There’s a world of difference between online learning and networked learning.

I taught my first online course back in 2001.

Back in 2012, when I returned to the LMS (learning management system) or CMS (course management system) after eleven years, I realized that not much had changed inside the course management system, while changes outside of it had pretty much blown the walls off our libraries and classrooms.

It didn’t matter what brand was attached to the LMS/CMS, I felt like I needed a can opener to unlock it–to make it feel less institutional and more authentic, more connected to a world of learning opportunities.

The collaborative digital world outside disrupted the LMS, but it didn’t acknowledge it.

George Siemens proposes connectivism as a learning theory for a digital age and lists several core principles, among them:

Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources. A learner can exponentially improve their own learning by plugging into an existing network. Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate learning. Connection making provides far greater returns on effort than simply seeking to understand a single concept. Learning and knowledge rest in diversity of opinions. Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning. Learning is a knowledge creation process…not only knowledge consumption. Learning tools and design methodologies should seek to capitalize on this trait of learning.

In a 2004 piece, George Siemens expressed the frustration I’ve been feeling today:

It appears that our real-life manner of learning is at odds with the design and implementations of most LMS’.  Strongly structured tools, with limited extensibility, face short life cycles in rapidly changing environments . . . Selecting specialized tools to achieve specific tasks – and being able to add them to the learning environment quickly – are critical to rich learning ecologies.

We have such flexible tools, tools that facilitate natural collaboration, communication and creativity–tools that offer learners the opportunity to customize and organize content and ideas in ways that help them make meaning and authentically participate.

We have discussion tools that not only flatten conversation and make it pop, but engage a larger community of practice, rather than obscure voices in threaded hierarchies.

If learners do not venture out of the LMS, they will not develop the digital fluencies they need to lead in their organizations.

So I’ve been delighted to have the opportunity to play with blended experiences that push the boundaries of the LMS.

A few weeks back at the ALISE conference, I shared a few of the ideas I’ve been exploring in working with graduate learners online.  Many work just as well in K12 blended and flipped environments.

Using the LMS and LibGuides as parking lots, so the experience is not frantically distributed for the learner, it’s easy to curate real-life social media tools that encourage the principles of connectivism in an attempt to create what Mott and Wiley (2013) call an OLN (open learning network).

As hybrid experiences, OLNs leverage the affordances of new and emerging web tools, complementing the institutional network by connecting it with it cloud platforms for creating, writing, publishing, curating, and connecting to improve learning.

Among the strategies that have worked for me are:

PLE (personal learning environments): Personally owned digital spaces are easily indexed and linked and allow learners to personalize, curate, embed, design, build and mash-up and allow them to take control of and manage their learning.  The stuff learners build in spaces like wikis, Google Sites, LibGuides do not go puff when the semester ends, may be shared beyond the class, and mirror the way people curate and archive in real life.

Curation/Personal Knowledge Management platforms allow learners to curate in their niche areas of personal interest with tools of their choice within the parameters of the class learning goals.  These are usually linked to or embedded in learners’ PLEs.  Some may function on their own as PLEs.  Among the tools students select (depending on their own needs and the affordances of the tool) are Pinterest, Tumblr, Storify, LiveBinders, Scoop.it, Paper.li.

Video response tools allow remote learners to connect face-to-face to get to know each others’ real voices and personalities (and often pets, partners and children).

FlipGrid:  I blogged about this interactive discussion platform several months ago. No-longer free, the reasonably priced platform is designed for education and offers the ability to set up grids (classes) and question prompts. Students respond with 90-second videos. (There’s no learning curve here!)  Consider the possibilities for shared storytelling–collaborative or individual, elevator speeches, language learning, debate, conversation.

Voicethread: It’s not just for digital storytelling; it’s for conversation. Post a question on one slide and ask your students to respond around that image.  You may choose to ask the same question on another slide later in the semester to see if what they learned affects their responses.

Google Hangouts allows me to have live conversations with up to ten video feeds of members of our class at one time.

Kathy Schrock visits InfoFluency in Digital Landscapes