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Connection Lost
From Spring Globe's photostream (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mieke/1632453542/)
I’m starting to think I’m losing my mind, or perhaps as Nicholas Carr states in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” I’m simply finding the “deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” (More on that later.) The point is, George Siemens “new theory” espoused in “Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age” does NOT make sense to me. First of all, I agree with Martin who read the article and said, “So what? What’s new here?” especially regarding Siemen's list of “some significant trends in learning” on the first page. I would love to question and refute much of the assertions in this article. However, given some research I was just reading on how much time and attention people will actually give to reading blogs or online commentaries, I want to immediately focus my attention on the list he gives entitled “Principles of connectivism” and my related questions: - Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions. What’s new? Wasn’t that how Socrates was trying to continually push his own understanding—through the views and “understanding” of others?
- Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources. What do you mean by nodes? Can understanding happen if they simply connect sources and not actually “make sense” of these connections?
- Learning may reside in non-human appliances. What learning do you value?
- Capacity to know more is more critical than what is known. Isn’t it more critical to know which questions to ask and to think about what you do and don’t know than mere capacity? (Suggested reading: The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner)
- Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning. How is this different from social constructivism or systems thinking in learning organizations?
- Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill. Most definitely! Isn’t this is key component of constructivist theory?
- Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities. So gaining knowledge (the lowest level of learning) is the main thrust of this theory?
- Decision-making is itself a learning process . . . staying open to new learning, adapting thinking. And what is new about this? Hasn't this always been so?
Please accept my apologies if my ignorance or Googlized brain is at fault here. I’m looking for clarity and would love to hear from you all regarding your take on this “new theory” of learning.
Endless Connection (http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnson-in-cyberspace/3045991719/)
From Spring Globe's photostream (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mieke/1632453542/)
Endless Connection (http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnson-in-cyberspace/3045991719/)
I think you are wise not to bother refuting most of the assertions in this article in your blog post here. That is, if you think the learning value for you is what people will respond to you with. I thought the point of writing these reflections as blog posts was not only to get feedback but to hone and synthesize our ideas. The idea of publishing them to a blog is not only for the convenience of classmates and teachers to read but for the blogger to be pushed to write better. If you don't think anyone is going to read I guess that doesn't really work. Just know that someone might read.
ReplyDeleteI will take a stab at your questions.
* Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions. What’s new? Wasn’t that how Socrates was trying to continually push his own understanding—through the views and “understanding” of others?
I am not great on my Socrates, but I have always had trouble with this notion. Learning and knowledge rest in the difficult to verify correspondence between a conception in our minds and some objective, though impossible to nail down, external reality. A semi-accurate conception trumps any number of misconceptions, regardless of their diversity. Gathering a diversity of opinions, recognizing that diversity exists is probably a prerequisite for arriving at a useful, true, or accurate conception for yourself, but don't confuse the road for the destination.
* Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources. What do you mean by nodes? Can understanding happen if they simply connect sources and not actually “make sense” of these connections?
This is too vague to hope for any consensus on, so I will throw my own idiosyncratic read on this. I say, this is important to do, and is fruitful. I don't know if it is learning, though. Nodes are any discernible subunit of a culture, discipline or system of knowledge that you can find a meaningful way to section off. It is a messy business, but we do it all the time. Making a connection between nodes, to my way of thinking, is "making sense" of the connection. There is nothing that guarantees these connections will be valid or fruitful but it is worth a shot. Here are a couple of examples. Node 1 The mystery of Easter Island, Node 2 Critique of irrational over-consumption, the 'connection' is seeing the analogy between historical events recently discovered on the island and present consumption trends. The yield: a unique historical warning about our impending doom and some fantastic press and magazine layouts for otherwise obscure anthropologists. Here is another one, (this one is mine, so please criticize it) There was a book that came out a few years back called The Selfish Gene, by renown evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. At the end of this scholarly yet accessible work Dawkins throws out a brilliant, but untested hypothesis, universal evolution, of which biological evolution is only one instance. Later this is adapted to the notion of meme (the conceptual analog to the gene). In and of itself this is a productive, if not somewhat controversial connection between the specialized nodes evolutionary biology, on the one hand, and a whole spectrum of nodes on the other hand from religion to self awareness to fads and culture. Enter the marketers and ad agencies who sidestep the controversy and confusion (most thought about memes online is utter rubbish and therefore the idea of memetics is harshly criticized) and ask, 'does this work?' This connection appears to have some validity, because it has met with measurable success in marketing, PR, and political campaining. Ever hear the term, "gone viral"? That is part of a novel understanding of the transmission of ideas that has arisen from connectionism. Marketers were not going to come to the notion of universal evolution through marketing.
