Connectivism!!!

Just before christmas I spent 2 days in Durham at a conference for blackboard users where the focus was on Connectivism.

What is meant by Connectivism, well this is taken from George Siemens paper on Connectivism (apologies for the length)

“Connectivism is the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and complexity and self-organization theories. Learning is a process that occurs within nebulous environments of shifting core elements – not entirely under the control of the individual. Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing. Connectivism is driven by the understanding that decisions are based on rapidly altering foundations. New information is continually being acquired. The ability to draw distinctions between important and unimportant information is vital. The ability to recognize when new information alters the landscape based on decisions made yesterday is also critical.

Principles of 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.”

If we look at the core principles of what Connectivism is we can see if it all to do with the way we learn, if we take this we can see if will have a major impact upon personal knowledge. As we move on in the knowledge age we can see that the skills and knowledge we once needed to achieve our goals in our chosen professions are no longer valid, the knowledge we have now has or will become obsolete. Gonzalez (2004) describes the challenges face by diminishing knowledge:

“One of the most persuasive factors is the shrinking half-life of knowledge. The “half-life of knowledge” is the time span from when knowledge is gained to when it becomes obsolete. Half of what is known today was not known 10 years ago. The amount of knowledge in the world has doubled in the past 10 years and is doubling every 18 months according to the American Society of Training and Documentation (ASTD). To combat the shrinking half-life of knowledge, organizations have been forced to develop new methods of deploying instruction.”

Within this knowledge age we can see that personal knowledge and Connectivism are going to be interlinked, the human ability to learn the skills what we need for tomorrow is now more important than what we know today.

The challenge for any new learning theory is to know what knowledge is need to the point of application. However when knowledge is needed but not known, our ability to use and plug ourselves in to other sources becomes a vital skill.

References

Gonzalez, C., (2004). The Role of Blended Learning in the World of Technology. Retrieved December 10, 2004 from http://www.unt.edu/benchmarks/archives/2004/september04/eis.htm.

http://www.connectivism.ca/

Siemens, G (2004) Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm

Connectivism - The Eighth Annual Durham Blackboard Users’ Conference
https://duo.dur.ac.uk/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_152_1