The Conduit is King
It’s 80 degrees, sunny, and there is a slight breeze that keeps the drapes flowing in the room. I should be outside. Instead I have a wrist cramp, a tight back, and my eyes feel like they are filled with sand. Yep, chronic laptop use syndrome and I blame Jeff Utecht… this time.
In Jeff’s post, Pedagogy Defines School 2.0 (revisited) he speaks of connectivism, a theory that, I must admit, I had never heard of. In fact, I just had a conversation with my super about using technologies to support constructivist practices. Oh boy…
Fortunately, George Siemens, the mind behind connectivism (Jeff please correct me if I am wrong) acknowledges that it is impossible to know every angle on a given piece of information. Even better for us, he advocates just letting some things be until all of the connections can be made to achieve a perspective.
George Siemens authored Knowing Knowledge in 2006. I haven’t finished the e-book (pdf download), nor have I been able to get a good grasp on how to articulate the information it contains, so I suppose this is more of an advertisement than an original thought.
E-books, like Knowing Knowledge (Siemens) and Coming of Age (Freedman et all), represent an interesting shift in what is considered text. These “books” are authored by experts, but they are not products. The authors are setting up the content so that it can be current and continue to flow. By attaching blogs, wikis, and in Terry’s case a ning, the authors have started the learning process from their point of view and are allowing the information to evolve as more perspective is introduced.
Is this the responsibility of the expert in our age of information? You present information, allow others (trusted individuals) to process it, re-define ideas based on new perspective and present again. Meanwhile ”the others” are presenting the information in their networks allowing their members to add perspective. (Okay, I am working it out, I think.)
Bottom line in a world flooded with content, the process becomes more important than the content.
Here are some interesting quotes or ideas from Knowing Knowledge.
“The problem rests largely in the view that learning is a managed process, not a fostered process.”
“Conversation is the ultimate personalization experience.”
“A product is a stopped process.”
“We have become the filter, the mediator, and the weaver.”
Okay, I need a break. I will come back to this as I mull through it…hopefully with Jeff’s help and now yours. Connectivism anyone?
July 14th, 2007 at 10:22 am
I think you are on the write track. I’m excited to follow your personal journey as you head hurts from thinking about all this (Been there done that!).
There are a could things about connectivism that speak to me. One being that learning is individualized, based on the nods of information you connect and the view at which you look at and perceive information. Now the great thing is this is the way education is heading. Understanding that every child is unique and every child should have individual instruction. But in today’s classroom we want the same product! We want everyone to create a PPT or a story, or a …… We try to force our students back into the box via assessment, making the individual learning more narrow because our outcome has to be the same. As Siemens states “A product is a stopped process.” Therefore by creating an end point for students we stop the learning process? We do not allow students to continue to find information, connect nods, and make personal meaning of knowledge.
So how would we assess….by being more reflective. I could assess this blog entry you wrote. What does it tell me? Are you “getting it” what connections have been meaningful for you. You created the product, it means something to you and shows that in fact you did learn something. I leave a comment, which hopefully will make you think, make more personal connections, and this comment along with other nods of information will allow you to continue on with your learning process.
(Ok now my brain hurts!)
Great stuff!
July 14th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Hi Ken,
Not sure if we met at NECC a few weeks ago (at the Bloggers’ Café), but I couldn’t resist adding a comment to your recent discovery of Connectivism. I have been following George’s presentation of this new learning lens for a while now and recently wrote a blog post – Connectivism for Dummies (with George’s permission!) – http://www.mtl-peters.net/blog/?p=135
Much of what I found in Knowing Knowledge resonated with my own observations and experiences as a high school teacher (and now consultant with the ministry of education here in Québec) and parent of three teenagers who are very digitally fluent. As an educator, I find myself particularly challenged by how to best prepare our young students for this new highly digitized society. I am especially concerned with how we can train our students to anchor and filter – that is, to stay focused on their tasks and to be able to discern which information is most critical to their task at hand. Networking for the 21st century learning is easy – knowing how to stay focused and discerning is not!
Please continue to share your ideas as you go through the ideas presented in Knowing Knowledge and be sure to add to it as you go along.
I also want to affirm your ideas about Coming of Age – a great book that will continue to grow over time – and yes, it is constantly evolving, as are the technologies and affordances. We need to point out this valuable hoard of information and knowledge to other educators!
Thanks for sharing your ideas and growth with us.
July 16th, 2007 at 7:37 am
[...] In my effort to explore connectivism as a learning theory (see Conduit is King) I immediately find myself wondering, what is the most difficult part in shifting practice. I am [...]
July 16th, 2007 at 7:49 am
[...] In my effort to explore connectivism as a learning theory (see Conduit is King) I immediately find myself wondering, what is the most difficult part in shifting practice. I am [...]
July 16th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Hi Sharon,
Focusing and discerning are good skills to look at. I fear that a general discussion about how to model these skills would just lead to a focus on tools but I think tools can be a gateway to both.
I admit I am guilty of jumping around and need to do a better job with both. Thank you for your feedback if you have anything else to add or maybe a source I may not have yet please keep in touch.
Ken