This is the final day of Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century, a 4 day face-to face workshop remixed from #etmooc. #etmooc is a ‘Connectivist’ MOOC (‘cMOOC) that is designed around a few key principles:

• The course is developed with a weak ‘centre’. While etmooc.org will provide a level of aggregation, detail, and direction, the majority of interactions are likely to occur within groups & networks, facilitated through various online spaces & services.
• Participants are strongly encouraged to develop their own reflective, learning spaces. We’re hoping that every learner in #etmooc creates and maintains their own blog for continuous reflection, creativity, and resource sharing.
• Sharing and network participation are essential for the success of all learners in #etmooc. Thus, we’ll be needing you to share your knowledge, to support and encourage others, and to participate in meaningful conversations.

Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century  has a much more structured learning environment to help participants gain the skills they need to create connections through:

• Directed interactions and specific facilitated activities.
• Blogs for participants  to develop their own reflective learning spaces.
• Structured sharing and participation .

This hybrid workshop that helps faculty transition from traditional lecture based teaching to “connected” learning where knowledge is distributed and learning is the process of navigating, growing, and pruning connections. Topics included:

• Digital Storytelling – Multimedia, Remixes & Mashups
• Digital Literacy – Information, Memes & Attention
• The Open Movement – Open Access, OERs & Future of Ed.

The goal was to help teachers BEGIN to understand, through their own experience, the importance of fostering self-regulated, motivated, and autonomous learners.

Melinda Gates, a 1986 Duke graduate and co-founder of the Gates Foundation, delivered the commencement address to Duke University’s 2013 graduating class. Gates’ address focused  around the word “connected,” and how technology has revolutionized the way we communicate.

“Humanity in the abstract will never inspire you in the same way as human beings you meet… Over the course of your lives, I promise you, you will have many opportunities to use technology to make your world bigger, to meet more different kinds of people and to keep in touch with more of the people you meet,” she said in the annual commencement ceremony in Wallace Wade Stadium. “I want you to connect because I believe it will inspire you to do something, to make a difference in the world.”

Gates urged Duke University’s graduates to use new technology to connect with others, including people in the developing world whose lives Americans can now touch in a more personal way.

So what will you do?

“I hope you will use to the tool of technology to do what you already had it in your heart to do … To connect … To make of this world a brotherhood … and a sisterhood …” (Melinda Gates, 2013).

Melinda Gates: Creating a Brotherhood