George Siemens Knows Knowledge —
I finally took the time to finish reading George Siemens' treatise entitled "Knowing Knowledge". Siemens is almost apologetic in the preface about taking a tangle of ideas and incongruously presented it in the linear format of a book. I did find it difficult to piece it all together, but Siemens expects readers to make of it what we will. I find many of the ideas expressed in the book to be appealing. But I have many concerns. Siemens starts 275 sentences with the word "We…". Many of these statements make questionable presumptions about what ordinary people generally think and do. Here is a sample:
We are most alive, most human, and most complete when we see the full color of our multi-domain continuums. (p. 20) We are entering a new stage of active, ongoing cognition. (p. 35) We forage for knowledge—we keep looking until we find people, tools, content, and processes that assist us in solving problems. Our natural capacity for learning is tremendous. (p. 45) We value what is different more than what is known (p. 63) We can work wherever and whenever. (p. 72) We are no longer willing to have others think for us. We want to read what concerns us Listen to what we want. (p. 72) We no longer exclusively read newspapers or watch the evening news. We used to go to one source of information to get a thousand points of information. Now, we go to a thousand sources of information to create our one view. (p. 93) We rarely slow down enough to begin to use our advanced thinking skills. (p. 106) We want to belong. We want to achieve. We want to pull back the curtain of the unknown. (p. 143)I am concerned that such sweeping statements don't stand up to scrutiny, which weakens the impetus for the paradigm shift that Siemens envisions. At the risk of contradicting myself, I believe most of us working and learning at university accept and welcome the opportunities to stretch and shift our conceptualisations. But I'm not sure corporate employees and ordinary citizens who struggle through life would agree with all those statements. I see a world dominated by greed, laziness, callousness and insularity rather than the virtuous aspirations of the people to whom Siemens refers. Even teachers who are taking an interest in Siemens' ideas may not see themselves in some of those statements. In a recent online seminar discussing the book (I won't cite it), participants were asking how Connectivism can influence their instructional design. The answer is that Connectivism prescribes that learning shouldn't be designed at all--instruction is futile! Rather, the living, performance space is where the design effort should be targeted, with people dynamically connecting to sources of knowledge rather than necessarily acquiring it. I feel that the tone of Knowing Knowledge is just too strident. There are many prescriptive claims that begin with:
We must… We need to… We require… We should… We can no longer… We have to…I fear that this haranguing tone will not serve its ends. As a committed social democrat, I have no trouble accepting most of the precepts of Connectivism. But people who have an interest in and preference to the power structures, patterns of life and habits of thought that Connectivism contests may dismiss this treatise as just another socialist manifesto substituting knowledge for capital. Connectivism is certainly compatible with deliberative theory. I'd like to explore in a future post whether Connectivism would be strengthened with an association to deliberative democracy, and vice versa. Here, I'll just note that dialogue is not a verb! Also, Siemens writes about discussion and debate yet seeks to bypass argumentation. Instead he should use the term discourse. Beyond its content, I am most impressed with the breadth of the dissemination of the Theory of Connectivism. Siemens has sidestepped the traditional publishing channels and communicated directly to his audience. It seems natural that it is through networking that the book has propagated. The ideas have become widely known through word-of-weblog. Many papers and dissertations by educational researchers, whilst written more formally, make claims in the same abstract and esoteric space. But practitioners are unaware of such works as they appear only in academic journals, conference proceedings or online repositories. For example, Carl Bereiter has written extensively about the nature of knowledge in a connected world. Bereiter remains virtually unknown to practitioners. Further, many of Siemens' ideas align with those of Bereiter, although unlike hundreds of other scholars worldwide, Siemens does not cite him. Siemens describes some higher-order processes which he calls Context Games. It is disconcerting that Siemens does not cite the many educational and communications researchers, including Bereiter, who have written about this space. Whilst Siemens is generous to those in the blogosphere who have supported his ideas, he seems to have chosen to ignore those in traditional academic circles. Even at its core, Connectivism would appear to relate to the situated learning and ecological approaches expressed, for example, in the Activity Theory espoused by Vygotsky and more recently Engström. Yet, no such mention is made. Whilst I wish Siemens the best of success in fine-tuning and promoting his Theory of Connectivism, I hope he doesn't see himself as a revolutionary destined to march out with red banners waving!
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Hi Ron - thanks for your comments. While writing the text, I felt a sense of "gee, I'm saying "must" too often". I corrected many. Probably should have corrected more. And, had I submitted it to a formal publishing process, I'm sure many of glitches that annoy readers could have been avoided. The extensive use of "we" made sense in my head...as the space has become social...as shift to "we", not "I". Some may find, as you have, that it is overstated.
