve actually been engaging in connectivist learning all along, without even knowing it. I always thought of these blog posts as a personal reflection task, but I can now see that they also function as part of a broader networked learning process. The act of writing and sharing these posts isnāt just about summarizing what Iāve learned, itās also about making connections, building meaning, and contributing to a shared learning space with my peers.
Understanding connectivism has also helped me see the value in less traditional, more open-ended assignments. At first, I was definitely not a fan of the lack of a rigid structure in our blog tasks, and the assignment felt a little unclear to me. Although I still prefer assignments with a little bit more structure and a little bit less freedom, I can definitely appreciate the benefit of being given the freedom to reflect in a way thatās meaningful to me, and write about what I want to write about. As a future educator, I can absolutely see the benefits of encouraging students to create and share their own work in ways that allow for personal connections and collaboration, and I will try to provide as many opportunities for them to do this as I can!
References
Weller, M. (2020). āChapter 17 ā 2010 Connectivism.ā 25 Years of Edtech. AU Press.Ā https://read.aupress.ca/read/25-years-of-ed-tech/section/198057f5-1a3e-4436-a4b8-c6e1a3e0bd69#ch17
estoynova
June 25, 2025 — 3:03 pm
Hi Anna!
I enjoyed reading your take on the connectivism education strategy, especially how you related the concept to the blog post assignment in our EDCI 339 class. I agree with your point that sometimes having so much freedom in a project can actually make it feel more difficult to complete. Having structure is great for ensuring your work is meeting requirements but it can, in turn, limit creativity and ideation. Perhaps you relate but growing up, from kindergarten to grade 12 almost all of my assignments were very structured. As such, I am not used to being given so much freedom in my work. There is, however, value in both educational approaches, as you mentioned.
Iām excited to hear that you will be taking some of the learnings from this course into your journey as an educator, I have developed a similar sentiment as I go on to pursue my masterās degree. I think there is plenty of value in being able to challenge your learning style and finding value in all methodologies, even if they arenāt your first choice.
In a previous blog post response, I came across a resource I think you might also be interested in. It is by the University of Michigan, and itās called āTeaching Strategiesā. It looks at how you can incorporate more āmodernā teaching approaches as opposed to the traditional ālecture and listenā approach in the classroom. Here is the link: https://crlt.umich.edu/resources/teaching-strategies
Thank you again for your post, I appreciate your valuable insights š