Connectivism

For me reflective learning is usually a solitary act.

Siemens 2005 believes that the rapid pace of change with the total amount of human knowledge doubling every 18 months means that we are in a new learning 'age' which requires a new pedagogy. 


As usual we have to cycle back to theories of knowledge. I do get a little frustrated with the perpetual debates about whether reality is external or internal and whether knowledge is knowable. These seem to be epistemological equivalents of counting the number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin. The universe will not cease with my death. I learn by interacting with reality. It may be that I construct my understanding through this interaction but my belief in the realness of reality is so powerful that if I step of a cliff I will fall.


So I am quite happy to believe that reality is out there while at the same time agreeing with Siemens 2005 that "learners are not empty vessels to be filled with knowledge. Instead, learners are actively attempting to create meaning."


But then Siemens suggests that learning is a social act, not an individual act. "Connectivism presents a model of learning that acknowledges the tectonic shifts in society where learning is no longer an internal, individualistic activity." Whilst many would agree that the process of learning often happens in social groups, he seems to take a more extreme position. "We can no longer personally experience and acquire learning that we need to act. We derive our competence from forming connections." 


Can this be right? Sanger (2010) seems to suggest the opposite: that although one can acquire information in groups and discuss information in  groups, in the end one turns that information into knowledge by encoding it within the neurons of one's individual brain.


Of course, the construction of understanding, the making of meaning, is down to the creation of connections. I understand interatomic collisions using a billiard ball metaphor; I have connected these two realms. But the connections are between ideas rather than between people. It may be that I have used other people to learn, to suggest the connections, but my knowledge is not inside their heads, it is inside mine.


"Learning may reside in non-human appliances" says Siemens and he is thinking of databases etc. And yet he defines learning as "actionable knowledge". Well I can't take action over knowledge that lies in some dusty tome on a library shelf unless I have actually accessed that knowledge, and learnt it, so that it resides inside my head. Otherwise I can learn simply by bookmarking all the articles I one day hope to read; I can learn just by buying books.

"The pipe is more important than the content within the pipe" states Siemens which suggests that the skull is more important than the mind. I think I understand what he means but it seems to me that Thornburg's separation of the learning around the campfire and at the watering hole from learning in the cave is still a vital distinction.

We might access ideas in connected groups but in the end the internalisation of that learning is a solitary process.

References


Sanger, L. (2010). Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age. Educause Review, March/April 2010. pp14-24) http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM1020.pdf


Siemens G 2005 Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance learning 2:1 avaliable at http://www.itdl.org/journal/jan_05/article01.htm accessed 19th January 2011

Thornburg D 2004 Campfires in Cyberspace: Primordial metaphors for learning in the 21st Century International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning 1:10 available at http://itdl.org/journal/oct_04/invited01.htm