learning technologies centre connectivism learning conceptualized through the lens of todays world...
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Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
Connectivism
Learning conceptualized through the lens of today’s
world
George Siemens
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
Context
Context-free Tree
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
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.
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
Big changes change big institutions
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
What are knowledge trends?
• Intuitive• Growth • Fluidity • Impact on authority• Impact on certainty • Technology
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
Fluid knowledge
Product to process
Creation, dissemination, distribution, end-user relationship
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
Architecture of participation powered by network effects
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
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)
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
Abundance creates problems for existing
approaches• Inability to process – bounded
rationality• Require new skills• Require new educational models
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
If you have three pet dogs, give them names. If you have 10,000 head of cattle, don't bother.
David Gelernter
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
Where can we scale?
• Human capacity – yes, but bounded• Technology capacity – augmentation
- primitive• Procedural capacity - Network
intelligence
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
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 Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
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
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
What is a connection
Awareness with potential for relationship
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
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)
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
“Roads no longer merely lead to places; they are places”
John Brinckerhoff Jackson
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
The power of networks…of doubling
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
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
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
ConnectivismWhat is it?
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
A certain type of knowledge…
• Rapidly changing• Complex• Connected • Global• Social• Technologically mediated
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
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”
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
Future Combat Systems
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
Connected specialization
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
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
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
Blog space as canary
• Blogs have dealt with information abundance for years. How do we cope?– Networks of trusted sources– Diversity– Openness– Aggregators
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
What skills do our learners need today?
• Pattern recognition• Network formation and evaluation• Critical/creative thinking• Acceptance of uncertainty/ambiguity• Contextualizing
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
“To the neuroscientist, learning is a whole-person/whole-brain activity what confounds received organizations”
Theodore Marchese
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
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
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
The role of technology
• Technology expresses a view…it isn’t neutral
• Augments, enhances, extends cognition– Memory “knowing about” is external
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
The structure of the device becomes the structure of the knowledge
James Bosco
• Book, courses• Internet: network…connective
pathways
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
“All the knowledge is in the connections”
David Rumelhart
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
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
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
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.”
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
What are the implications of this for
our learning?
• Answer in Moodle forums…
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
Everything is an experiment
Everyone is a creator
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
• www.elearnspace.org• www.connectivism.ca• www.knowingknowledge.com• http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/wordpress
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