In particular, I would invite you to extend the text where I erred or omitted important sources (you mention Bereiter). I have set up a wiki for readers to change the text: http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/KnowingKnowledge/index.php/Main_Page . As you fairly criticize, my sources involve many blogs. This is where I live. Formal academics are not asking the questions I'm attempting to answer. Bloggers, however, are.
Could you elaborate a bit more on the online session? I don't feel instruction is futile. I don't believe design is a waste. I believe strongly in contexts where instruction and structured learning are important.
Finally, I don't see myself as a revolutionary. At best, I'm speaking my personal confusion out loud. I don't have all (even most) of the answers...and I imagine the book reflected this. The book was a public personal struggle with knowledge. For this reason, I hope the wiki will address the difficult areas of the text. It is, after all, more of an invitation to a conversation than an exposition of knowledge.
Posted by George Siemens 16 January 2007 09:23 am | link
Ron, you mention a "recent online seminar discussing the book". Is it by any chance the SCoPE seminar discussion now in progress? We'll be sure to cross-reference to your blog post about the book and comments that follow. I also invite you and anybody dropping by here to join us in SCoPE. We'll be continuing our discussion for another 2 weeks or so.
SCoPE: http://scope.lidc.sfu.ca
Direct link to Knowing Knowledge discussion: http://scope.lidc.sfu.ca/mod/forum/view.php?id=375
Posted by Sylvia Currie 16 January 2007 10:47 am | link
First, my humble thanks to
George for posting a comment. I have indeed gone to your wiki and added to the discussion there. Whilst the invitation to collaborative writing is sensational, I would prefer to make comments and have others agree or disagree before mucking around directly with your words. The best person to write about Bereiter's views is Carl himself! As you suggest, a good hard edit of your book may be what is in order as it is not the direction of the ideas that I have been particularly critical of.
Oh, and yes I did overstate the futility of instruction! This says more about where I have come from, producing corporate elearning resources....
Sylvia, you are correct it was the SCoPE seminar.
Posted by rlubensky 16 January 2007 11:05 am | link
hi ron,
You mention Bereiter (new to me) as well as activity theory, Vygotsky and Engström in your post as foreshadowing many of the ideas of connectivism.
Other learning theories that address the distribution of knowledge from the mind to the environment include embodied active cognition (my current favourite) and distributed cognition
George is proposing a new theory to deal with knowledge overflow from the individual into the environment. But several theories already exist which deal with this.
Vygotsky seems central to all of this. I did a search for Vygotsky in George's book and there was not a single mention. Although George is now aware of this and mentioned Vygotsky a few times in the recent SCoPE seminar.
Although connection is a good metaphor for our current age I don't think this is a good way to go about creating a new learning theory. I think that most of the hard thinking ought to happen before creating the theory, not afterwards!
Posted by Bill Kerr 26 January 2007 02:16 am | link
Hi Bill,
Thx for your comment, which goes along with my post. I'm not sure it is a learning theory, per se. I think it is more, as Barab refers to Activity Theory, a theoretical lens through which to view a knowledge landscape. I agree with George that Connectivism feels intuitively right. But the cost of direct dissemination (via word of weblog) is that the educational research community is being sidestepped, and many won't be happy about that. I think Connectivism has to sit on the shoulders of giants to gain acceptance.
Posted by rlubensky 26 January 2007 09:35 am | link
Hi Bill - just a quick note - I have referenced Vygotsky extensively over the past few years...and Edwin Hutchins (though not as frequently)...both in presentations and writings. I make a habit of citing new sources when I encounter them (your reference of alan kays...and embodied active conditioning - which I know you've directed me to before, but I now realize I haven't pursued).
I'm a bit taken aback Bill at your fairly steady insistence that I don't comprehend the space of learning theory (in particular the history). I appreciate your appeal to logic and evidence...I'm quite enjoying reading your reactions to connectivism (for dialogue and for personal learning), and genuinely appreciate the effort you are putting into offering a critical view. I'm a bit concerned, however, with two themes I have encountered in several of your blog posts (and partly reflected here). I think you are sloppy in asserting that I didn't do the "hard thinking" before proposing connectivism...and that I didn't explore existing theories (i.e you allude that my lack of direct reference to Vygotsky in my book indicates that I'm not familiar with his work (though, as mentioned, I've frequently referenced him...Vygotsky is not a figure anyone in education (at least with a theoretical background) can readily ignore)). I welcome criticism...but when it is unfounded, I do feel a bit of a desire to challenge the assertions :).
Posted by George Siemens 28 January 2007 03:31 pm | link