George Siemens conference at Connectivitas.

September 24Th, 2008.

George started the conference by explaining how he came across Connectivism. I took notes while he talked, I will place his words here. I hope you enjoy them!.

Maru del Campo. MMV® Centro Multidisciplinario de Asesoría Integral.

"The big difference was that instead of learning in a traditional way I found that I was learning more with the connections I was making; the importance of the first connection, the connections with people and knowledge.

The first thing I noticed was that if I wanted to know something new I had to find someone that knew about it and share information.

Once that I formed the connection with that person, I saw that I could learn from that person because I was connected with him.

When I found out how I was learning forming connections with other people then I saw that we may need to see learning in another way and that's why Connectivism started."Ready to get

bored?

"What technology did, because we have always learned by connecting with other people, what technology did is to enable more connections”.

"What I want to find out is how people form networks and why and to use that knowledge to instruct our own teaching”.Why

?

“For example, when I want to study what a student in my class has learned, one way is to ask him to draw a concept map to see if he can link the ideas shown in class.

Another example, if I want to observe the students more active in learning I can look at the discussion forums and see which students are communicating the most and see which are the students that comment the most."

You’ll see. . .

"When we talk about networks, what kind of networks?

There are three types:

1.- Neural Network. What happens in our brains when we learn? It comes from NeuroScience.

2.- Conceptual Network. How our ideas are connected? Different people learn by putting different ideas together in several ways.

3.- External or Social Network. How we are connected to other people, to data sources or technologies?".

Not yet. . .

"How do this three types of networks relate?

Our social networks influence how we connect our ideas.The social network helps to form our conceptual networks.Our conceptual networks are instanciated in our minds as neural networks.

How what we know, the internal knowledge, what we know influences the type of external networks we form. How we form knowledge influences how we form external networks.

What we have is a circle."Are you saying that. . . What?!

"The one that is more familiar for us is the Social External network so when we talk about networks we think about people we meet in our email, Facebook, SL, etc.

Due to the extensive research in Social networks is why we think about those networks".

Are you still here?

"How external and Social networks influence learning?

There are parts of both conceptual and neural networks that share similar propertiesbut those are not my area of expertise."

That’s o.k.!

"How do we learn when we connect with other person or a data source?

We can look at one example.

Building an airplane.

Because no one person alone can build an airplane, it can be built together with the expertise of many people."

Here we go again!!

"What happens if I want to do something very complex?

I do not have to have all the knowledge myself, I have to connect with other people who has that knowledge.

For example, two choices. If I want to learn something, I can learn by forming a relation with another person and see how she does it to do it myself.

Or to just connect to the expertise that another person have and let them be the experts and rely on them but I may not learn to do it myself."

Sounds familiar?

"For some people, when we talk about connectivism, this is the definition Stephen and I use:

Knowledge is distributed across the network and that network is increasingly relying in technology and learning then is creating a network and being able to move around in that network"

Distribution again?!!

"We have always been forming connections, connecting people.

We did it before by stories and now we do it with technology.

What we are doing, communities of practice, we are talking about different types of connections. One way to look at it is to say that a connection is a building block, if the connection is a brick, if I take that connection I can build a small hut or a huge mansion."

And then?

"I can use networks to find info on people I do not know well or I can build a community of practice.

How we have connected things determines what kind of structure it is.

If I have connected in the form of a teacher, I want them to have many connections with different ideas.

A teacher's job is to help students form different connections with different kinds to handle complex environments."

Did you get bored?

Ha, ha, ha… mmvcentro@yahoo.com

Could someone explain what’s going on with the distribution of knowledge in a network?