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

2. Context Context-free Tree Context free tree”
This presentation is a reflection of what’s happening today.
Each presenter has selected one aspect of a situation. Perhaps the best approach is to view each perspective as a node in a larger network, and the node which most completely represents our needs receives higher traffic…
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.
The network model – prominent in complex systems – provides a solution for rethinking learning…and provides insight for how we can move forward – we’ve seen it with the internet.

4. Big changes change big institutions
Society has periods of change – whether through military conquest – as in the past, or more recently, Gutenberg, philosophy, democracy. Most change is impacted and absorbed (or in market terms “discounted”) by existing structures. Periodically, the change is so significant that it recreates the structures of society…government, family, etc. Today, it is education that is under the pressure of colossal change

5. What are knowledge trends?
Intuitive
Growth
Fluidity
Impact on authority
Impact on certainty
Technology
Numerous changes, but for our purposes, we will focus on growth, fluidity, social construction, technology, impact on certainty

6. Creation, dissemination, distribution, end-user relationship
Fluid knowledge
Product to process
Creation, dissemination, distribution, end-user relationship
We can’t see the way out yet because we are thinking within the existing structure. That’s why we are still having discussions about constructivism vs connectivism (or some such model). Connectivism is entirely different – not fixated on the learning model of “in head with aid of socialization”. Knowledge – and the affiliated concepts of learning and understanding – is a function of “the network”
Fast and frugal heuristics – Andy Clark

7. Architecture of participation powered by network effects
Dion Hinchcliffe

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
Lack of certainty – can we trust what’s happening now

10. If you have three pet dogs, give them names
If you have three pet dogs, give them names. If you have 10,000 head of cattle, don't bother.
David Gelernter
Our relationship to information changes…as it becomes more abundant

11. Where can we scale? Human capacity – yes, but bounded
Technology capacity – augmentation - primitive
Procedural capacity - Network intelligence
Patterning (technology does it for us) – tag clouds
Socialization –
Abundance

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
“cognitive death by school” - Freire

14. Awareness with potential for relationship
What is a connection
Awareness with potential for relationship
Each node is a portal to a new network
Environment with greatest capacity to connect

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)
Beinhocker – origin of wealth

16. “Roads no longer merely lead to places; they are places”
John Brinckerhoff Jackson
JBJ: Landscape in Sight p. 251

17. The power of networks…of doubling
Networks are our best current scaling device…we off load cognition to the network…but the network can’t only provide resources of a particular. To be valuable, we need relevant and diverse networks (diverse so we see holistically)
We are not at the end of our knowledge growth. We are only at the beginning…and 10 years in, we are overwhelmed. What will happen 20 years in? 30? 75?

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
Bereiter: understanding is relationship between knower and object (p.100)

20. Connectivism What is it? Networked learning…
Learning occurs through diverse networks we actively create and engage in…the network itself – in the form of technology and people – holds and filters knowledge and information…our ability to learn and stay current is directly related to the strength and diversity of our personal learning network. Knowledge in this model is relational – coming through trusted nodes…See Downes excellent article on Connective Knowledge

21. A certain type of knowledge…
Rapidly changing
Complex
Connected
Global
Social
Technologically mediated
More and more of our knowledge fits this category

22. It is not only that the idea is socially constructed…the idea itself is socially re-created…reformed…redesigned. This is the value of the network
Image from:

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 http://www.army.mil/fcs/ - future combat systems
“cohesive system-of-systems”…” A distributed and networked array of multispectral intelligence”
“each node will exchange real-time information with the network, allowing the entire system to accommodate sudden changes in the “battle space”.

25. Connected specialization
Modularity (Minksy)
Novel combinations

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
p. 113 – Knowing Knowledge

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
Technology creates many problems – Postman

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.”
– Rest principle – we see “deep learning”, slow eating, etc. trends (thanks to Teemu for the link)
John David Sinclair

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

37. Everything is an experiment
Everyone is a creator

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