CCK08: Reflection on Week 7: Do you Have Your ID?

George Siemens begins his Articulate presentation on Instructional Design and Connectivism by asking the following two questions:

• How we design for learning in a world that’s rapidly changing?
• How we design for learning in a world where the individual learner has far greater control over content and interaction than they ever had in the past? (Slide 1)

I would like to take a step back, and first ask the questions, “Who is we?” and “Why is it important that we identify how to design for learners in a rapidly changing world?”

One of Connectivism’s greatest strengths is that it “challenges the perceived linearity often found in learning design theory (Slide 11).”  By extension, the Connectivist framework seeks to “design for adaptability, not mechanistic views” through the use of patterning and wayfinding to refine sensemaking skills (Slide 12). The challenge then remains, how do we “achieve particular outcomes through distributed approaches (Slide 13) ?” Siemens expands on this question with three more:

• How do we deal with and design for learning that occurs in a complex, chaotic environment?
• How do we communicate a message that’s much more fragmented than it’s ever been in the past?
• How do we create learning to ensure that individual participants continue to stay current even when core knowledge within a particular field changes? (Slide 14)

To the extent that Connectivism situates itself as a framework for understanding informal learning, we ought to be looking at examples of both successful and unsuccessful informal learning to see what what they look like. There are a wealth of learners who have chosen not to learn in an institutional setting at all, and there are a wealth of learners learning in an institutional setting, also learning all sorts of material on their own outside of the formal teaching and learning environment. Siemens is correct that we must “pay attention to context, and pay attention to connections formed by learners (Slide 14). What I have found in my own teaching experience is that every learner is different, and by extension, every context is different.

I have a quotation written down somewhere, and I don’t know where or by whom, suggesting that the fact that schools have by and large not had the infrastructure or the financial means to stay up with technology in a widespread manner is a blessing in disguise. That way, teachers don’t have to make a mess of learners making sense of technology for themselves.

I have been a teacher in the past, and my current work as a project manager requires applying the principles of instructional design to the development of courses for distance education students. These courses serve a purpose, and have their place. For some learners, however, we know that the linearity of courses that have been developed with a lock-step linear scope and sequence are not desirable, with the exception of their being the means to accreditation or certification.

Autonomous learners have always found any number of ways to circumvent formal learning. Traditionally, this learning might have taken the form of reading, tinkering and troubleshooting, conversation and demonstration, hypothesizing and experimenting, and exploring without any notion of where those explorations might lead.

Many of our greatest minds have learned via these means, and up until now they have done fine without the Connectivist framework to support and explain their initiatives. Certainly, educators have always scrutinized the behaviour of learners and extrapolated theories on the basis of what they see, often with dire and far-reaching consequences in the form of hastily implemented educational reforms (where funding and political ideology have worked hand in hand with research initiatives.)

Yes, there are numerous points posited by Connectivism that I have no problem accepting as truisms, such as the following:

• learning is the forming of new connections
• ecologies are spaces within which networks occur
• as information changes, so to does the understanding of the individuals in the that field
• what we define as knowledge is represented in some manner of connectedness and the way that we perceive that knowledge is the way in which we’ve configured that particular network (Slide 5).
• learning is the ability to create and form…networks. So in a neural sense learning is the formation of new connections (Slide 6).

Siemens contends that designing for Connectivism concerns creating a design for the space and ecology of learning. What is new about this idea? I inherited a great collection of books from the early 1970s by a retired teacher who was involved in setting up some of the first alternative programs for high school students in Montreal. Among them was a book called “The Teacher as Learning Facilitator.” In Shambhala Buddhism, teachers discuss the ability to “create a container” within which the transmission of key teachings may transpire, if a learner is ready to receive those transmissions. How are these two analogies different?

Siemens:

Ecologies are the spaces in which  networks occur. As designers, our effort turns into designing an ecology that permits the broadest range of connections in order to achieve particular learning outcomes or particular learning tasks (Slide 7).

I cannot help but think that the most effective means by which we as designers for learners may permit the broadest range of connections is by expanding our own credentials as experts in education to also include mentors specific to the learning outcome or task that a learner wishes to realize—whether those individuals are familiar with the principles of instructional design or not. The necessitates a move away from an industrialized learning model, towards individualized instruction supported by a broad range of stakeholders.

In the second Elluminate discussion for Week 7 of CCK08. Siemens states, “Insructional design is an optional skill for a teacher to have.” I couldn’t agree more.

In a comment that was posted on Stephen’s Web in response to the Elearn magazine op-ed piece by Jerry Murphy, “Is Instructional Design Becoming a Commodity?” Brian Alger states:

Instructional designers will eventually become obsolete. 
The assumption that people need a kind of expert called an instructional designer in order to determine how they will “learn” is a retrieval of the industrialized mindset. The technology we refer to as “instructional design” is really a process that is used to impose a scope and sequence on information as well as the temporal assembly line we call the online classroom. What we are currently referring to as “e-Learning” really has very little to do with what learning is. It may be better to reduce the claims being made and refer to it as “e-Education” or e-Training.” Unfortunately many “e-Learning” companies and designers cannot see past their own assumptions and biases (October 14, 2003). 

 

 

 

 

CCK08: Reflection on Week 6: Part 2

1. Notes on “Complexity and Information Overload in Society: why increasing efficiency leads to decreasing control” by Francis Heylighen

The basic premiss of Heylighen’s paper concerns identifying the impact of ephemeralization on global systems.

