Connectivism

Interesting web reources on Brain and Problem Solving

Regarding brain functioning and academic learning, the artice I found was very interseting. It tries to discover the link between the brain and music. The author has raised some research questions related with the "mozart effect" and how this can be used to improve problem solving and brain functioning. Moreover, this article provides us to think whether we can use music in our curricula to improve mathematics and IQ. The web link is as follows:
http://brainconnection.positscience.com/topics/?main=fa/music-education

The second article I got is related to problem solving. The link it as follows:
http://www.une.edu.au/bcss/psychology/john-malouff/problem-solving.php
This article provides over 50 problem solving strategies with the explanations and these strategies have sorted by types. Though this is a lenghty article, it is worth to read as it gives explanations with examples.

Web resources for Instructional Design

Information regarding instructional design (ID) can be found in many blogs and websites. These sites provide us useful information regarding ID and how technology can be used to enhance our lerning. Scholars and variuos professionals have contributed their valuable ideas to these blogs and sites. By reading and contributing to these sites, I think we can get a thorough about ID.

Some of the blogs and sites I visited are as follows:

http://www.instructionaldesign.org/

This site is designed to provide information about ID principals and how they relate to teaching and learning. The term ID has defined as the analysis of learning needs and systematic development of learning material. Instructional designers often use instructional technology or educationaal technology as tools for developing instruction. Moreover, this site shows some of the contributors to the field of ID. Number of ID models are also explained and a glossary of terms related to ID can be found here.

http://tip.psychology.org/

Theory into practice (TIP) is another web site which deals with learning and instruction. TIP is a tool (database) intended to make learning and instructional theory more accessible to to educators. This database contains brief summaries of 50 major theories of learning and instruction. More information regarding learning domains and learning concepts can be obtained from this site.

http://blog.cathy-moore.com/

In this blog, you will find practical ideas that will help you create lively, powerful e-learning material for adults in the business world. Webminars, presentations and e-learning samples can be found here. This blog is a collection of good postings for instructional designers.

http://www.downes.ca/index.html

This site belongs to Stephen Downes. he works as a researcher for the National Research Council, Institute of Information Technology, in MOncton, New Brunswick, Canada. His special interests are for on-line learning, content syndication and new media. A good collection of technical and philosophical articles are linked to this site. It is worth seeing some of articlees like "Educational Blogging", "Ten Future" under the link Popular Articles. Another two interesting articles can be found under the following links.

http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=6

http://www.downes.ca/post/196

I think we can enhance our knowledge on ID through these valuable web resources.