Connectivism

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

2. Context Context-free Tree

3. 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.

4. Big changes change big institutions

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

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

7. Architecture of participation powered by network effects

8. 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)

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

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

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

12. 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)

13. 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

14. What is a connection Awareness with potential for relationship

15. 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)

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

17. The power of networks…of doubling

18. 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

20. Connectivism What is it?

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

23. 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”

24. Future Combat Systems

25. Connected specialization

26. 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

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

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

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

30. 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

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

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

33. “All the knowledge is in the connections” David Rumelhart

34. 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

35. 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.”

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

37. Everything is an experiment Everyone is a creator

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

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