Ephemeralization, the ongoing increase in efficiency or productivity of all processes involving matter, energy and information, is the most basic manifestation of technological and organizational advance (17).

Both of Heylighen’s papers are predisposed to an optimistic view of the future. It would appear that the author is a strong proponent of globalization, without, however, rigorously defending its criticisms.

People find it ever more difficult to cope with all the new information they receive, constant changes in the organizations and technologies they use, and increasingly complex and unpredictable side-effects of their actions. This leads to growing stress and anxiety, fuels various gloom and doom scenarios about the future of our planet, and may help explain the increasingly radical movements against globalization [my italics] (1).

Perhaps in theory, the reduction of international tariffs in the interests of encouraging trade makes sense; however, the legalities of these agreements are often ratified at the expense of the natural world, local sustainable economies, and indigenous cultures, none of which Heylighen has acknowledged.

…Both the area of land and amount of human effort needed to produce a given amount of food has been reduced to a mere fraction of what it was. As a result, the price of food in real terms has declined with 75% over the last half century (World Resources Institute, 1998). In the same period, the fuel consumption of cars has decreased just as spectacularly, while their speed, power and comfort have increased (3).

Ironically, Heylighen cites both advances in agriculture (leading to a decrease in food prices) and fuel consumption in the same breath. We know now that fuel consumption has increased in North America with an increase in the purchase of SUVs, and that the implementation of government policies that support increased production of biofuel has led to a decrease in the growth of grain products for food worldwide, especially rice. This had led to an increase in the price of those food staples, which in some countries, such as Haiti, has led to riots among the populace, which was suffering from high rates of poverty even prior to the spike in the price of grain.

There is also an unsettling irony that accompanies the increase in the GDP of developing countries, in particular China and India:

…In the developed countries, the problem with food is no longer scarcity but overabundance, as people need to limit their consumption of calories in order to avoid overweight. Even in the poorest countries, the percentage of people that are undernourished is constantly decreasing (Goklany, 2000; Simon, 1995). More generally, the trend is clearly visible in the spectacular growth in wealth, usually measured as GDP per capita, since the beginning of the 19th century (Goklany, 2000). The ever increasing productivity not only results in people earning more, but in them working less hours to achieve this wealth. Moreover, this economic development is typically accompanied by a general increase in the factors that underly overall quality of life: health, safety, education, democracy and freedom (Heylighen & Bernheim, 2000a; Simon, 1995; Goklany, 2000) (6).

Wage increases occurring in developing countries as a result of outsourcing by the West are in part what has contributed to the food crisis. For example, with the increase of the middle class in China, meat consumption has increased, which is also placing tremendous stress on grain production; grain is required to feed the livestock that are now in higher demand for human consumption. In India, the growing middle class is contributing to tremendous growth in the purchase of affordable automobiles. Granted, Heylighen is not making unsustainability a central focus of his paper, and he communicates as much:

Many things are still much less abundant than we would like them to be, and although increasing productivity leads to an ever more efficient use of natural resources (Heylighen & Bernheim, 2000a), ecologists have rightly pointed out that our present usage of many resources is unsustainable. The focus of this paper, though, is not on the remaining scarcities and wastages, which ephemeralization hopefully will sooner or later eradicate, but on a wholly new category of problems created by the emergence of “hyperefficient” processes. To get there, we first need to understand more fundamentally how ephemeralization affects the dynamics of society (6-7).

It remains nonetheless striking how much the world has changed, even since this paper was originally written. Heylighen’s own observations are applicable to the events that have transpired, including the recent downturn in the global economy:

The effect on society of this extension of causal networks is a greater interdependence of various subsystems and processes. Any action will have an increasing number of unanticipated or unintended consequences: side-effects. This entails a greater difficulty to predict, and therefore control, the overall effects of any particular event or process. The reduction of friction in causal chains merely increases the speed of the process, the number of subsequent effects in the chain, and the risk of snowballing. This reduces controllability but not necessarily predictability: as long as the cause-effect relationships are known, it is relatively easy to determine when and in how far a particular process will affect another one. The reduction of friction in causal networks, however, makes prediction ever more difficult, since the number of factors that need to be taken into account to determine any one outcome explodes, while the myriad interactions between those factors are likely to make the overall process ever more chaotic, i.e. sensitive to the smallest changes in initial conditions (11).

2. Notes on “Tackling Complexity and Information Overload: intelligence amplification, attention economy and the global brain” by Francis Heylighen

Heylighen’s description of what is required of 21st century education is entirely consistent with the treatment of subject matter in the Connectivism & Connective Knowledge course. The gravitation towards a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to education may necessarily require that the term is largely deconstructed, unless Connectivism serves as the vehicle and the container within which the new paradigm emerges. In this regard, where Connectivism informs education and where education wishes to borrow from a Connectivist framework, it may, without the threat of the education domain being dismantled entirely:

An education for the 21st century will in particular need to teach us to better understand complex systems, and to avoid the typical errors of judgment that result from their counter-intuive behavior (e.g. Casti, 1994). This requires an in-depth reflection on the observations, concepts and principles developed in disciplines such as systems theory, cybernetics, self-organization, chaos, evolution and complex adaptive systems (Heylighen et al., 1999) (22).

Heylighen’s explanation of “economy” is similarly consistent with Downes’ characterization of the Seven Habits of Highly Connected People:

At the most basic level, “economy” means simply the careful management of resources, so that as little as possible is wasted. From this point of view, individuals should learn to optimally spend the limited amount of attention they have, by investing it only in the most worthwhile items (24).

