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?