Now, I say we educators need to catch up with the marketers and look at making connections between memetic evolution and the business of learning and pedagogy and make it work for us. It will be hard work, but look at how much is already done, how many connections are drawn. Here is some language we use all the time in relation to learning that makes a connection to the biological: grow, cultivate, seed, plant, taxonomy. Let's see if there are novel understandings of pedagogy and teaching that can benefit from the best thinking in ecology, agriculture, dog breeding, genetic engineering or any other node.
* Learning may reside in non-human appliances. What learning do you value?
Hey, all appliances are non-human, so this is a non-starter. I value learning stuff that is true or useful or entertaining. I am fine with all the learning about cartography existing in the appliance of google maps, but I want the entertaining stuff to be in the humans. It is not fun when the computer is laughing behind your back. Learning for learning's sake has its importance too, but I am not sure if this can reside in an appliance. I guess googles indexing of webpages is sort of like this. No one knows all the searches that will be made, but google casts a wide net and we benefit from that. I refuse to say one is categorically better than another, but I will say that there is trouble when the boundaries are unwisely crossed. Example, not learning to do arithmetic because there are calculators.
* Capacity to know more is more critical than what is known. Isn’t it more critical to know which questions to ask and to think about what you do and don’t know than mere capacity? (Suggested reading: The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner)
Like you said, BS.
* Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning. How is this different from social constructivism or systems thinking in learning organizations?
skip
* Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill. Most definitely! Isn’t this is key component of constructivist theory?
skip
* Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities. So gaining knowledge (the lowest level of learning) is the main thrust of this theory?
Yeah, I feel like the connections themselves are not important beyond getting to and synthesizing expertise. I have a problem with the teacher as conector primarily and content expert second. The only value of a connection is if it is a connection to (expert) content.
* Decision-making is itself a learning process . . . staying open to new learning, adapting thinking. And what is new about this? Hasn't this always been so?
Yes!
Hi Teresa,
ReplyDeleteNew learning style, new term...reflecting the present social environment. Connectivism...so many different layers to the theory. The new black is brown, the new constructivist is connectivist...and tomorrow?
You pointed out that the "Ability to see connections between fields, ideas and concepts is a core skill." (I found that idea important as well and could use a long discussion on it, but of course there is no time, but we do have a connection n'est pas?) Indeed, agreed, but are we making valuable connections? Are these connections making us better thinkers or just better connectors?
Hi Teresa,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments - and for the comments from John and Susi.
When I first "proposed" connectivism as a theory of learning, I was trying to give voice to my experience in online environments. The huge value I found in reading blogs, connecting with others in online forums (and more recently, via facebook/twitter/etc) didn't seem to fit under the banner of existing learning theories. I was finding value in simply connecting to others. Through these connections, I was able to stay current in a field, develop understanding as I watched others express their ideas and share their own learning, etc. Learning as networked made sense on the neural, conceptual, and external and social levels (the presentation I have posted at the end of my comment explores this in more detail).
I have at times regretted titling the article "a new theory of learning" (though, of course, I still maintain it is :)). Too much of the conversation around connectivism has been on whether it is/isn't a theory. How it's classified is secondary to how it can inform the work of educators. I've received a fair bit of feedback - including criticism - see week 1 readings here: http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/wiki/Connectivism and Plon Verhagen offered a critique as well. I encourage individuals that find the term connectivism off-putting to use terms that they are more comfortable with, i.e. networked learning. It is important, I think, that we do not overlook substantial change in society and education by remaining fixated on a particular word or concept. I have one colleague who agrees with much of the shift to networked-views of learning...but refuses to use the term connectivism because he feels it smacks of hype :). Whatever works, as long as we do not overlook change.
Much like cognitivism and constructivism built (partially) on theories that went before, connectivism also relies on previous theories and views. Learners have always been social...connected...and networked. What has happened over the last several decades (information growth, development of the internet, globalization) has resulted in a shift in what is most prominent. I argue that the current constellation of change pressures has created a complex world where connections are most prominent...and networks are the mode of learning that most make sense as a response. In order to better make sense of complexity and to better function in a world of rapid change, I propose connectivism as a learning model to augment existing views.
I would like to emphasize as well that theories evolve and develop over time. I view the 2004 connectivism article as a starting point in the conversation... I have posted a more recent view of connectivism here that may (or may not) address some of your objections: http://elearnspace.org/media/WhatIsConnectivism/player.html
Take care
George