The author proposes that “the only true solution…” that will allow humans to manage the phenomenon of ephemeralization “…must involve the synergetic use…of…three components, in the form of an emergent collective intelligence, or “global brain”.

First, practical intelligence requires extensive knowledge; yet it is extremely difficult to elicit this knowledge from human experts in a form sufficiently detailed and explicit to be programmed into a computer. This is the knowledge acquisition bottleneck. Second, true intelligence cannot be completely preprogrammed: it must be able to develop autonomously, to self-organize. Third, for an autonomously developing system to acquire knowledge about a realistically complex environment, it must be able to interact extensively with that environment, so that it can learn from its experiences (this requirement of interaction with a true environment is sometimes called “embodiment” or “situatedness”). (28).

Certainly the creation of common ontologies that allow databases to “talk” to one another has evolved significantly with the advent of the semantic web (28). I remain nonetheless skeptical of any uber-initiative, since it smacks of utopianism. That having been said, the formally rendered “collective mental map” is perhaps already being implemented in a beta format, to the extent that Open Source communities, the W3C, or research-based cohorts from around the globe are contributing to the resolution of complex problems (for example, the Genome Project):

The idea is that different individuals, agents or computer programs would contribute their specific knowledge, solve those partial problems or make those decisions for which they are most competent. The results of this cognitive effort would be shared with all other components in a coherent system that I have called a “collective mental map” (CMM). A CMM consists of cognitive resources (typically documents or database records, but this may also include computer programs, agents, and human experts), that are linked by a network of associations. This network would be organized in such a way as to minimize the effort in getting any resource to the place where it is is needed (30).

To what extent do such projects unfold using a centralized model for information dissemination, versus a more distributed model? I do not know enough about these initiatives to say. Heylighen’s observation that the success of a CMM depends on the extent to which it is self-organized and distributed seems accurate:

No system, human or technological, would be able to exert any form of centralized control over such a map so as to coordinate or allocate contributions. Any mechanism of coordination must be distributed over all contributing components. In other words, a CMM for global society must be self-organizing. Hints on how such a self-organizing mental map could function can be found both in the collective foraging behavior of ants, and in the organization of the brain (30).

There is a name for the synergetic use of individually intelligent components: collective intelligence (Lévy, 1997). The most famous examples are insect societies, such as ant nests, bee hives or termite colonies (Bonabeau et al., 1999), that consist of individually dumb components, but are capable of surprisingly smart behavior when working together (30).

One of the most accessible articles that I have encountered on swarm theory, and to which I have linked in a past blog, can be found here on the National Geographic website.

 

 

 

CCK08: Reflection on Week 6

Tennis, bisociation, desire lines…and seeding the space

1. Tennis

This morning I played doubles tennis with my wife and kids. I have a tween and a teen, and they are both getting pretty good at the sport. It’s getting harder and harder for my wife and I to “hold our own” against the kids when we play with them. So today I was compelled to really try and place my serves well; to aim for exactly where I wanted the ball to land in the serving box. On my first shot, the ball landed where I had aimed it! “Holy…” I thought to myself, and continued to experiment with the exercise of narrowing my field of vision, my “viewfinder,” if you will, to place my shots with greater precision. It worked quite well, and I was consistently staggered with the results of this simple exercise (even though we lost that particular game). 

“The new dynamics of strategy: Sense-making in a complex and complicated world” by Kurtz and Snowden was important for me, because it demonstrated in turn how introducing the Cynefin “sense making framework” (468) for understanding to a group can potentially alter the mindset of the individuals therein. Radically unfamiliar scenarios were presented to a group of people that was in turn required to try and make sense of the information provided. Because they were operating in a chaotic environment, the group members reacted in ways in which they would otherwise not necessarily react. Consequently, they experimented with new tools, new ways of seeing the world, which they were then able to bring back to their organizations. The extent to which these skills are transferrable may remain questionable, but the exercise in and of itself is intriguing to me, and I can see the benefits of the Cynefin framework in terms of the expansiveness with which the model can be applied.

2. Bisociation

In the authors’ description of complexity science, the authors mention Poincaré, as did George Siemens in this week’s paper on Complexity, Chaos and Emergence.

DIGRESSION: Whoaaa…One hour later…So I go to the Connectivism & Connective Knowledge blog homepage to link to the wiki to find the link to George’s paper referring to Poincaré, end up reading Stephen’s most recent blog post, click on the response to a discussion post link, and then end up linking to the Trolling for Trolls post and reading most of that thread. Talking about spinning off…what was I doing again? Oh yeah! Looking for the link to George’s paper!

Mention of Poincaré reminded me of the book The Act of Creation written by Arthur Koestler, in which Poincaré’s sudden discovery of the resolution to a complex mathematical problem suddenly occurred to him when he was stepping onto a bus:

At the moment when I put my foot on the step the idea came to me, without anything in my former thoughts seeming to have paved the way for it, that the transformation that I had used to define the Fuchsian functions were identical with those of non-euclidean geometry (O’conner, Robertson, para. 20).

Koestler uses the term “bisociation” to describe the act of creative realization:

‘The basic bisociative pattern of the creative synthesis [is] the sudden interlocking of two previously unrelated skills, or matrices of thought.’ The more unusual, the bisociation, the more scope there is for truly creative ideas. Various types of unconscious thinking may be involved, including visual imagery; concrete (sometimes personal) exemplars of abstract ideas; shifting emphasis; reasoning backwards; and generating analogies of diverse kinds. In addition, he emphasized the importance of long apprenticeship and expertise, whether in science or in art (quoted from Boden, 23, para. 4).

