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Take a guided tour of the Dekita Orchard.

Courses

Below, you will be able to follow feeds from the Connectivism course, ELT participants and other sources of interest. Click on a folder to view individual feeds; click on a text link to read the most recent posts.

• Connectivism & Connective Knowledge Blog
• CCK08 Participants (Technorati search)

• Dekita Kitchen - Getting to know each other
• Dekita Kitchen - Recognition of skills and experience
• Dekita Kitchen - How will you engage in the course?

• Janet Hawtin : Weblog
• My Connectivism Blog
• adVancEducation
• Connectivism by the Nile
• beespace

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Dekita Kitchen - Recognition of skills and experience

• Recognition of skills and experience

  Posted: July 31st, 2008, 1:51pm GMT by vcautin

  Uff,

  Well here in Chile you also need a "Licenciatura" to apply for a Master's or PhD.

  Believe it or not I am also going to sit the national entrance exam for college, again, just to see of I can improve my first score.  I cannot apply to a number of scholarships because my score (12 years ago, when I had just graduated from highschool, and not form a regular highschool, but a vocational one (I am a secretary), where only 4 out of 39 of my classmates got the minimun score to even apply for college) was too low.

  After that, I entered the English teaching program here in Iquique, Chile, and graduated top  of my class, but the score in my test is still holding me back.

  I totally agree with you, Bee, about recognizing experience and skills, not only credentials.  I think that this is even more important in this topic we're discussing, connectivism.  Doesn't it advocate life-long learning? Managing personal learning , etc?  How can we be motivated through working in our oun learning if institutions, and jobs, only ask for credentials?

  Uff, a lot to talk about!  And I agree with you 100%  I am here waiting to see how that openness will transform our educational systems.  I have faith that the change will come.

  Let me add another ingredient to my complaints :)  Iquique is a beautiful coastal city, really nice to relax, but it's really far from the capital and the major cities.  There are no Master programs related to what I want to study, not even to go and observe.  That's why the only way I can continue learning is through a scholarship and I have to move.  :(

   

   

  
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• Recognition of skills and experience

  Posted: July 30th, 2008, 3:18pm GMT by bdieu

  This thread was started by Violeta Cautin, who mentioned GRE and her learning projects in the getting to know each other forum.

  I have been thinking of doing some kind of formal course again but I would not be officially accepted at the university here in Brazil because I would need to sit the entrance exam again, which I find ridiculous. I sat it in 1970 for Social and Political Sciences (at that time my interest was Anthropology - still is) but as I did not finish the course, I am required to do it again.

  Now what is paradoxical is that I was allowed to do the 2 last years of graduate studies in English Language and Literature (as I could speak/understand/write the language better than some of my professors, I was exempted of the first two years which are, in Brazil, basically learning the language). Although I graduated with honours (ten out of ten in linguistics) and I am allowed to teach at secondary school, I  cannot postulate for a masters or a PhD (well, I could eventually, as a listener,  but would not receive accreditation or have my papers commented). Instead of sitting some kind of GRE,  I would need to sit the entrance exam and do the 4 college years, a rule I refuse to comply with - even though it has already caused me unpleasant situations.

  This kind of system, the bureaucracy which blocks participation (nobody is responsible for it - nobody can do anything about it, nobody can solve this), and the multiple barriers to learning and access to knowledge are the main reasons I am observing with much interest the wave of change brought by ICTs towards openness, deobstructing the pipes and making the energy, exchanges and communication flow. The connectivism course will be an interesting experiment and experience in architectures of participation and how people organize themselves to make this happen.

  
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