How can connectivism can help us to teach and learn Spanish language

Ricardo,

I've heard something about that in several places, I'd say that it's a mere reflection of what the world seems to be turning to today, that is a whole interconnection of concepts to be taught at their basics, rather than clustered disciplines which do not reflect links to any other than themselves (something that happened mostly to Psychology and Sociology, I think).

From my personal point of view, I do apply that to language learning through, i.e., Indo European roots for words, and I'd say it works, although some not-that-aware students find difficulty at first.

Best wishes, cordiales saludos,

Pablo

Dear all
Sorry I have little time to check the info and copied here, but in www.languagelearningplan.ning.com you'll find info about an event on this issue, which is completely free. there the deatils
Warm wishes
Edith

As a new learning theory connectivism deals with epistemology suggesting that social network, internet and new emergency technologies are very important to share content and have feed back between groups so that up to date data can be handled and applied to improve knowledge and to make decisions to improve our life.
Learning and teaching Spanish using that theory means that students are not passive any more and have active participation in the class. The teacher becomes a guide and transmits their experience and contributes to the acquisition of knowledge.
Web2.0 tools facilitate the learning of Spanish more rapidly and less expensive, every day new web2.0 sites appear and they give us more tools to organize our time and to share knowledge.

Behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism are the three broad learning theories most often utilized in the creation of instructional environments. These theories, however, were developed in a time when learning was not impacted through technology. Over the last twenty years, technology has reorganized how we live, how we communicate, and how we learn. Learning needs and theories that describe learning principles and processes, should be reflective of underlying social environments.Learning must be a way of being – an ongoing set of attitudes and actions by individuals and groups that they employ to try to keep abreast of the recurring events.

Please folow this link and have a glance about what connectivism is
You can peruse some very interesting ideas aboot it in a course that is being given on line now

http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/moodle/course/view.php?id=68

Connectivism offers the language learning community perhaps a new way of looking at what is learning, knowledge, and language acquisition. Let's take the notion of Intercultural Community Competency (ICC). A connectivist view on learning culture would approach it from both an epistemological (What is knowledge?) and ontological (Who am I?) perspective, among others. That is, the learning of culture would be the same as language learners making connections (i.e., at the biological, cognitive, and social level) as to the importance and relevance of culture and language within a given educational setting. This requires the language educator to facilitate the connective process through providing models and demonstrations (Downes) in order for language learners to "practice and reflect" to use Downes's words. In language learning, modeling and demonstrating does not (and should not in my view) come solely from the teacher. Technology now affords us a variety of ways at looking beyond the classroom in incorporating models and demonstrations that don't necessarily exclude didactic interventions as long as these interventions don't become the main source of "teaching" and "learning".

So, ICC as an emergent phenomenon is viewed as outcomes that cannot be reduced down to their individual parts. Language educators facilitate learners to make their own connections with regard to culture, utilizing technology and their social skills to foster this pursuit. This connectivist approach is quite different than the teacher providing most of the cultural information (mainly through didactic instruction) to the learner which is certainly to be biased in one form or the other. Stated another way, the learner recognizes cultural similarities and differences through a process of discovery that is provoked and supported by one or many language educators, peers, and/or subordinate learners.