What Connectivism is
I think Stephen Downes' attempt in the Connectivism Conference Forum (log in as guest) to succinctly encapsulate George Siemens' Connectivism is excellent.
But I think Connectivism needs to be brought home to people through stories told from different paradigmatic perspectives:
Knowledge as something acquired
"I got George's publication Knowing Knowledge and read every page with a highlighter pen blazing. I've put the document on my desktop so I can reference it easily. To help me understand and explain Connectivism, I drew a network of nodes and put the letter 'k' on all the links, then drew a dotted line around a small group of nodes and put 'me' around that. I'm starting to get my head around it now."
Knowledge as performance
"Starting from feelings of doubt, I wrote about George's work Knowing Knowledge in my blog. My articulation led me to realise that it wasn't the essence of Connectivism that discomforted me, but rather the manner in which it was presented. By some miracle, George found my post and responded directly to it. The ensuing dialogue has increased my confidence that I'm landing in the Connectivist space."
Connectivism: Knowledge as connections
"To me, Connectivism probably isn't totally comprehensible, whatever that means. But I'm comfortable with my window that looks out onto its complex landscape. Perhaps I can use Connectivism as an analytical lens to beneficially focus on certain situations. For example, in a project team I'm managing I'll spend more effort facilitating the manner in which members collaborate rather than simply driving their individual and collective output. I'd hope everyone in the Connectivist space could occasionally share their experiences and offer support."
Comments?
At its heart, connectivism is the thesis that knowledge is distributed across a network of connections, and therefore that learning consists of the ability to construct and traverse those networks.
It shares with some other theories a core proposition, that knowledge is not acquired, as though it were a thing. Hence people see a relation between connectivism and constructivism or active learning (to name a couple).
more...
But I think Connectivism needs to be brought home to people through stories told from different paradigmatic perspectives:
Knowledge as something acquired
"I got George's publication Knowing Knowledge and read every page with a highlighter pen blazing. I've put the document on my desktop so I can reference it easily. To help me understand and explain Connectivism, I drew a network of nodes and put the letter 'k' on all the links, then drew a dotted line around a small group of nodes and put 'me' around that. I'm starting to get my head around it now."
Knowledge as performance
"Starting from feelings of doubt, I wrote about George's work Knowing Knowledge in my blog. My articulation led me to realise that it wasn't the essence of Connectivism that discomforted me, but rather the manner in which it was presented. By some miracle, George found my post and responded directly to it. The ensuing dialogue has increased my confidence that I'm landing in the Connectivist space."
Connectivism: Knowledge as connections
"To me, Connectivism probably isn't totally comprehensible, whatever that means. But I'm comfortable with my window that looks out onto its complex landscape. Perhaps I can use Connectivism as an analytical lens to beneficially focus on certain situations. For example, in a project team I'm managing I'll spend more effort facilitating the manner in which members collaborate rather than simply driving their individual and collective output. I'd hope everyone in the Connectivist space could occasionally share their experiences and offer support."
Comments?
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Hi again Ron...
The simple example of connectivism is reflected in the short exchange we had on your site a few weeks ago - you post a reaction to knowing knowledge (not sure how you would classify the learning that happened while you were reading - i.e. is reading a constructive learning activity? cognitivist?). What connections enable is a new level of dialogue. We don't have to be in the same time zone or the same social group in order to learn from each other. When we make ourselves transparent to the network, we enable connections...which enable dialogue. Your open post enabled me to react to your ideas. Is that cognitivist? constructivist? No, it's something completely different. It's the co-development of ideas...learning enabled by the network...and technology. This simple experience is an affordance of the types of knowledge and the climate that I'm trying to address with connectivism.
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George Siemens |
Mon Feb 05, 11:30:00 AM
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