February 27, 2005
"Connectivism" Interesting, Not Sure It's a Learning Theory
elearnspace. Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age
I read George Siemens' article with his proposed new theory of "Connectivism" with some interest when it was originally posted and found that it contained some interesting concepts but, unless we redefine the words learning and knowledge, I am not sure we can really call it a learning theory. Siemens defines learning as "actionable knowledge" but this is using learning as a noun. Learning is a verb! Learning is the acquisition of actionable knowledge, not the knowledge itself. Think of learning in this way and it presents several problems for connectivism as a learning theory.
It might be more appropriate to call this a theory of information management, or knowledge management (though Brown and Duguid (2002) would argue, "knowledge implies a 'knower'") rather than a learning theory.
Learning theories describe how learning occurs but not how learning is facilitated (i.e. instruction)(cf. Reigeluth, 1999).
These theories do not address learning that occurs outside of people (i.e. learning that is stored and manipulated by technology). They also fail to describe how learning happens within organizations.
Using the definition of learning as a process, I would argue that learning does not get “stored” in any type of technology. It is possible, in the near future, that we will achieve true AI, in which case learning can happen with technology. One could argue that some databases can “learn” right now by gathering and storing information. Some of the more sophisticated data mining applications can even look for patterns in the data but these machines are not "learning" because they do not ascribe meaning to the patterns. Ted Frick, my mentor at IU, wrote a great article called Artificial Tutoring: What Computers Can and Can’t Know and I highly recommend giving it a read. Similarly, I would argue that learning happens within individuals in an organization. Take out all of the individuals out of an organization and I do not believe much learning would occur.
I do not argue that people working within an organization do not share information and that technology facilitates the ability to store information but to say that these entities contain learning is not necessarily correct.
The paper raises some interesting questions related to the nature of what metacognitive skills we should be teaching (i.e. is our new goal to find ways to quickly process and discard information, rather than horde it in our own memory systems) and I would encourage further refinement of the operational definitions (e.g. is learning "actionable knowledge" or is it a, "...persisting change in human performance or performance"?
Posted by Rovy at February 27, 2005 12:02 PM
Comments
Hi Rovy, thanks for your thoughts. I've tried to address some of your concerns here: http://www.connectivism.ca/blog/11/index_html
I think part of our differing opinions stems from how we see the current need for learning. I think learning today happens on the fly - in the process of functioning. Learning used to happen in advance of being needed. That's why I tried to define learning as a "right now " event (noun or verb is fine :))
Posted by: George Siemens at March 6, 2005 12:34 AM