Education: An ecology of
connections
George Siemens
May 14, 2008
TLt Summit
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Learning Technologies Centre
www.umanitoba.ca/

1. Let’s have a revolution!! (but they
take time)
2. Complex and complicated
3. What technology does to/for us
4. Ecologies
5. The person formerly known as teacher
6. The Learner

CHANGE

Social and technological

Technological revolution Year
Industrial from 1771
Steam/Railways from 1829
Steel/Electricity from 1875
Oil/Automobile/Mass from 1908
production
Information/ from 1971
telecommunications
Perez, C. 2004

Technological
Conceptual

Why change?

Class

Divine Right

Unfair system: Access
Barriers

Resonance

But, these things take time

Tension points of education
Open/Closed
Amateur/Expert
Foster/Command
Network/Hierarchy

Reduce barriers

Increased

Increased participation

Where are we now?
Here
Here
Here
Technological
Conceptual

1. Let’s have a revolution!! (but they take
time)
2. Complex and complicated
3. What technology does to/for us
4. Ecologies
5. The person formerly known as teacher
6. The Learner

Complicated

To know the right answer

Complex

When we see complex as

Satisfied with false knowns

Creation of new frameworks,

When we iconosize concepts, we strip
them of the opportunity to morph

Nothing is more pernicious in science
than attempts to establish adherence
to doctrines
Radcliffe-Brown (1940)

1. Let’s have a revolution!! (but they take
time)
2. Complex and complicated
3. What technology does to/for us
4. Ecologies
5. The person formerly known as teacher
6. The Learner

Technology as blessing and

Balance is the new extreme

Boundaries between people

But what happens to us?

What of community?

Fragmentation
Information
Identity
Understanding

The more we become

But individual centralization

1. Let’s have a revolution!! (but they take
time)
2. Complex and complicated
3. What technology does to/for us
4. Ecologies
5. The person formerly known as teacher
6. The Learner

Learning as network formation
Connection are sufficient

Networks occur within

Ecologies: environments that
fosters and supports learning
Chaotic
Structured informality
Adaptive
Alive
Diverse
Emergent
Self-organizing, individually directed

Education as ecology
Classroom, courses, programs, system
Beyond formal
Beyond myopic view of learner

1. Let’s have a revolution!! (but they take
time)
2. Complex and complicated
3. What technology does to/for us
4. Ecologies
5. The person formerly known as
teacher
6. The Learner

Instructor’s role

Educator as scaffolder? Accreditor?
Network administrator
Curator/concierge
Product/process…content/interaction

Blend, spectrum
Formal to informal
Gradients of technology use
Contextual

EC & I 831
http://
eci831.wikispaces.com
/

How are ideas vetted/
validated?
Source of validation:
By experts? Amateurs? Unwashed
masses?
Method:
By networks? Openness? Hierarchical?

1. Let’s have a revolution!! (but they take
time)
2. Complex and complicated
3. What technology does to/for us
4. Ecologies
5. The person formerly known as teacher
6. The Learner

“people have much more knowledge
than appears to be present in the
information to which they have been
exposed”
Landauer and Dumais (1997)

Biggs SOLO

Learner’s role

Wayfinding
Darken, R. 1996

On

Move to exploration

Websites and Newsletters
www.elearnspace.org
www.knowingknowledge.com
www.connectivism.ca
http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/wordpress/
gsiemens AT elearnspace DOT org