I’ve been thinking about throwing Koestler into the mix even previous to the Poincaré reference, because I am interested in how creativity is understood in Connectivist terms. It seems especially appropriate to be bringing this up now, to the extent that chaos, as the term is being used in the context of the Connectivism & Connective Knowledge course, has a bearing on how creative thought processes may be explained. Kurtz and Snowden point out that:

• Humans are not limited to one identity (464).
• Humans are limited to acting in accordance with predetermined rules (465)
• Humans are not limited to acting on local patterns (465)

The authors differentiate between two domains, described as either ordered or un-ordered, and two states that can be found in each: complex states or chaos in the un-ordered domain, and knowable or known states in the ordered domain. 

With reference to chaos, the authors mention,

Chaos is also a space we can enter into consciously, to open up new possibilities and to create the conditions for innovation (469).

I would like to see a more specific treatment of creativity in the Connectivist framework. Maybe it’s out there already, and I just haven’t found it…

3. Desire Lines

Kurtz and Snowdon quote “Kostof…in his description of cities:”

…the two primary versions of urban arrangement, the planned and the ‘organic,’ often exist side by side…Most historic towns, and virtually all those of metropolitan size, are puzzles of premeditated and spontaneous segments, variously interlocked or juxtaposed…(466).

This quote reminded me of desire lines, the ‘organic’ paths that are carved into the earth by animals and people. Someone pointed out to me that children often choose to walk in the grass directly beside a sidewalk, given a choice between the pavement and the earth. I have since observed this behaviour time and time again. The wikipedia post suggests, “Many streets in old cities began as desire lines which evolved over the decades or centuries into the modern streets of today.” 

I was intrigued to find a link from “desire lines” to “wayfinding,” a term that George Siemens has brought up in the context of this course. Originating in traditional navigation, the term now may also refer to “signage and other graphic communication, clues inherent in the building’s spatial grammar, logical space planning, audible communication, tactile elements, and provision for special-needs users.”

4. Seeding the Space

Every once in a while I am reminded some of the transferable skills that I am fortunate enough to have brought from my teaching experience with kids to project management in the field of distance education course development. The following quote from Kurtz and Snowden was a case in point:

…A group of West Point graduates were asked to manage the playtime of a kindergarten as a final year assignment. The cruel thing is that they were given time to prepare. They planned; they rationally identified objectives; they determined backup and response plans. They then tried to “order” children’s play based on rational design principles, and, in consequence, achieved chaos. They then observed what teachers do. Experienced teachers allow a degree of freedom at the start of the session, then intervene to stabilize desirable patterns and destabilize undesirable ones; and, when they are very clever, they seed the space so that the patterns they want are more likely to emerge [my intalics] (466).

Beautiful…

CCK08: Reflection for Week 5: Part 4

The Virtual Self: Further notes from Franciso Varela’s Ethical Know-How: Action, Wisdom and Cognition

In George Siemens’ Articulate presentation “Groups and Networks,” multiple references to “the self” are made without any formal definition of the term to which Siemens is referring. Below are excerpts from the presentation with transcriptions of some of the commentary accompanying each slide included in italics.

Basis of collective intelligence is “the self” (slide 7)

As we begin to integrate our ideas and concepts with others and we extend themselves into some sort of a group activity, there is an important protection of self that needs to occur where we retain our identity or where we retain our contributions.

The self is not created through socialization. (slide 12)

It is shaped and expressed through socialization (slide 13)

The self is not something that is created through socialization. Instead, it is something that is shaped and expressed through the act of socialization, through the act of negotiation, through dialoguing with, and sharing in conversations with other people.

Connectives: autonomy of self (mosaic) (slide 14)

Individuals then, in some type of a connective relationship to each other retain a high autonomy of self. Rather than blending, they exist in a mosaic. Namely, they retain their identity, even though they contribute to the larger whole.

Collectives: subsumption of self (melting pot) (slide 15)

In contrast, a collective is a subsumption of self. An example that is often used is the notion of a melting pot, where our individuality is absorbed as we contribute or become part of the larger whole.

 The previously listed tenets adhere to a notion of selfhood in which\ the autonomy of the self is highly valued. Selfhood may also be understood, however, in terms of assuming a position of groundlessness, or homelessness, out of which spontaneous action arises in terms of one’s moment to moment co-creation of the world. From within this constantly changing frame of reference, uncertainty guides action and response, and one’s decisions are made in relation to the specific contexts in which one finds oneself.

 The core proposition of Franciso Varela’s Ethical Know-How is:

Ethical know-how is the progressive, firsthand acquaintance with the virtuality of the self…If we do not practice transformation, we will never attain the highest degree of ethical expertise (63)…The analytic stance of ethics…proposes that we suspend the temptation to be identified with the other and, instead, undertake a journey of learning to see ourselves and others as inescapably transitory and fragmented (65).

 The nature of the identity of the cognitive self…is one of emergence through a distributed process. The emergent properties of an interneural network are enormously rich and merit further discussion at this point. What I wish to underscore here is the relatively recent (and stunning!) conclusion that lots of simple agents having simple properties may be brought toether, even in a haphazard way, to give rise to what appears to be an observer as a purposeful and integrated whole, without the need for central supervision…. A selfless (or virtual) self [is] a coherent global pattern that emerges from the activity of simple local components, which seems to be centrally located, but is nowhere to be found, and yet is essential as a level of interaction for the behavior of the whole (52-53)

 Applied to the brain, this new model explains why we find networks and subnetworks interacting promiscuously without any real hierarchy of the sort typical of computer algorithms. To put this differently, in the brain there is no principled distinction between software and hardware or, more precisely, between symbols and nonsymbols… The cognitive self it its own implementation: its history and its action are of one piece (54).

