Building your Network as a means of Gaining Knowledge

What if having a lot of people in your life made you smarter? What if learning equated to listening to other's perspectives on things? What if all I needed to do to learn something new was go talk to someone new? This seems to be what the connectivism theory is suggesting. Maybe it's a little more complex than that but that is the basic idea.

I really enjoy hearing diverse opinions on things and gaining multiple perspectives and often refrain from forming my own opinion until I feel like I have hear from all sides. I enjoy doing countless hours of research about controversial things to try and really see where both sides are coming from. I think that putting together these perspectives is an important part of learning. How can you say that you are truly knowledgeable about something if you have only ever studied one perspective?

So learning today becomes so much deeper and more complex than it ever has been. In order to truly have an understanding we need to dig deep and hear from a diverse group of people. We need to build our network. If I want to learn about the U.K for example, why not try to make a connection with someone from the U.K and learn about it from them. It is incredible that technology actually gives us the means to do that. If I can't connect with another person I can least read their news or watch their media. Technology is a truly incredible tool for making these connections and we are able to have such a deep knowledge of almost anything because of that tool.

So I am going to start building my network. I want to make connections with other teachers and learn what they are doing and teaching in their classrooms. I want my students to be able to connect with people from other parts of the world and open their eyes to new and different things. I can learn so much more from other people than I ever could on my own and I want to put that idea into action.