1. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies Connectivism 101: For the Curious November 12, 2007 University of Alaska Fairbanks George Siemens

2. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies What was happening: late 90’s/early 00’s Network effect was experientially manifested Control was shifting User generated content Lower barriers: We could create, collaborate, share with relative ease

3. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies What was happening in late 90’s/early 00’s Information explosion accelerating Edublog community rapidly developing Learning from each other: distributed, co-formation of understanding Rise of everyone

4. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies Learning didn’t feel like the theories said

5. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies We need a view of learning that recognizes: Changing information base (capacity to know) Role of technology Place/time shifted collaboration Shared sense making Life long learning Connected specialization Diversity Principality of connections

6. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies Contributing factors Dissatisfied learners Engagement Changing world: how we relate to information Upheaval in information fields (blame the network) –News, music, video, software, scholarship

7. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies Learning/life had changed

8. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies The few became the network

9. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies Points of failure Unneeded control LMS models (centralized/clunky) –Good for administrators –Terrible for learners and faculty LOs starting to peel hype layer Structured and planned=outdated

10. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies Heisenberg principle of information/learning: if you can describe it, it has changed

11. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies Origin Lots of stuff before I ever got here 2003 article – networks, ecologies 2004 article – self-published 2005 – IJTDL 2005 – Downes: Connective Knowledge 2006 – Wilson: “The diagram” Simultaneous: networked learning Edublog space exploded (see edublog awards)

12. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies Connectivism: Theory of learning developed in the manner it states learning occurs Downes, Cross, Richardson, Verhagen, Kerr, Anderson, Blackall, Sessums, Fisher, Hiebert, Wilson, Fiedler (plus a few hundred others) How did they contribute? Why did they contribute? How’s that for authentic?

13. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies What is connectivism? Knowledge distributed Learning as networked process (i.e. forming connections) Principles form base of all design

14. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies Three levels: Neural Conceptual (Sweller, Novak) External (people, information sources)

15. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies But is that learning?

16. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies “More than anything else, being an educated person means being able to see connections that allow one to make sense of the world and act within it in creative ways” William Cronon, 1998

17. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies The network became the locus of change

18. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies What is knowledge?

19. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies Where is it found?

20. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies “All the knowledge is in the connections” David Rumelhart

21. Learning Technologies Centre www.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

22. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies The network became a lever of influence

23. Learning Technologies Centre www.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies The aim: Deep understanding Complex worldviews Multi-context Assimilative/adaptive Agility/stability (Oblinger)