George Siemens' keynote at TLT.

1. Education: An ecology of
connections
George Siemens
May 14, 2008
TLt Summit
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Learning Technologies Centre
www.umanitoba.ca/

2. 1. Let’s have a revolution!! (but they
take time)
2. Complex and complicated
3. What technology does to/for us
4. Ecologies
5. The person formerly known as teacher
6. The Learner

3. CHANGE

4. Social and technological

5. Technological revolution Year
Industrial from 1771
Steam/Railways from 1829
Steel/Electricity from 1875
Oil/Automobile/Mass from 1908
production
Information/ from 1971
telecommunications
Perez, C. 2004

6. Technological
Conceptual

7. Why change?

8. Class

9. Divine Right

10. Unfair system: Access
Barriers

11. Resonance

12. But, these things take time

14. Tension points of education
Open/Closed
Amateur/Expert
Foster/Command
Network/Hierarchy

15. Reduce barriers

16. Increased

17. Increased participation

18. Where are we now?
Here
Here
Here
Technological
Conceptual

19. 1. Let’s have a revolution!! (but they take
time)
2. Complex and complicated
3. What technology does to/for us
4. Ecologies
5. The person formerly known as teacher
6. The Learner

20. Complicated

21. To know the right answer

22. Complex

23. When we see complex as

24. Satisfied with false knowns

25. Creation of new frameworks,

26. When we iconosize concepts, we strip
them of the opportunity to morph

27. Nothing is more pernicious in science
than attempts to establish adherence
to doctrines
Radcliffe-Brown (1940)

28. 1. Let’s have a revolution!! (but they take
time)
2. Complex and complicated
3. What technology does to/for us
4. Ecologies
5. The person formerly known as teacher
6. The Learner

29. Technology as blessing and

30. Balance is the new extreme

31. Boundaries between people

32. But what happens to us?

34. What of community?

35. Fragmentation
Information
Identity
Understanding

36. The more we become

37. But individual centralization

38. 1. Let’s have a revolution!! (but they take
time)
2. Complex and complicated
3. What technology does to/for us
4. Ecologies
5. The person formerly known as teacher
6. The Learner

39. Learning as network formation
Connection are sufficient

40. Networks occur within

41. Ecologies: environments that
fosters and supports learning
Chaotic
Structured informality
Adaptive
Alive
Diverse
Emergent
Self-organizing, individually directed

43. Education as ecology
Classroom, courses, programs, system
Beyond formal
Beyond myopic view of learner

44. 1. Let’s have a revolution!! (but they take
time)
2. Complex and complicated
3. What technology does to/for us
4. Ecologies
5. The person formerly known as
teacher
6. The Learner

45. Instructor’s role

46. Educator as scaffolder? Accreditor?
Network administrator
Curator/concierge
Product/process…content/interaction

47. Blend, spectrum
Formal to informal
Gradients of technology use
Contextual

48. EC & I 831
http://
eci831.wikispaces.com
/

49. How are ideas vetted/
validated?
Source of validation:
By experts? Amateurs? Unwashed
masses?
Method:
By networks? Openness? Hierarchical?

50. 1. Let’s have a revolution!! (but they take
time)
2. Complex and complicated
3. What technology does to/for us
4. Ecologies
5. The person formerly known as teacher
6. The Learner

51. “people have much more knowledge
than appears to be present in the
information to which they have been
exposed”
Landauer and Dumais (1997)

52. Biggs SOLO

53. Learner’s role

54. Wayfinding
Darken, R. 1996

56. On

57. Move to exploration

58. Websites and Newsletters
www.elearnspace.org
www.knowingknowledge.com
www.connectivism.ca
http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/wordpress/
gsiemens AT elearnspace DOT org