Modern learners are like sponges in water. Water
represents the huge amount of information. A learner getting knowledge from
Internet, teacher or friends just likes a sponge absorbing water. A learner who
uses more social source to get knowledge is like a sponge which immerses larger
part into water. Nowadays, since the development of technology and information explosion，informal learning has become to a significant aspect of our
learning experience as George Siemens says that "formal education no longer comprises the majority of our
learning". More knowledge is obtained through interaction
between people out of classroom. So whether
a learner can use social community well is extremely important. For sponge, it is like
how much water there it can absorb. George Siemens said in his video that "the social soft that we see today in form of
blogs and wikis developed in order to enable the individuals to quickly change knowledge
feel to continue to stay concurrent and continue to learn from each other.” Since application developers have invited so many useful tools for learning today, learners should learn to use those technologies to learn more efficiently; and as teachers, we should instruct and encourage our students to use them in their learning process.
There is a problem for sponge, that
is when it absorb enough water it can not absorb any more， then it
needs a place to store the water. A learner also needs a place to store the various knowledge. Sometimes only brain is not enough because the amount of
information is too large, and some knowledge also do not need to keep in mind since you
may use them for only one or several times. Using archive software such as
Diigo appropriately is also important to modern learners. After squeezing water out, sponge can reabsorb more water. For learners, by
storing some knowledge in “archive”, they can learn more new knowledge and at the same time will
not lose the old one.
I liked your analogy! As complex as the brain may be, the mind is like a sponge that is constantly absorbing information. Teachers need to be aware of how impressionable young minds are!
ReplyDeleteHi, I am glad you like it, Dr. Burgos has some addition to my analogy, and I think it is really helpful to deepen the analogy. : )
DeleteAs I followed your analogy I wondered if you were going to include the "squeezing" of the sponge. You had an interesting perspective on what happens to the water (information) that is squeezed out, Your thought is that it is archived digitally. That works well, but another idea that could be added to your analogy is that some of the water that is squeezed out has become changed a little (by the ind of the learner) and is now absorbed by other sponges (learners).
ReplyDeleteYes，you are right. The water squeezed out can also be absorbed by other sponges, it just like the process of information communication. I did not thought of it, it can be an analogy of how information spread on the Internet.
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