Connectivism

Learning in the Digital AgeJosé Antônio

Theory put forward by George Siemens

About knowledge

• What is knowledge?

• How is it created? • How is it shared?

Creating Instructional Environments

• Behaviorism

• Cognitivism

• Constructivism

• Connectivism

Connectivism

• Does learning always occur inside a person?

• What vs. value of what is being learned.

• Action without the need of personal learning

• Dramatic change in conditions making impossible to revise

What is Connectivism

• 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. (George Siemens – December 2004)

Knowledge and Connectivism

The current state/trends in learning

• Learning impacted through technology

• Information growth

• The amount of knowledge in the world

• The shrinking half-life of knowledge

• The challenge of keeping current

• Learning as a way of being

The current state/trends in learning

• Mobility of learners• The role of informal learning• Learning as a continual, lifetime process• Technology rewiring of our brains• Organizations and individuals as learning

organisms • Offloading knowledge• Knowing how and what replaced by knowing

where and who

Seven broad societal trends

• 1. The rise of the individual;

• 2. Increased connectedness;

• 3. Immediacy and now;

• 4. Breakdown and repackaging;

• 5. Prominence of the conduit;

• 6. Global socialization; and

• 7. Blurring worlds of physical and virtual.

An Alternative Learning Theory

• Technology and connection

• Chaos is a new reality

• Learning as a self-organizing process

• Networks, small worlds, weak ties

Principles of Connectivism

• Diversity of opinions

• A process of connecting specialized nodes

• May reside in non-human appliances

• Capacity to know more vs. what is currently known

• The need to nurture and maintain connections

Principles of Connectivism

• Ability to see connections

• Currency

• Decision-making

• The pipe is more important than the content within

• Learning happening at the point of need

Skills in connected world

• Anchoring • Filtering • Connecting with Each Other  • Being Human…Together • Creating and Deriving Meaning  • Evaluation and Authentication • Altered Processes and Creative Thinking• Pattern Recognition  • Navigate Knowledge Landscape • Acceptance of Uncertainty  • Contextualizing 

Final Thought

It has been observed many times that a new technology evolves in two stages. In theFirst stage it evolves previous practice. Early automobiles were known explicitly as

Horseless carriages, and only later did we get motor coaches, transports andInterstate highways.

Stephen Downes, The Buntine Oration 2004

Thanks a lot

José Antônio da Silvajoseaock@yahoo.com /joses@thomas.org.br

http://joseantoniook.wordpress.com