 This continual redefinition of what to do is not at all like a plan selected from a repertoire of potential alternatives; it is enormously dependent on contingency and improvisation, and is more flexible that any plan can be (55).

 Distinction between “environment” and “world”

Here we must sharply differentiate between “environment” and “world,” for the cognitive subject is “in” both, but not in the same way. On the one hand, a body interacts with its environment in a straightforward way. These interactions are of the nature of macrophysical encounters—sensory transduction, mechanical performance, and so on—nothing surprising about them. However, this coupling is possible only if the encounters are embraced from the perspective of the system itself. This embrace requires the elaboration of a surplus signification based on this perspective; it is the origin of the cognitive agent’s world. Whatever is encountered in the environment must be valued or not and interacted with or not. This basic assessment of surplus signification cannot be divorced from the way in which the coupling event encounters give rise to intentions (I am tempted to say “desires”), and intentions are unique to living cognition (55-56).

Cognitive intelligence…resides only in its embodiment. It is as if one could separate cognitive problems into two types: those wihch can be solved through abstraction and those which cannot. Those of the second type typically involve perceptual and motor skills of agents in unspecified environments. When cognitive intelligence is approached from this self-situated perspective, it quickly becomes obvious that there is no place where perception could deliver a representation of the world in the traditional sense. The world shows up through the enactment of the perceptuo-motor regularities. As Brooks puts it:

Just as there is no central representation there is no central system. Each activity layer connects perception to action directly. It is only the observer of the creature who imputes a central representation or central control. The creature itself has none: it is a collection of competing behaviors. Out of  the local chaos of their interactions there emerges, in the eye of the observer, a coherent pattern of behavior (60).

What we call “I” can be analyzed as arising out of our recursive linguistic abilities and their unique capacity for self-description and narration. As long-standing evidence from neuropsychology shows, language is another modular capacity cohabiting with everything else we are cognitively. Our sense of a personal “I” can be construed as an ongoing interpretive narrative of some aspects of the parallel activities in our daily life, whence the constant shifts in forms of attention typical of our microidentities. Whence also is the relative fragility of its narrative construction (61).

Varela remarks that ethical conduct arises and deepens through the cultivation of a “more open-ended and nonegocentric compassion (71). Similarly,

 It should not be surprising at this point that one of the main characteristics of spontaneous compassion, which is not a characteristic of volitional action based on habitual patterns, is that it follows no rules [my italics]. It is not derived from an axiomatic ethical system or even from pragmatic moral injunctions. Its highest aspiration is to be responsive to the needs of the particular situation [my italics]…Urealized practitioners, or course, cannot dispense with rules and moral injunctions (71).

 How can such an attitude of all-encompassing, decentered, responsive, compassionate concern be fostered and embodied in our culture? It obviously cannot be created merely through norms and rationalistic injunctions. It must be developed and embodied through disciplines that facilitate the letting-go of ego-centred habits and enable compassion to become spontaneous and self-sustaining. It is not that there is no need for normative rules in the relative world—clearly such rules are a necessity in any society. It is that unless such rules are informed by the wisdom that enables them to be dissolved in the demands of responsivity to the particularity and immediacy of lived situations, the rules will become sterile, scholastic hindrances to compassionate action rather than conduits for manifestation (73-74).

Varela’s comments regarding responsivity align themselves very nicely with Siemens’ characterization of decision-making as central to Connectivism: 

Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate impacting the decision (bullet #12).

 

CCK08: Reflection for Week 5: Part 3

A Year Without Reading?

As passionate as I may be about critical theory and pedagogy, educational theory, e-learning and philosophy in all of its manifestations, sometimes I wonder when it will all end. The reading and the learning never stops. Am I just aspiring to follow in the footsteps of my father, a retired professor? Is this an attempt to distance myself from my spouse and my children, out of an inability to relate to them on a profound level? What of books (and now the Web!), learning and knowledge anyways? So what? Who cares?

In 1972, following the death of Paul Goodman, Susan Sontag wrote about her relationship to Goodman, and in particular her relationship to his work. During that year, Sontag did her best to spend a year without books.

 On Paul Goodman: “Under the Sign of Saturn”

 Although I am trying to live for a year without books, a few manage to creep in somehow.  It seems fitting that even here, in this tiny room where books are forbidden, where I try better to hear my own voice and discover what I really think and really feel, there is till at least one book by Paul Goodman around, for there has not been an apartment in which I have lived for the last twenty-two years that has not contained most of his books (para. 13).

 Did Sontag end up better hearing her own voice, to discover what she really thinks and feels? Perhaps ironically, more research on my part would be required to find out. Or I could attempt to do the same, to see how I might be affected.

 Charlotte Joko Beck is a Zen teacher and longtime practitioner. Some of her public talks have been transcribed and are available in book format. In an interview with Donna Rockwell called “True Stories About Sitting Meditation,” the author mentions having read Beck’s books. It would appear that she is seeking confirmation or affirmation:

Donna Rockwell: I read your books.



 Charlotte Joko Beck: Oh you read. Well, give up reading, O.K.?



 Donna Rockwell: Give up reading your books?



