Download - Connectivism 101
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Connectivism 101: For the Curious
November 12, 2007 University of Alaska Fairbanks
George Siemens
Learning Technologies Centrewww.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
Learning Technologies Centrewww.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
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
Learning didn’t feel like the theories said
Learning Technologies Centrewww.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
Learning Technologies Centrewww.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
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
Learning/life had changed
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
The few became the network
Learning Technologies Centrewww.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• LOs starting to peel hype layer• Structured and planned=outdated
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
Heisenberg principle of information/learning: if you can describe it, it
has changed
Learning Technologies Centrewww.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)
Learning Technologies Centrewww.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?
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
What is connectivism?
• Knowledge distributed• Learning as networked process (i.e.
forming connections)
• Principles form base of all design
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
Three levels:
• Neural• Conceptual (Sweller, Novak)• External (people, information
sources)
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
But is that learning?
Learning Technologies Centrewww.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
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
The network became the locus of change
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
What is knowledge?
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Where is it found?
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“All the knowledge is in the connections”
David Rumelhart
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
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
The network became a lever of influence
Learning Technologies Centrewww.umanitoba.ca/learning_technologies
The aim:
• Deep understanding• Complex worldviews• Multi-context• Assimilative/adaptive• Agility/stability (Oblinger)