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DiegoLeal.org: Random ideas on random conversations (CCK08-Week 9)
DiegoLeal.org: Random ideas on random conversations (CCK08-Week 9)
Another set of notes from Nancy White's discussion for CCK08. Where my notes focused heavily on what Nancy and Stephen was saying, Diego did a much better job of capturing and summarizing the chat conversation.
When you think of yourself as a learner, you begin to act as one, and suddenly all the potential of networks and online information begins to make sense
·diegoleal.org·
DiegoLeal.org: Random ideas on random conversations (CCK08-Week 9)
Groups into Networks New Curriculum Needed - CCK08 - ubiquitous's posterous
Groups into Networks New Curriculum Needed - CCK08 - ubiquitous's posterous
An idea for how to move towards networked learning: start with groups, which will initially be more comfortable and less chaotic, then gradually increase the freedom to learning in networks.
Once students get the hang of groups online, just like any mother bird, the teacher needs to slowly start pushing them out of the nest.  And I do not mean anywhere near Middle School.  Most of the students in a school will be ready for this kind of experience nearing High School, and I believe this age will slowly lower as time passes and this form of education becomes more common.
The process of moving the students forward from a group setting to a network will be required, so will an educator familiar with both.  For this process to properly occur, curriculum will need to be specifically designed and implemented, taking into account, emerging technologies and student safety within an online environment.
·ubiquitous.posterous.com·
Groups into Networks New Curriculum Needed - CCK08 - ubiquitous's posterous
Groups Vs Networks: The Class Struggle Continues ~ Stephen's Web ~ by Stephen Downes
Groups Vs Networks: The Class Struggle Continues ~ Stephen's Web ~ by Stephen Downes
Transcript of a talk about the differences between groups and networks. Downes situates networks between individuals and groups, as a place where individuals are associated and connected but more diverse than groups. Interesting ideas for assessment and supporting diversity.
Those of you who've taken political science know that all of human history in political science is the division between the individual and the state. Right? The person and the group, right? And these are the two divides. And the whole purpose of politics is to find some sort of accommodation for them or if you're Ayn Rand, to favor the individual and ignore the group.<br><br> And it seems to me that networks offers that middle way. Networks offers that path that isn't the individual and isn't the group, doesn't force you to choose between the individual and the group.
But more or less, a group is a collection of entities or members according to their nature or their feature or their properties or whatever, their essential nature, maybe, their accidental nature, maybe, whatever, but according to their nature. What defines a group is the quality the members possess in common and then the number of members in that group. Groups are about nature, they're about quality, they're about mass. They're about number. <br><br>A network, by contrast, is an association – I use that word very precisely – an association of entities or members where this association is facilitated or created by a set of connections between those entities. And if you say, "Well what is a connection?" A connection is merely some conduit along which a signal can run. Well, that clarified it, didn't it? What defines a network is the nature and the extent of this connectivity. The nature and the extent to which these individuals are connected together.
I want to change the system of assessment in schools because right now we have tests and things like that that are scrupulously fair, particularly distance learning where we outline the objectives the performance metrics and the outcomes and all of that. I want to scrap that system. I want testing to be done by at random by comments from your peers and other people and strangers based on no criteria whatsoever and applied unequally and unfairly.
Already happening now with blogs, youtube comments, etc. Maybe not possible in schools as we know it, at least not totally. Can do it in small pieces though. George and Stephen blogging about a course I developed is an assessment of my work as well as of the students. Better for accessibility when you don't start from the assumption that everyone will learn and be assessed in the same way.
Networks are almost defined by the opposite, defined by their diversity. A network thrives on diversity. It wouldn't be a network without diversity.
Internet technology that encourages diversity rather than conformity includes things like personal home pages or these days, blogs. I should add to this slide MySpace profiles and things like that, your account on Flickr. All of these things that allows the individual to express themselves rather than the individual being part of some larger entity.
·downes.ca·
Groups Vs Networks: The Class Struggle Continues ~ Stephen's Web ~ by Stephen Downes
Half an Hour: Types of Knowledge and Connective Knowledge
Half an Hour: Types of Knowledge and Connective Knowledge
Stephen Downes on connective knowledge. This starts with qualitative and quantitative as two types of knowledge recognized historically, continuing with some history of philosophical positions on types of knowledge. Downes argues that connective knowledge is not either empirical or rationalist, but a third type of knowledge. He uses a metaphor of carbon in different forms: carbon atoms connected differently can be coal, graphite, or diamonds. It's the same atoms, but the connections are different.
So, connective knowledge is knowledge OF the connections that exist in the world. It is knowledge about how such connections are created, and what impact, or effect, such a system of connections has.
So we have two types of connective knowledge, the knowledge that we have OF networks, that we obtain by looking at networks, and knowledge that is created and stored BY networks in the world.<br><br>Summary: Connective knowledge is both:<br>- knowledge OF networks in the world<br>- knowledge obtained BY networks
Summary:<br><br>Active participation in the network:<br>- as a node in the network, by participating in society<br>- as a whole network, by perceiving with the brain (the neiural network)<br>Reflective participation in the network:<br>- by observing society as a whole<br>- by reflecting on our mental states and processes
·halfanhour.blogspot.com·
Half an Hour: Types of Knowledge and Connective Knowledge
x28’s new Blog » Blog Archive » My take on Connectivism
x28’s new Blog » Blog Archive » My take on Connectivism
An answer to the question "What is Connectivism?" Rather than going for a fixed definition within the framework of a learning theory, the author argues that connectivism is an emerging concept best understood by looking at how it connects to other ideas and theories. The central metaphor of the network is the unifying element of connectivism.
<p>Downes’ and Siemens’ discussions shed new light on fundamental concepts, such as rules versus patterns, complicated vs. complex, equivalence vs. similarity, and coping with ambiguity and uncertainty. And these consideration render many entrenched practices of the entire knowledge industry questionable.</p> <p>All these aspects have one thing in common: that they can be illustrated by the neuronal <strong>metaphor</strong>, the metaphor of a network with nodes and connections, where</p> <blockquote><p><em>“Not all connections are of equal strength in this metaphor”</em> (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectivism_%28learning_theory%29">Wikipedia</a>)</p></blockquote>
So, connectivism and its neuronal connections metaphor, allow to distinguish more clearly between two types of knowledge, one of which is the more adequate one for coping with complexity and uncertainty: <em>connective</em> knowledge.
·x28newblog.blog.uni-heidelberg.de·
x28’s new Blog » Blog Archive » My take on Connectivism