{"id":173,"date":"2017-09-25T09:41:48","date_gmt":"2017-09-25T16:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0025\/?p=173"},"modified":"2017-09-25T10:46:01","modified_gmt":"2017-09-25T17:46:01","slug":"173-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0025\/173-2\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

LRNT 523 Activity 6<\/strong>
\nImplications of Abundant Content for Lifelong Learning<\/strong>
\n Steve Minten and Katie Brown<\/strong><\/p>\n

What we Investigated:<\/strong>
\nWe decided to investigate how to start an Asparagus farm and how to grow Asparagus in general.<\/p>\n

What we found:<\/strong>
\nWe found a variety of different digital environments and sources surrounding our topic including:
\n* A variety of gardening blogs and videos
\n* Suggestions on further topics to explore (cost of Asparagus farming, best fertilizers, number of plants required etc)
\n* Various opinions from hobby farmers to professional horticulturists
\n* Blogs with reviews and added tips
\n* Government websites on starting an asparagus farm (California’s was very thorough)<\/p>\n

Confidence in the abundant content around our topic enabling us to learn about it:<\/strong>
\nFor a topic that neither of us had ever explored before and not the most popular of concepts, my assumption going into this would be that it might be tough to find adequate information. Wow were we wrong! Abundance seems like an understatement even for a topic this unique.
\nWeller (2011), discusses connectivism and how it enables learning through the diversity of options. So with that, we felt confident that given the abundance of content through many options like user-generated content, professional horticulturists\u2019 websites, and passionate gardening bloggers, we were able to navigate through the information and genuinely learn more about it.
\nWeller (2011) also notes that before the internet, the relationship between the relatively few experts in a given field (the supply) and that the learner wanting to know (the demand) was skewed in the fact that there was much more demand than supply. With the advent of the internet the relatively few experts on asparagus farming were easily located.<\/p>\n

With one of our team members (Steve) living on a 7 acre parcel of land outside Sarnia, ON …he is now intrigued to start an asparagus farm!<\/p>\n

Was abundant content enough:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Abundant content in this case was enough to confidently learn how to farm asparagus. There was an abundance of information on the subject and presented in a variety of mediums (written, images, videos\u2026). The most helpful content was the recommendations from other farmers and gardeners who have tried it before. The connections made by others helped create a path as we mined through the resources required (Anderson, 2016).
\nIn general however we feel that abundant content may not be enough to ensure that proper learning occurs. Some sort of facilitation, perhaps through a constructivist learning environment (Anderson, 2016, p. 38) will ensure that participants learn.<\/p>\n

What do you need to make use of the content:<\/strong><\/p>\n

To ensure we were well equipped to make use of the abundant content, we clarified what it exactly was that we were wanting to learn and how to articulate through web searches. The online resources that we trust and use frequently allowed us to choose from different formats of learning (video, images, or written) and mine through content that allowed us to source the information that worked for what I needed (Anderson, 2016)
\nThinking as an instructor, we would need to make sure my students are well equipped to make use of all of the internet resources and ensure that they were properly educated in recognizing valuable resources from those that were not accurate (Weller, 2011)<\/p>\n

Ways we can make use of this content:<\/strong>
\nIf we were instructors on teaching people how to grow asparagus, we would leverage the content online and use it as an example, then have our students create their own blog as they went through their own learning journey. By using problem-based learning, the students (or learners) would have their identified problem to solve \u201cHow to grow asparagus\u201d, and would navigate their own way to solve the problem and learn the process while resolving the problem (Weller, 2011). If practical, we would set up a community of practice with local gardeners and farmers to help support the learning (Weller, 2011).<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anderson, T. (2016). Chapter 3: Theories for learning with emerging technologies. In Veletsianos, G. (Ed). Emergence and Innovation in Digital Learning: Foundations and Applications. Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University Press.<\/p>\n

Weller, M. (2011). A pedagogy of abundance. Spanish Journal of Pedagogy, 249, 223\u2013236.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LRNT 523 Activity 6 Implications of Abundant Content for Lifelong Learning Steve Minten and Katie Brown What we Investigated: We decided to investigate how to start an Asparagus farm and how to grow Asparagus in general. What we found: We found a variety of different digital environments and sources surrounding our topic including: * A … Continue reading <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":69,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt523"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/69"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions\/175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}