 Charlotte Joko Beck: Well, they’re all right. Read them once and that’s enough. Books are useful. But some people read for fifty years, you know. And they haven’t begun their practice.

 The “practice” to which Joko Beck is referring concerns working to train one’s mind through meditation. Through meditation practice, one’s ability to see clearly in the present moment can be improved, to the extent that one is not as consumed by one’s own thoughts (hangups, obsessions, storylines). By extension, when one is less self-absorbed, the ability to be present for others is increased.

 While considering the abandonment of reading, why not consider abandoning writing as well? Inasmuch as the act of writing can help clarify one’s thoughts, when we name our world we perceive it through those names, rather than through a purely phenomenological lens. Learning by example and learning devoid of a pre-established framework (learning by doing, creative learning) are both valuable forms of learning in which formal theory does not necessarily precede and inform practice. The following excerpt, taken from the endnotes of Celia Haig-Brown’s (2000) “Taking down the walls: Communities and educational research in Canada’s 21^st Century” relates to this notion:

 Writing as a “tool of forgetting”

 Lori Moses, the research assistant for the Pedagogy of the Land project described later in the paper, writes the following:

 Learning by example, Kaaren Dannenmann said during the summer course, is an important aspect of traditional knowledge. She cited Daniel Quinn’s discussion in My Ishmael of writing as a tool of forgetting. I myself experienced the perils of writing in a context of practical learning. To give one example: on the day we collected plant specimens by canoe, I wrote the names as we gathered them one by one. But the more I recorded the less attention I could pay to actual identification of the plants in their own habitat. Learning was constantly “postponed” to a time and place separate from the context (10).

 With Connectivism, learning can be resituated within the broader domain of experiential knowledge and informal learning. Haig-Brown’s formulation of 21^st century education has strong ties with Connectivist learning as described by George Siemens.

 Education is concerned with the act of becoming. As with classical Greek educational objectives, learning assists individuals in coming to understand the world, to contemplate worthy and significant ideas and concepts, or, as conceived in a liberal arts education, learning is the process of coming to understand the world broadly and from many perspectives in order to see one’s role in advancing the needs related to ethics and humanity [my italics]. While this need has been well-served by traditional education, the forces of technological change, new opportunities to create and share information, and increased ability for interact with peers globally require a new model based on networks and ecologies. The current age should be one of throwing open doors of learning to bring as many potential contributors to our future as possible (Concluding Thoughts, para 2).

 

CCK08: Reflection for Week 5: Part 2

Notes on Taking down the walls: communities and educational research in Canada’s 21st Century by Celia Haig-Brown, Ph.D

Yesterday I stumbled upon a working paper called “Taking down the walls: Communities and educational research in Canada’s 21st Century” by Celia Haig-Brown (2000). In it, Haig-Brown cites the work of Eleanor Godway and Geraldine Finn in which the authors

…claim that community is catechresis, calling on Gayatri Spivak’s definition whereby “catechresis means that there is no literal referent for a particular word; that its definition comes apart, as it were, as soon as we begin to articulate it” (2).

Wittgenstein revisited, perhaps. Haig-Brown continues:

…In looking historically at the effects of community building, Godway and Finn question the possibility of event trying to construct such a place:

It is up to us to make community: to find it, build it, or encourage it to grow in our fragmented world. But can we? Or should we even try, when in spite of good intentions, the effects of community are often more divisive, more exclusive, and more oppressive, than the absence of community it originally intended to remedy or remove? (1994:1)

In an endnote, Haig-Brown explains her attraction to the word:

I realised that it is its refusal of “thingness” or reification of that which is in motion that appeals to me. Catechresis, even as it is a noun, works to address the transience of notions such as community. As as we name it and define it — or even try to do so — it becomes something else (10).

This reflection lends itself well to the group-network distinction:

Despite such warnings or perhaps because of them, I am committed to trying. If we keep in mind the dangers of past efforts, perhaps we can do a better job of creating spaces which allow difference to be a constant, unpredictable part of who we are together. Striving to work respectfullly with difference may broaden our work in ways that serve to enrich what I am coming to see as the limitations of centralized theorizing whether it is within disciplinary walls or university walls. Confining ourselves to particular and familiar theoretical or material contexts leads to impoverished and/or obscure theory based too often in work we do primarily with and for people just like us. Outside the university, taking community seriously addresses the other kinds of walls, the ones which we cannot wish away, the borders of our physical plant: it may mean getting out of our offices and into the schools and into the streets. Sometimes, it even means getting in a boat or onto a snowmobile. Ultimately, it means learning to listen [my italics] just when we thought our positions in academe, whether as graduate students or faculty, gave us the credibility to speak and be listened to [my italics] (6).

Haig-Brown’s work has stong ties to design-based research, and in her own context pertains to the development of A Pedagogy of the Land. In this capacity, Haig-Brown is committed to bringing researchers into Anishinaape communities in Northern Ontario to structure a curriculum and research based on that curriculum:

The Pedagogy of the Land is a pilot project which involves traditional indigenous knowledge keepers who have some fluency in their language and whose knowledge arises from traditional Anishinaape world view in a programme that allows them to build on one another’s knowledgee and to prepare to pass it on to others who know less than they do (6-7).

In terms of curriculum development, the Pedagogy of the Land project contains elements that are also found in a Connectivist pedagogy:

The curriculum which must have endless flexibility is based on what people do as they live together in a place. So much for minute by minute lesson plans and predetermined performance indicators: one does not set a net if the wind is blowing too hard (7).

