Connectivism: Social networked learning

George Siemens, PhDSeptember 12, 2012

Buenos Aires

“…the fundamental task of education is to enculturate youth into this knowledge-creating civilization and to help them find a place in it…traditional educational practices – with its emphasis on knowledge transmission – as well as newer constructivist methods both appear to be limited in scope if not entirely missing the point”

Scardamalia and Bereiter (2006, Cambridge Handbook of Learning Sciences)

The growing influence of networks as a model for understanding the world…

Hierarchy Edge Bundles3D File Manager

http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/

Political blogosphere, 2004 Blue Brain

Recognition of complexity and networks as underpinning attributes of social, science, education

http://drunks-and-lampposts.com/2012/06/13/graphing-the-history-of-philosophy/

http://drunks-and-lampposts.com/2012/06/13/graphing-the-history-of-philosophy/

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0004803

Making the world’s knowledge relatable

http://linkeddata.org/

Wellman (2002)

http://research.uow.edu.au/learningnetworks/seeing/snapp/index.html

Weak ties

Empirical evidence that the stronger the tie connecting two individuals, the more similar they are, in various ways

Mark Granovetter (1973)

Connectivism:

1. Knowledge is networked and distributed

2. The experience of learning is one of forming new neural, conceptual and external networks

3. Occurs in complex, chaotic, shifting spaces

4. Increasingly aided by technology

Participatory Pedagogies(Collis & Moonen, 2008)

(Askins, 2008)(Harvard Law School, 2008)

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/20/opinion/opinion-alec-ross-tech-politics/index.html

Externalization of thought and concepts

…so that it can be analyzed, interpreted, tested, evaluated

Knowledge relatedness and conceptual errors are often not made explicit (tests don’t always surface these errors)

http://www.learner.org/resources/series28.html

Blurring the physical and virtual worlds

All the world is data. And so are we. And all of our actions.

http://www.hoganphoto.com/batsto_grist_mill.htm

Breakups (via status changes)

“In today’s networked world, learners are placing greater value on knowing where to find information than on knowing the information themselves.”

2010 New Zealand, Australia Horizon Report

But, making the transition to a “connection” as the unit of analysis in learning is not easy

The existing model of education restricts change

Co-evolution of individual and related networkLazer, 2000

Networked information doesn’t have a centre

Fragmentary experience

• Conversations, content, context not (only) shaped by the school/educator

• Learners are in control

Fragmentation is a new reality. Our learning models need to embrace

(reflect) it.

So we (socially) create temporary centres:

So we (technologically) create temporary centres:

#Temporary Centres

Technological sensemaking systems

VisualizationBig DataAnalyticsRecommender systemsAutomated discoveryPredictive models

Coherence is an orientation about the meaning and value of information elements based on how they are connected, structured, and related

Antonovsky 1993

“orientation about the meaning and value of information elements based on how they are connected, structured, and related”

(Antonovsky 1993)

Agents in a system possess only partial information

(Miller and Page 2007)

…to make sense and act meaningfully requires connections to be formed between agents

In language and discourse, coherence relations are “meaning relations that connect discourse segments”

(Kamalski et al. 2008)

Knowledge development, learning, is (should be) concerned with learners understanding relationships, not simply memorizing facts.

i.e. naming nodes is “low level” knowledge activity, understanding node connectivity, and implications of changes in network structure, consists of deeper, coherent, learning

Existing coherence forming systems

BooksNewspapersTV news programsMagazines

(anything that is structured and that the end user can’t speak into and alter)

Knowledge in pieces

diSessa, 1993

As we become connected globally, new knowledge configurations will arise

Massive Open Online Courses

What does this mean to you as an educator?

Importance of learners creating artifacts that reflect how they view a concept/discipline

Assisting learners in thinking in networks (relationship between concepts)

Teaching and learning in networks…

Opening the classroom: the global learner

Exporting, not only importing, education

Content is fragmented (not confined to a course)Knowledge is generativeCoherence is learner-formed, instructor guidedDistributed, multi-spaced interactionsFoster autonomous, self-regulated learners

Complex tasks requiregreater engagement and focus than what weak attention ties permit

Digital literacy

Information literacy

21st century skills

Harvard curriculum

Play, performance, networking,

distributed cognition (Jenkins)

Depth...

Slow LearningGeetha Narayanan

Deep smarts

Deep understanding

Disciplines of Understanding

Reflection

ReviewConnections

Socialization

Explication

Slow, deep, immersive

Multi-faceted

http://open.mooc.ca/

Starts September 10, 2012

http://edfuture.net/

October 8-November 16, 2012

http://lakconference.org

gsiemens @gmailTwitterSkypeFBWherever

www.elearnspace.org

www.connectivism.ca

www.learninganalytics.net