Connectivism and Connective Knowledge defined


Here's another summing-up comment from The Daily of today, November 3rd, 2008:-

“The classroom is nothing less than an state of the art information dump” October 31, 2008

 

In The Daily today, October 7th, 2008, Stephen quoted  Rodd Lucier's description of Connectivism:

"a unifying lens through which to observe the process of learning..."

 

I liked this approach so much, that I decided it should be put into this section:

Stephen goes on to say:

"Rather than being a new theory or previously unknown phenomenon, connectivism identifies the mechanism by which information moves within any learning system." The breadth of perceptions of learning networks - see week 4 readings and discussions - makes it quite unlikely that two people talking about "learning networks" actually refer to the same thing. Connectivism has a similar breadth of meaning. Discussions in this course have ranged from seeing learning as occurring based on how we are related to others to involved considerations of what "mind" means. Rodd's emphasis on connectivism as a mechanism for identifying how information moves within a network is an important point. I (as in George) would like to see a broader view - one that seeks to address how learning actually occurs. How information flows is important to understand. As is the many ways in which connections form. I'm specifically seeking to detail how it is that connections become learning (or, how learning is an emergent property arising from particular networked states). Rodd Lucier, , October 6, 2008 [Link]"

 

  1. Learning and knowledge is derived from opinions that can be polarized, or at any distance from each other.
  2. When we learn, we are hooking up thoughts which evolve into meaningful associations which come from specialist or information sources. These then form the basis for further learning and we derive more detail from what we have learned already.
  3. Even an object can learn to do stuff.
  4. There is always a point where learning becomes saturated and it is in that stretch of mind where it becomes critical learning.
  5. In order to keep ourselves on the track of learning new stuff, we need to be always networking.
  6. It is also having the vision to be able to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts.
  7. Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
  8. And Connectivism is deciding about stuff and learning stuff at the same time. We choose what we learn and everything we perceive is constantly changing in front of our eyes (much like a game of soccer with moving goalposts.)  This means that the correct answer right now may be the wrong one tomorrow.

 

 

 

Back to the Home page

Educational Technology Over The Years

Second Life

Members of the Connectivism PB Wiki