Siemens’ reflections on contextuality in terms of the Connectivist framework are worthy of consideration here, as they relate to local knowledge, culture and custom, and their places in a connected world.

CCK08: Reflection for Week 5: Part 1

Nonline Learning

 I am experiencing some kind of inner revolt this week. The Internet feels like a dead metaphor for connectedness, and the use of the word in an online context is cold, tired and empty. Nonetheless  the reality of connectedness via the Net is also a literal truism that cannot be denied. That doesn’t change my feeling today I want to look into another person’s eyes and experience that I am being acknowledged on a visceral level.

 Stephen Downes’ Seven Habits for Highly Connected People promotes the maximization of efficiency in the online arena. It’s hard to argue that one would benefit from doing otherwise. By contrast, Downes himself suggests, “It’s good to take a break and go out camping, or to the club, or whatever. But the idea of replacing your online connecting with busy-work is mistaken (#3, para 2).”

 Yes, spending time in a natural setting is good, but being present in that setting is even more important. If in our minds we are still back in the office or the classroom, then we are missing out on the wealth and abundance that can be found right in front of us, and which can take us out of ourselves. In Groups vs. Networks, Downes states “I’m most at home when I’m in a forest and there’s nothing around me, there’s no walls or no barriers.” (para 16) Toward this end, being highly effective in one’s connectedness is highly desirable: “If you make connecting a priority, you can take that walk in the forest on vacation in Cadiz without feeling you are not caught up.”

 Today the luddite in me want to start a nonline learning movement, a reinfusion of the sacred and the sane into this high-paced, frenetic life that so many of us lead. Something akin to the slow food movement in the culinary arts. To point to the interconnectedness and interrelatedness of all creation is to emphasize that sacredness. I just started reading Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. His book is testament that important meaning-making and learning arises out of experiencing contact with nature. This is not to suggest that anyone is arguing otherwise; however striking a balance between the online and the natural worlds is imperative to our collective well-being.

 In Terry Anderson’s Elluminate session this week, Anderson pointed to the means by which networks may improve our current relationship with one another and our world.

 I think that we are collectively managing the planet earth and that being aware of each other in multple different dimensions is an important evolutionary step for human beings…and I don’t mind having part of my individual, my group, my network activities aggregated to draw meaning and to try to better manage our networks and our communities and our world.

 Kudos to Dr. Anderson for providing a practical spin on that unwieldy beast that is the Internet.

 

CCK08: Concept Map

 

A first and incomplete attempt. This was an intriguing and frustrating exercise.

CCK08: First Assignment

Connecting the Dots

Strongly suggested through the readings is the view that information growth, technology, developments in social learning theory, and advancements in our understanding of minds and cognition require a reconsideration of learning theory (Downes and Siemens, 2008).

I do not disagree with this assertion. However, I am less convinced than ever before that this reconsideration requires the replacing or reformulating of existing learning theories with a new one.

Terry Anderson’s presentation for the Online Connectivism Conference includes the following realization:

…Put your thinking caps on for a moment and talk about what educational research has really made a difference for you as an educator or as a learner. I got asked this question in Hong Kong one time when I was on a panel at the International Council of Distance Ed. about what’s the one thing that really education research has contributed. I was blindsided. I thought, here am I, big researcher, and I can hardly even think of one thing that has really made a difference (Anderson, 2007, para. 7).

In my own experience there are many educators who express disdain towards theory in general for its lack of practical, pragmatic applications in the classroom. Formal theory can inform practice, but especially with informal learning, it does not always.

In response to criticisms levelled by Bill Kerr on George Siemens’ Connectivism blog, Siemens states:

…I don’t imagine too many theories today gain value based on philosophical grounding. Our world asks for proof…evidence…history…or in the term you use, “practice”. I don’t imagine too many people will be satisfied with me saying “well, connectivism has merit because it’s what bloggers and social networkers are doing all the time.” Intuition doesn’t sell well as a theory . On this front in particular, more formal research and publication is needed…At this stage, I know I’m providing an unsatisfactory answer to an important question (Siemens, 2007, Comment #5, para. 7).

Certainly more discussion has ensued since Siemens first posted this reply to Kerr. Is the Connectivism & Connective Knowledge course an example of connective practice? Undoubtably.

Is Connectivism a new theory of learning?

In the paper Connectivism: Learning Theory of the Future or Vestige of the Past? [Hill and Kop, 2007, pp. 4-5; pending publication] Connectivism is characterized as best fitting the description of a developmental learning theory. That having been said, I agree with Mathias Melcher, however, that

Connectivism would, IMO, suffer from restricting definitions such as being a learning theory, which has to obey traditional criteria of an empirically provable but very narrow scope of application (Melcher, 2008, para. 3).

Connectivism, as formulated in the course, is a living curriculum to the extent that the Connectivist stance resides in the “diversity of opinion” (Siemens, 2008, para. 8). Earlier position papers on Connectivism and connective knowledge are relatively succinct. For example, the principles listed on Siemens’ Connectivism blog [Ibid], and Downes’ (2006) delineation of the properties of effective networks are useful points of entry into an understanding of knowledge and learning in Connectivist terms.

Now that such a huge number of people are grappling with what Connectivism might be, a whole range of positions are informing what Connectivism looks like. This is consistent with a networked view of knowledge, and it lends itself to a decentralization and redistribution of power, since for each learner the Connectivist model will look different. This is a strength in terms of the stranglehold with which traditional knowledge brokers have approached the development of curriculum and canonical thinking. I also think that it is a weakness in that this approach to teaching and learning may lend itself to confusion, though confusion can lead to important breakthroughs in learning.

