Knowing the “theory” and knowing how to employ and put to use this “theory”, are two completely different factors.  In language classes specifically, it is one thing to memorize conjugations and it is quite a different thing knowing how to use language for communication purposes.  Many students can be excellent in retrieving and memorizing grammar points, but cannot use the language in speaking activities and consequently fail to use language in a meaningful manner.  And there’s also the other extreme where students cannot retrieve any grammar points, but manage to get by with their oral communication skills.  However, both memorization of concepts and utilization of such concepts can go hand-in-hand.

In f2f classes, as mentioned in MOOCs video constructivism, students create and use their content and professors serve as guides.  In online courses the principles may remain the same, however, the tools or means used to achieve class goals are different.  Knowing how to purposely and effectively use web 2.0 tools is definitely the ongoing challenge.  I, myself, use the internet and its resources for personal and academic purposes, however, integrating such tools to the education platform is quite a different story.  In this class, I have learned new technology terminology and am becoming familiar with programs I had only heard of in the past, but had never experimented with.

Conclusively, as noted by MOOCs video, the goal is to create “self-regulated motivated, autonomous learners”.

I’ve included a picture I had come across a while ago and thought it went well with Larry Sanger’s article 🙂