The outline of this presentation on Connectivism presented at the Teaching and Learning Research Series at the University of Western Cape (UWC) in South Africa addresses the following questions: What is it? Why is it? How is it? and Whose is it?
1. Connectivism
• Dick Ng’ambi
• Centre for educational technology
• University of Cape Town
Presented at the UWC Teaching & Learning seminar
series: theories and approaches to T&L on 22nd
August, 2012
2. Outline
• What is it?
• How is it?
• Why is it?
• Whom is it?
4. Education trajectory Authentic human
connections &
Interact with web collaboration
& other online
Internet, a Education 4.0
users
place to go for
instant access
to information Education 3.0 Education 3.0
Education 2.0 Education 2.0 Education 2.0
Traditional
Education 1.0 Education 1.0 Education 1.0 Education 1.0
5. Crowdsourcing
Image Source: http://www.greenbookblog.org/2010/11/05/crowdsourcing%E2%80%A6counterintuitive/
• Problems are broadcast to an unknown group of solvers in the form of an open call for
solutions
15. Why is it?
Facilitating continual learning
is a process of nurturing &
maintaining connections
Learning =
process of connecting
specialised nodes or info
sources
Ability to see connections
between fields, ideas and
concepts is a core skill
Capacity to know more is
more critical than what is
currently known
Connectivism
16.
17. Learning, how?
• Learning is the creation and
removal of
connections between the
entities, or the adjustment of the strengths
of those connections. A learning theory is,
literally, a theory describing how
Source: Stephen Downes (2012) ebook on Connectivism and Connective Knowledge: Essays on meaning and learning networks
18. • Learning is a
connection-making
process
George Siemens, 2012: Available at: http://www.connectivism.ca/
19. Theory, what?
Verhagen (2006; as cited in Veletsianos,
2010),
“…connectivism is more a theory
of curriculum (specifying what the
goal of education should be and the way
students should learn in that
curriculum) than a theory of
learning” (p. 35).
20. Learner-driven, what?
• Anderson (2008), it helps people to
understand that learning is about
making connections with ideas,
facts, people, and communities.
• Marcum (2006), it goes beyond behaviorism, cognitivism,
constructivism, and learner-centered approaches to a
learner-driven approach.
29. Connections for what?
• Connectivism could be explained as a
learning theory that
encourages students to use
their connections to
further their learning in a field of
study that is interesting to them.
Source: http://mrbrenlea.wordpress.com/2011/09/11/connectivism/
30. Challenges
• that people,
Connectivism assumes
information, and knowledge do
not function autonomously, but are
individually connected by webs of context, culture, and pre-connection
to others (Terry & Terry, 2010)
• learners and learning
Both the
networks exist all at the same
time. Did learners or learning networks come first?
A human being is so connected that a single source of information is inadequate to meet all the information needs. \n
The 21st century education is more about engagement in authentic connections and collaboration. The education 4.0 has subsumed the traditional education systems (education 1.0), use of internet as a place to go for instant access to information (Education 2.0), and web-based interactions with online users (Education 3.0).\n
The connectedness enabled by the technologies has led to a new phenomenon of crowdsourcing i.e. anyone with a problem can now ask the crowd for answers. The need to know specific experts is dissipating as there are experts out in the cloud willing to share their expertise.\n
The power of the social networking, for example, in mobilising riots or political campaigns has been well documented. These authentic activities have created resources which are being adapted for teaching at many higher education institutions.\n
The general argument is that there is knowledge out the world than an individual can possibly hold in their own heads. The challenge today finding effective ways of tapping into that knowledge. This has huge ramifications for education. How do we scope the curriculum, what can we teach which students cannot learn on their own? what can’t you teach yourself these days?\n
In today connected world, new skills are required to survive. The skills required should involve acquiring the ability to make sense of these connection, exploiting these connections, knowing which ones are worth nurturing and maintaining at different stages of life or problem spaces.\n
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It is against the afore said background, that George Siemens’ Connectivism theory becomes useful for us to examine. In this slide, I describe the key principles of Connectivism. \n
This image illustrates the point that people connect with information and need not know the person. The individual may filter and delete what they consider ‘bad data’ but remember “one man’s poison is another man’s meat’. \n
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These students are using on a group project which involves finding podcasts from the web that best supports their position on an assigned task. Through this process, students are interacting with experts around the world using authentic podcasts, evaluating the resources (making judgements), deleting what they consider irrelevant.\n
Students working is distributed environment, chatting about a twitee just received from their idolised celebrity (left), listening to a lecture podcast from an Open Educational Resource (OER) repository (middle), and posting comments on the course Facebook group\n