Personal Blogs

Post in response to H817 activity 13: Connectivism

This theory attempts to assert that changes in technology have changed the activity of learning - a new learning theory.
 
Key foundations:
- Learners move across a variety of unrelated professional fields over their career lifetime
- Informal learning is a significant aspect of our learning experience (formal eduacation provides the minority). CoPs, personal networks and work-related teaks are more important sources.
- Learning is a continual process, and is not separate from working – they are the same!
- The tools we use define and shape our thinking - Well I agree that they make us devote our thinking effort proportionally to different activities.
- Information storage and processing processes can now be off-loaded or supported by technology
- Where to find info is a critical skill
 
I broadly agree with Driscoll's (2000) definition of leraning: 'a persisting change in human performance or performance potential... [which] must come about as a result of the learner's experience and interaction with te world'
 
I see the following as a continuum:
1) Objectivism (similar to behaviouralism) reality is external and objective. Knowledge gained through experiences
2) Pragmatism (similar to cognitivism) reality is interpreted. Knowledge is negotiated through experience and thinking
3) Interpretivism (similar to constructivism) reality is internal. Knowledge is constructed.
 
Similar to Poppers (?) "theory - empirical evidence continnum". If we cannot experience without interpreting external things. Learning is a product of both processes. However, I can conceive that some learning might fall toward one end of the continuum. For example, learning about an abstract scientific theory, might involve more objectivism. Something more personal to you, and subjective, might be more interpretive. I tentatively put forward an argument that in the more messy work situations we find ourselves in, more decision making, and therefore associated learning, falls toward the interpretive end.
 
Question - is one end of this continuum, more than the other, associated with innovation?
 
Principles for connectivism
*       Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
*       Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.
*       Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
*       Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
*       Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
*       Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.
*       Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
*       Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.

What I think is important about Constructivism:

Constructivism raises 2 important considerations to existing learning theories:
1) There is more cognitive effort of the individual put into a process of evauating whether knowledge is worth acquiring, before expending effort to learn it.
2) The skill in making connections and synthesising different bits of knowledge has become more important where there is easy access to vast quantities of it.
 
In these ways, I do believe that elearning has a difference balance of learner activities than other forms of learning.

Reflection point - How did I decide this course was worth doing?
- I think I wanted people input - I wanted connectivity. Did I subconsiously realise that this was valuable?
 
 
Connectivism says that we expand our access to experiences (though second hand access to other peoples' experiences) though technology. Our connections are surrogates for our knowledge. Karen Stephenson's quote
"Experience has long been considered the best teacher of knowledge. Since we cannot experience everything, other people's experiences, and hence other people, become the surrogate for knowledge. 'I store my knowledge in my friends' is an axiom for collecting knowledge through collecting people (undated)."
 
Connectivism als talks about an issue of organisational learning. I think there is an issue of the asynchronous timing of planning, learning and decision-making activities, and our difficulties in making these work effectively in organisations. The actors in each of these processes are not weakly tied. Often they are not tied at all!
 

 
Most useful bit of this theory for my own professional context:  Connectivism talks about creating the optimal flow of knowledge through an organisation via interdependence and weak ties. Perhaps this is a good model for what training organisations should
provide:
*       An infrastrucure that supports interdepence and weak ties
*       Supports the development of skills to navigate
*       Supports the connectivity of ideas and individual nodes
*       Makes special effort to connect large scale diverse knowledge areas with small ones (perhaps work-based communities of practice)
 
The above should lead to an amplification of relevant learning!
Design of learning implications

References:

Driscoll, M. (2000) Psychology of Learning for Instruction. Needham Heights, MA, Allyn & Bacon

Stephenson, K., (Internal Communication, no.36) What Knowledge Tears Apart, Networks Make Whole. Retrieved December 10, 2004 from http://www.netform.com/html/icf.pdf

Seimens, G. (2004) Connetivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age

Post in response to H817 activity 9: What is theory?

We’ve been asked to investigate theory, as a first step towards thinking about what a theory of elearning might look like.

I was googling and stumbled across this excerpt from a book called Social Theory: Twenty introductory lectures,by Hans Joas and Wolfgang Knobl: http://assets.cambridge.org/97805218/70634/excerpt/9780521870634_excerpt.pdf

 Although the book is about social theory, page 4 onward has some really good stuff about what a theory actually is, and charts the development of scientific thinking through recent history. Below are the key points I took from the excerpt:

What is theory?

At its simplest, theory permeates every part of life – they are generalizations that exist to make life easier, so that every decision you have to make is not a struggle.

·         Theories are generalizations

·         Theories are attempts to make sense and spot patterns

Moreover, we can say that theories are formulated to deal with specific problems. Several specific theories can be aggregated into one general theory (linking similar generalizations).

Popper says the purpose of theories is to rationalize, to explain, to master.

What is scientific theory?

·         Scientific working is a deliberate formation and/or deployment of theory, to deal with specific problems.

Scientific theories aim to make accurate generalizations (as opposed to simple prejudices) on the basis of individual cases. Scientific thinking does this in two ways:

1) Induction: formulate accurate generalizations (theories) from individual cases, or

2) Deduction: explain individual cases accurately on the basis of theories

The more ‘scientific’ a theory is, the greater the extent that theory can bear scrutiny or at the least be checked against reality.

Verification v Falsification

Since it is impossible to verify beyond all doubt that a theory applies in all cases, the concept of falsification was introduced to scientific thought. Falsification allows a observations to challenge theories.

Good science is about constant testing and questioning of our theoretical assumptions, and deliberately exposing them to the risk of falsification.

The result is that on the best theories survive (Darwinian struggle). In an environment of continuous testing and challenge, the surviving theories are not proven, but described as ‘provisionally warranted’.

Another problem the article touches on is the problem with the observations we make. Although we may consider them empirical evidence, in reality, all our observations are based themselves upon theory; generalizations. They are not absolute facts. All of our language to describe reality is ‘infected’ with theory. So even if our observations falsify a theory, those observations may be flawed if the theory they are based upon is false!

To overcome this intertwined relationship between theory and empirical evidence Jeffrey Alexander dealt with them as a continuum rather than polar opposites. The two extremes, the metaphysical environment and the empirical environment are both unattainable, since the way we formulate and test theory is a product of both ends. Thus any theory lies somewhere along the continuum.

Metaphysical environment

 General presuppositions

Models

Concepts

Definitions

Classifications

Laws

Complex and simple propositions

Correlations

Methodological assumptions

Observations

Empirical Environment

Where might a theory of elearning be located along this continuum?

Questions that need grappling with by our group include how ‘scientific’ do we want to make our theory. Do we want something rooted in observations? To me, this would seem to offer us quite a limited scope. Something broader would possibly be less testable or easier to falsify.

Who is this theory for? Learners, teachers/educators, organizations, or any combination of the above?

What is the purpose of our theory? To rationalize behaviours (of the above group(s)? To explain phenomena that we observe? To help us master the practice of learning, or teaching or administering in this elearning environment?

My own agenda on this course, is to understand how I can help my organizations deploy online technologies for the benefit of clients (and important for me: not undermine the business model without offering a different one!) Therefore, I feel I would like to steer our efforts to create an elearning theory towards a model or concept that, as a teacher/facilitator and organization, I could replicate and deploy through training products. This is however, only an initial thought. I am quite excited to see how others in the group will want to steer this.