Properties of Networks

Networks are made up of entities, connections and signals which can be represented mathematically using graphs and tables.

In social networks, entities are the people who make up the network, connections are the paths through which information is transferred and signals are the actual messages or bits of information being shared.

Broken down and represented in this way, a social network appears to be a very simplistic process, however, understanding the relationship between each of these components reveals the various levels of complexity which makes up a social network.

How a network is connected determines what and how information moves around the network. If the entities within a network are all closely related, the amount of new information will be limited, as each entity is sharing the information with each other. However, a network with external connections or ‘weak ties’, that are not closely related to one another will have a much bigger influx of new and fresh information.

The way information flows in a network also determines how well information is circulated. Information can travel one way or be reciprocal and can also be onward flowing. Each of these methods of transference determines the fluidity of information, as does the frequency and filtering of information and the level of influence an entity is seen to have within the network. We do not all have to be directly connected to access and share information – 2, 3, 4 degrees of separation can also allow access to the information of others without having to be directly connected.

Networks can prejudice how we think and the power/strength of a network is not always positive.

The effect of the recent Wall Street financial collapse on the international monetary market is the result of networks. If we consider banks to be the ‘entities’ in the network, who are all closely ‘connected’ and cash/money being the ‘signal’ or information, we can see that the poor home loan lending practices of some US banks have meant that home mortgages have not be repaid to return funds into monetary markets (one way flow). This ‘leak’ or drain of money (information) from US banks means less fluidity of funds between their international partners (all closely linked) – creating a domino effect on the reduction of cash reserves globally.

Having an understanding of the properties or components of your network can help you manage and influence the optimistic and disasteristic characteristics of the network. Knowing who makes up your network, their influence/power, how the information flows and is filtered will also allow you to better understand the what, when, who and how of new knowledge from a network.

CCK08 - week 3 – Properties of networks

Readings:
Networks for Newbies .ppt
Stephen Downes: Learning Networks: Theory and Practice .ppt and audio
George Siemens Introduction to Networks

Other useful resources for this week:
CCK08: Valdis Krebs on Networks
Intentionalism and Meaning – Stephen Downes
Emergent Networks PDF – Valdis Krebs

Optional Reading

Introduction to social network methods - Chapter 7 - Connection and Distance – Robert A Hanneman (Dept of Sociology, Uni of California, Riverside and Mark Riddle (Dept of Sociology, Uni of Nthn Colorado)

Notes from readings:

CCK08: Valdis Krebs on Networks
“… what you know depends on who you know … “

“You have to have certain skills and intelligence, etc., but that’s not sufficient. You need to be able to connect, who to rely on, who to work with. And that’s not just who you know, but who knows you.

Often, your success in a company depends on your visibility in a network.

So, I think that learning is social and learning is iterative, so those with a better network have the potential to learn better and more.”

You are how you know

Networks for Newbies .ppt Barry Wellman
“A network is more than the sum of its ties” … “that form distinct analyzable patterns”
“To discover how “A”, who is in touch with “B” and “C”, is affected by the relation between “B” & “C”.
“Networks are a major source of social capital: mobilizable in themselves and from their contents”
“The networked society”
“We dream in graphs: We analyse in matrices”
“How does information flow through a village?”
“People link Groups: Groups link people”

PaulPam2 - Social networks... does anyone notice when people haven't placed a comment for a week or two weeks or even longer...... @PaulPam2 I think it would depend on the amount of people within the network and the contribution to the network by the person

Intentionalism and Meaning – Stephen Downes
“intentionalism - The thesis that all mental states are representational states. Specifically, raw feels and qualia, are said to have representational content.”
“Associationism - is at heart a theory of inference: Ideas, regarded rather as sensations or as mental images, were associated in the mind according to certain laws, mainly concerning contiguity and resemblance, and thereby led to further ideas, and to the functioning of mental life in general.
The position has resolved regarding the principles of association:
Aside from similarity and contiguity, other governing principles have been proposed to explain how ideas become associated with each other. These include temporal contiguity (ideas or sensations formed close together in time), repetition (ideas that occur together repeatedly), recency (associations formed recently are the easiest to remember), and vividness (the most vivid experiences form the strongest associative bonds).
I have advanced a position in my own work proposing four major principles of association:
resemblance - a.k.a. Hebbian associationism
contiguity or proximity - a.k.a. salience
feedback or back propagation
balance, or entropy aka Boltzmann mechanisms “
”Realism - is essentially the thesis that there is some (external or underlying) reality to which all of our perceptions (statements, whatever) refer (or represent, whatever).
Pat Parslow’s statement reflects a commonly held belief: “Without the consensual reality of negotiated meaning, the network has little or no basis for its foundation - whilst the negotiation of that reality cannot occur without the network. The two are part and parcel of the same overall system.”
“Learning –
Pat Parslow says, ” Yes, learning is about growing our network, both internally in our brains (and bodies) and externally in terms of the connections we make through associating with others, but these are both intimately tied to negotiating the meaning of concepts with the external (and possibly internal?) networks.”
“Connectivism is a non-intentional theory of learning and knowledge.
What this means is that, in connectivism, learning is not about content. It is not about entering a certain representational state with respect to the world.
It allows - indeed, encourages - the idea that people may have different, and individual, accounts of the external world.
Which means that what is negotiated is not some set of statements about the nature of that world - not representational states, not meanings - but mechanisms for communication, protocols for interaction (which may indeed be, and probably are, understood differently by each person engaged in communication).”

