Future of Higher Education and Teaching and Learning

In this podcast we feature a conversation between George Siemens, Associate Director of the Learning Technologies Centre at the University of Manitoba. and Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University It was recorded at the ELI 2008 Annual Meeting.

Michael Wesch presented a session entitled, "Human Futures for Technology and Education" at the ELI 2008 Annual Meeting. He also produced a video, which is referenced in this conversation, entitled "The Machine is Us/ing Us".

George Siemens presented a session entitled, "Connectivism" at the ELI 2008 Annual Meeting.

Video and slides for this presentation can be found here. The speech is by George Siemens, Associate Director of the Learning Technologies Centre at the University of Manitoba. This plenary session is entitled, "Connectivism".

In this 58 minute podcast, we feature a session by George Siemens, Associate Director for the Learning Technologies Centre at the University of Manitoba, entitled, "Connectivism". This speech was recorded at the ELI 2008 Meeting in San Antonio, Texas.

The waves of technological and social change have eroded the effectiveness of traditional views regarding what, how, and why to educate. To effectively educate learners, fundamental assertions need to be rethought: the design of schools and curriculum, the nature of knowledge in a connected world, the relationship between educator and learner, the means and methods of authenticating information and knowledge, and, perhaps most significantly, what it means “to know” in complex, rapidly developing, and chaotic environments. This session will present connectivism as a theory of learning that can bridge the rift between traditional and new educational approaches to prepare learners for the tomorrow they will inherit.