What Inspires YOU?- You can use other people to help you motivate yourself

The message is loud and clear that collaboration is the future of learning. Things will be changing radically in some areas, and things will change very slowly in others. Some brave souls have to light the way. I can see now first hand how frustrating it can be to try to learn new technology....but when you get the moments where you can see the potential of the sharing, and that technology is the only way to do this, it motivates me more...to persevere.
I've been so lucky to learn during the past month with bright learners from all over the world. Learning about the culture of others has been an interesting side benefit of the Moodle course. We have made friends with people who we will probably never meet in person, but who have become important in our lives. 
We've also learned something very valuable, and that is that we do not have to start from scratch to create learning material. It is there, it is available, and sharing it feels great! Learning collaboratively with people from all over the world is something we need to be doing.

Here is a great link http://bloomfire.com/blog/2010/12/09/monster-list-of-9-online-learning-resources/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eLearningLearningFull+%28eLearning+Learning+Full+Feed%29  for online resources.

We DO Not all think the same, nor do we LEARN the same, so we should not all be taught the same.

Divergent thinking! In order to understand the history of the educational system that is set up (was set up---- eons ago) to educate our children, take a look at this entertaining illustrated video:

http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=274098178&gid=104227&type=member&item=36433437&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DzDZFcDGpL4U&urlhash=Sw7p&goback=.gde_104227_member_36433437

The video was adopted from Sir Ken Robinson's talk on how to educate our children today. One of the intersting points he made is that the epidemic of ADHD, which plagues us today, is shown to be more rampant on the Eastern Shores of the United States. Now,how can that be!
Learning in groups, whether online or in face-to face courses enables all of the students to work from their strengths, and learn from each other. In the process, they might begin to learn how other kids (or adults) faced with the same problem, might look at and handle it differently. If all are engaged in doing interesting activities, and are important to the group, they will be more apt to pay attention and to contribute. Our educational system rewards those who think in certain ways and answer questions correctly; I agree that it is time to pose questions that do not have a right or wrong answer, and that push the limits of current knowledge and stimulate a quest for more information .
As an artist, I am particularly drawn to videos that are drawn by hand. These cartoons are produced as the video progresses, but obviously planned out well in advanced. They are particularly effective in getting across the emotions of the children depicted, including sagging body posture and beautifully drawn facial expressions. Without a doubt, I could understand the video better by the graphics accompanying the lecture. Because I am an artist, I was fascinated at the drawing itself, and almost lost the meaning when I became fascinated by the great drawing ability.
Sir Ken Robinson makes the point that in order not to marginalize and penalize the students who do not learn best sitting up straight in chairs in rows listening to the teacher, we need to learn how we learn best. That is from each other, in groups.