Connectivism_Online

Connectivism Learning conceptualized through the lens of today’s world George Siemens

Context Context-free Tree

My argument
Exponentially developing knowledge and complexification of society requires non-linear models of learning (process) and knowing (state). We cannot sustain ourselves as learning/knowing beings in the current climate with our current approaches.
Networked (social, technological) approaches scale in line with changes, but require a redesign of how we teach, learn (and see learning), and come to know.

Big changes change big institutions

What are knowledge trends?
Intuitive
Growth
Fluidity
Impact on authority
Impact on certainty
Technology

Fluid knowledge
Product to process
Creation, dissemination, distribution, end-user relationship

Architecture of participation powered by network effects

Knowledge
Knowledge has changed (in quantity, if not core nature)
Our reaction on institutional level has not
We still see it primarily as a product
Learning, knowing, cognition – distributed (Hutchins)

Abundance creates problems for existing approaches
Inability to process – bounded rationality
Require new skills
Require new educational models

If you have three pet dogs, give them names. If you have 10,000 head of cattle, don't bother.
David Gelernter

Where can we scale?
Human capacity – yes, but bounded
Technology capacity – augmentation - primitive
Procedural capacity - Network intelligence

Hasn’t it always been this way?
Think of it two-fold:
Body – our understanding increases in what is there (understanding ourselves)
Technology – we create what isn’t (extending ourselves)

Learning in relationship to knowledge and mind
Distributed –
Hutchins – Not “in skull”
Spivey et. al. – “not always inside brain”
Bereiter – “knowing outside the mind”
Externalization – Wittgenstein, Vygotsky
Socialization – Papert, Piaget, Bruner, Bandura
Ethical/moral obligations…structures – Freire, Illich, Papert, Dewey

What is a connection
Awareness with potential for relationship

Connections of a certain type are valuable:
Relevance
Of value for information sharing
Dense connections reduce adaptability (Beinhocker)
“ making connections that generate insight” (Cross, Laseter)

“ Roads no longer merely lead to places; they are places”
John Brinckerhoff Jackson

The power of networks…of doubling

Upgrading our relationship to information/knowledge
From knowing about - to knowing where/who - to sensemaking/understanding
Cognition – “grunt level work” handled by technology
Tag maps/clouds
Social bookmarking trends
We move to meaning making more rapidly

Connectivism
What is it?

A certain type of knowledge…
Rapidly changing
Complex
Connected
Global
Social
Technologically mediated

But what does this look like practically?
Learning is network formation
“Network Administrator”
Atelier Learning (JSB)
Open tools – first generation – we are only now seeing “what is possible”

Future Combat Systems

Connected specialization

Undiscovered public knowledge
When connections are weak…not more research, but better connections
Undiscovered public knowledge (Don Swanson) – systems of information that are similar but distinct or not normally connected

Blog space as canary
Blogs have dealt with information abundance for years. How do we cope?
Networks of trusted sources
Diversity
Openness
Aggregators

What skills do our learners need today?
Pattern recognition
Network formation and evaluation
Critical/creative thinking
Acceptance of uncertainty/ambiguity
Contextualizing

“ To the neuroscientist, learning is a whole-person/whole-brain activity what confounds received organizations”
Theodore Marchese

Balance
Formal and informal
Think holistically:
Network (the history of ideas is a network of connections) – structures of openness
Ecologies – spaces of diversity
Context drives approach

The role of technology
Technology expresses a view…it isn’t neutral
Augments, enhances, extends cognition
Memory “knowing about” is external

The structure of the device becomes the structure of the knowledge
James Bosco
Book, courses
Internet: network…connective pathways

“ All the knowledge is in the connections”
David Rumelhart

Concerns
Adaptivity – adjust ourselves as our environment and technology adjusts
What is the balance between reacting to and influencing the space?
Critical views…not utopia

Where is the connection formed?
During repeated use?
During reflection/rest?
“The rest principle states that connections within a pathway of neurons become stronger only if the neurons rest after firing and that the connections will get weaker if the neurons are fired repeatedly without rest.”

What are the implications of this for our learning?
Answer in Moodle forums…

Everything is an experiment
Everyone is a creator

www.elearnspace.org
www.connectivism.ca
www.knowingknowledge.com
http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/wordpress

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Connectivism_Online

by gsiemens on Feb 04, 2007

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