Connectivism absolutely resonates with my learning experiences. I am a student of philosophy, and speaking broadly, the associations that can be drawn between Connectivism and Continental philosophy and critical theory, as well as Buddhist philosophy, are numerous.

The two questions that I would like to continue to try and answer in this course are:

• What might a Connectivist ethics look like?
• To what extent can work on the biology of cognition (namely, the principles of autopoeisis, structural coupling and natural drift) inform an explanation of Connectivist philosophy in terms of evolution?

 

CCK08: Reflection for Week 3

Further Connections

In the second Ustream discussion, Dave Cormier asked for practical examples of Connectivist learning in action. George Siemens suggested classroom correspondance between students who are remotely distanced from one another; Stephen Downes suggested that students who are actively involved in communitiy initiatives, for instance, learning about building a house on-site, is a more apt example.

Though Connectivism does not claim to be replacing its theoretical predecessors, it is worth pointing out that both of these examples were around long before Connectivism, and not necessarily in the form of an activity designed to support a theoretical framework. That having been said, Glasser has already suggested that students should be involved in house-building as part of the Quality Schools initiative. Similarly, Celestin Freinet, an educator from France who was largely unknown in the English-speaking world up until recently, initiated classroom correspondances between village schools in France prior to World War II. Freinet’s students also learned how to run a printing press, in order to run off copies of a newsletter that was distributed in the the local village.

The description of Connectivism as a “way of seeing” or a “way of understanding” resonates strongly with me. Though it appears to me that Connectivism is predominantly grounded in philosophical discourse, there are certainly numerous practical and pragmatic examples of experiences and activities that align themselves with Connectivist principles of learning. Downes’ assertion that there is no such thing as an ideal learner suggests a careful avoidance of any utopian vision underlying the Connectivist framework. Certainly, as he points out, it is empirically obvious that learners learn differently. In its simplest terms, I believe that this is the underlying message of the theory of multiple intelligences.

Downes describes Connectivism as a complex theory. Given the breadth of topics that are being addressed in this course, it would be difficult to argue otherwise. The diversity of points of view of course participants is indicative of the Connectivist principle that “networks are best understood as patterns of phenomena, and that what counts as a pattern to one person may not be so for another.” This statement certainly lends itself to complexity. But for all of the complexity of our world, what of Occam’s Razor? This maxim suggests that “assumptions introduced to explain a thing must not be multiplied beyond necessity.” Explained differently, Occam’s Razor posits “All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.” Is Connectivism the simplest solution? Perhaps at this time, but perhaps not—I personally believe that the theory would benefit from greater simplification, or at least clarification.

Downes’ distinction between networks and groups was an important and useful one for me. Whereas the network is defined by the connections of which it is comprised, the group is defined by the nature of its membership. This brings me back to questions pertaining to the nature of membership in rhizomatic educational communities. To a certain extent I believe that Cormier has addressed this point in his article on Membership, Collaboration and the Interwebs, and they have been applied to the Connectivism & Connective Knowledge course, in the course blog description of varying degrees of participation in the course itself.

Knowing as Being

It was also stated during the discussion that “What we know and how we know are questions that are fundamental to what we learn and how we learn.” In Francisco Varela’s Ethical Know-How: Action, Wisdom and Cognition (1992), the author reintroduces Dewey’s distinction from Human Nature and Conflict between know how and know what. Varela’s interest in Ethical Know-How is in exploring the relationship between theory and praxis, wisdom and action as it applies to ethical conduct:

We may be said to know how by means or our habits…We walk and read aloud, we get off and on street cars, we dress and undress, and do a thousand useful acts without thinking of them. We know something, namely, how to do them…[If] we choose to call [this] knowledge…then other things also called knowledge, knowledge of and about things, knowledge that things are thus and so, knowledge that involves reflection and conscious appreciation, remains of a different sort.

In summary, then, my main point is that most of our mental and active life is of the immediate coping variety, which is transparent, stable, and grounded in our personal histories. Because it is so immediate, not only do we not see it, we do not see that we do not see it, and this is why so few people have paid any attention to it until phenomenology and pragmatism, on the one hand, and new trends in cognitive science, on the other hand,  brought it to the fore. Yet the question remains: how can this distinction between coping behaviors and abstract judgment, between situatedness and morality, be applied to the study of ethics and the notion of ethical expertise? (19) [my italics].

If Connectivism promotes a “shift from epistemology to ontology, knowledge not as knowing, but being,” then how how we conduct ourselves in the world, the decisions that we make, are of crucial importance to the Connectivist framework. To refer back to a comment made earlier in the course by Siemens, activity influences the function of our brain, which in turn influences what our brain is capable of in the future. This development offers the possibility of new opportunities for personal agency.

Varela does not propose a normative ethical framework for moral agents. Rather, he describes his vision as:

…a plea for a re-enchantment of wisdom, understood as non-intentional action [my italics]. This skillful approach to living is based on a pragmatics of transformation that demands nothing less than a moment-to-moment awareness of the virtual nature of our selves (75).

Further, Varela suggests that expansive awareness, in its fullest realization, is akin to nothing less than “authentic caring.”

In Downes’ recent post on Intentionalism and Meaning, he describes Connectivism as a “non-intentional theory of learning and knowledge.” Both approaches describe agency in terms of a non-representational engagement with the world.