What do Connections do?

What do connections do? George Siemens, PhD May 31, 2012 Presented to: SUNY Stony Brook, New York

Networks aren’t new

Inca Temple Nodes

Network language is so pervasive that we rarely move past “node/connection” discourse

Source: http://www.orgnet.com/sna.html

Source: http://www.chrisharrison.net/index.php/Visualizations/ClusterBall

But most networks are far more complex

Multiple node types, Multiple relationships Contractor, Monge, Leonardi (2011)

Contractor, Monge, Leonardi (2011)

This is especially true as information continuesto be digitized (and increase in abundance)Distributed cognition - information held intechnology & artifacts

Innovation asconstantcombinations andrecombinations ofexisting technologies

Rocket “the thousand threads that lead from the locomotive to the very beginnings of the modern world” Rosen, 2010 Source: http://www.solarnavigator.net/inventors/george_stephenson.htm

Knowledge has a structure

Source: http://richard.cyganiak.de/2007/10/lod/

Knowledge has a history (archeology)

Archeology of Knowledge“history deciphered the traces left by men, it nowdeploys a mass of elements that have to begrouped, made relevant, placed in relation to oneanother to form totalities” (Foucault)

Note quality ofInca stone work(bottom)(Spanish top)

Spanish additionIncan-Foundation

Learning (education) is the process ofdeveloping awareness of the connections in adiscipline.

Three levelsNeuralConceptualSocial/External

Science as a connective enterprise(Bibliography…and Garfield’s impact factor asinspiration for Google)

The scientific method is a structured process for connection validation

Northeast Blackout: 2003From 12:15 pm to 4:13 pm:Small power-flow monitoring tool failureto 250+ power plant failure

“A fundamental property of interdependentnetworks is that failure of nodes in one networkmay lead to failure of dependent nodes in othernetworks. This may happen recursively and canlead to a cascade of failures.” Buldyrev et al (2010)

Thinking in networks

Our education system should communicate information (idea) relatedness and connectivity(not discrete knowledge elements)

CoherenceSynchronizationResonanceLock-in

Coherence“an ancient urge to seek a comprehensivepicture of the world for the sake ofunderstanding ourselves, for knowledge’s sake,and not the least for acting as best we can” Cordero 2007

Coherence

Resonance“psychological arousal”

AppleSilicon ValleyBoundary-based lock-in

Creating integrated ecosystems:Content,Delivery,Assessment(The integrator, rules)

MOOCsHow can an educator teach 1,000, 5,000, or100,000 students?

MOOCsThey can’t. The learners teach one another(fill knowledge gaps in others)

Half-ideas colliding to form new (innovative) knowledge wholes: MOOCs

Education system- Should be about spaces for optimal idea connectedness- Space design, not only learning design- Openness of content and teaching enlarges society’s capacity to handle complex problems- xED is academia’s push back at commercialization of knowledge/learning

Expertise development through activities that activate multiple(meaningful) knowledge connections

Participatory pedagogies

Creating: artifacts, stuff, remixing, newassemblies, novel connectedness

New points of control in connection-formation redistribute power in society (education)

Source: Speigel15-M Movement

Quebec Student Tuition Protests, 2012

Future of Higher Education MOOCStarts: Oct 2012More info on www.elearnspace.org/blog soon

“networked science has thepotential to dramaticallyspeed up the rate of scientificdiscovery”

Distributed Research Lab:http://www.solaresearch.org/storm/Looking for research leads and doctoral students

Learning Analytics: Practitioners WorkshopPurdue: Oct 1-3, 2012http://www.solaresearch.org/flare/

Twitter: gsiemenswww.elearnspace.orgwww.connectivism.ca

http://www.elearnspace.org	7781
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http://www.connection4success.com	110
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What do Connections do?

by gsiemens on May 31, 2012

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