Connectivism: Learning theory for Digital Age by George Siemens 2005 - ITEC830: Week 1

Connectivism is a new learning theory (2004) crafted to address the shift in how information is shared and learned in world changing because of advances in technology. Author George Siemens asserts that, "learning needs and theories that describe learning principles and processes, should be reflective of underlying social environments." Since technology has changed the way individuals communicate (email lists, blogs, social networking, etc.) and the rate at which information is created, changed and becomes obsolete, it stands to reason that a new theory which takes into consideration the effect of this new environment on learning is appropriate.

The principles of connectivism are:

1. Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions
   
2. Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources
   
3. Learning may reside in non-human appliances
   
4. Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
   
5. Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning
   
6. Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill
   
7. Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivists learning activities
   
8. Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.
   

As a multimedia and graphic designer, I was instantly struck by the idea that #6 (the ability to see connections) is a skill valued in designers. Making connections across fields often results in the most appropriate and effective design. Principle #4 (capacity to know more is more critical that what is currently known) threw me back to my undergraduate days studying  civil engineering at San Joaquin Delta College. My professor, Roger Crawford, often would remark that although we may not know everything, it was important for us as individuals to recognize that knowledge gap and then to go seek the answer from other sources. I always felt that this skill was so important, but rarely taught. In the modern information age, being able to find the information one needs while wading through large amounts of irrelevant data is a skill that everyone needs. Again, this point paths back to graphic design since it is essentially calling for recognition of the importance of problem solving and graphic design is problem solving.

The bullet points I walked away with from this article were:

• "The pipe is more important than the content within the pipe." 
  
• "Our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today."
• "When knowledge, however, is needed, but not known, the ability to plug into sources to meet the requirements becomes a vital skill."

From my experience in silicon valley high tech firms, these points are well known, believed, and implemented within firms. 

What *is* Web 2.0??

The cynical (dot bom surviving) side of me says that Web 2.0 is a marketing term that means nothing, but while that might be ever so slightly true, this term is actually a catch all for a shift in the nature of web publishing away from unidirectional information flow towards a more bidirectional flow supported through the medium of the Internet. Web 2.0 is about community, collaboration and sharing.

Through web based applications such as:

• wikis
• weblogs (blogs)

People are able to communicate with one another and directly affect the content that is being generated.

Standards such as:

• XHTML
• HTML
• XML
• CSS

Allow for the separation of content from presentation/display. In Web 1.0 days, information was not organized separately from how it was presented. In Web 2.0 development, information can be kept separate from display information by using XML. An XML document can provide another level of information about the type of data contained within its tags. In order to display the content or create an organized display structure, a combination of any of the following standards can be used HTML, XHTML and CSS.

Other features of Web 2.0 include:

• folksonomy (user generated tags for the organization of user generated content)
• syndication, aggregation and RSS (or Atom) feeds which allow for greater sharing of content between individuals and sites
  

So maybe it isn't just a marketing buzz word...

ITEC830 - San Francisco State University

Tonight was the first meeting of ITEC830 with Dr. Kim Foreman. It sounds like this will be a great class that will better inform my creative work project for the Design and Industry Department.

• ITEC830

I'm also currently enrolled in DAI805 - Graduate Seminar in New Media with Assistant Professor Paul Catanese and even in this first week of classes I can see how it will better inform my learning in the ITEC class.

Curiously, one of the first readings, As We May Think by Vannevar Bush (1945) discusses the creation and indexing of personal data and the need for combining of that data to make a larger accessible knowledge base. This idea is apparently being discussed as a possible theory of learning - connectivism. I will have to go learn more about this proposed theory.