Stephen Downes: Learning Networks: Theory and Practice .ppt and audio
Networks: Basic Elements
- Entities: the things that are connected, sends and received signals
- Connections: links between entities – links, channel, my be physical or virtual
- Signals: message sent between entities – physical, meaning not inherent in signal, must be interpreted

Some Properties of Networks
- Density – how many other entities each entity is connected to
- Speed – how quickly a messages moves to an entity, can be measured in ‘hops’
- Flow – how much info an entity processes, includes messages sent, received plus transfers
- Plasticity – how frequently, connected created, abandoned

Network Design Principles
- specifies how networks differ from traditional learning
- the idea is that each principle confers an advantage over non-network systems
- can be used as a means of evaluating new technology

Centralised vs Decentralised networks
Distributed networks – reside in different physical locations, peer2peer/RSS, sharing not coping
Disintermediate – barrier between source & receiver ie editors/media, to manage flow of information, reduce volume of info, not the type of info
Disaggregated – units of content should be as small as possible – content not bundled, integration of new and old info, ie learning objects, smallest possible unit of instruction
Dis-integrate – entities of a network are not ‘components’ of one another ie avoid ‘required’ software, message coded in a ‘common’ language,
Democratize – entities in a network are autonomous – freedom to connect, send, receive info, diversity important, control is impossible
Dynamize – a network is a fluid, changing entity, it is through the process of change that new knowledge is discovered
Desegregate – do not need learning-specific tools/process and is a part of living/work/play – the network is everywhere

Elements of Network Semantics:
- Context; Relevance; Patterns; Memory, Stability, Weighting

Knowledge is shared understanding

Connectivism: Network Pedagogy
- Network ‘Pragmatics’, how to use networks to support learning, distributed knowledge, recognizes explicitly that what we ‘know’ is embedded in our network of connections to each other/resources/the world

Principles of Connectivism
- learning is a process of connecting entities
- nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning
- 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
- decision-making is itself a learning process

Stop trying to do online what you do in the classroom …. It’s a different world online

Introduction to social network methods - Chapter 7 - Connection and Distance – Robert A Hanneman (Dept of Sociology, Uni of California, Riverside and Mark Riddle (Dept of Sociology, Uni of Nthn Colorado)

“Highly connected individuals may be more influential, and may be more influenced by others.”

How a network is connected determines the breadth of the network – if the network is closely linked to each other – the network is ‘limited’ – disbursely connected networks means access to larger amounts of information

How influential you are in a network is determined by who you are actually connected to, ie other influential nodes within your network

“In a sense, actors with many ties (at the center of a network) and actors at the periphery of a network (few ties) have patterns of behavior that are more constrained and predictable. Actors with only some ties can vary more in their behavior, depending on to whom they are connected.”

Being connected to others is simply not enough – it’s what you do with the information you receive and whether you send information or more it on – by understanding networks we can have greater influence in the network, understand how to ‘work/build the network’ and who to connect with within the network – direct connection is not always required – but who your network is connected to – single or bi-directional connectivity paths

Networks can be mathematically depicted through charts and graphs – would be interesting to map your own network –

Walks, trails, paths – distances and directions between connections – one way, both ways, passed onwards/forward within the network

George Siemens Introduction to Networks
Networks are everywhere and all we need is an eye for them.
Those who are most easily influenced are those who contributed to the development of new trends.
Networks are an underlying structure that are exhibited in all aspects of our learning at any level that we might consider (social, conceptual, neural).
Are our educational systems designed to appropriately take advantage of network opportunities – curriculum too linear – education being a one way flow.
Connectivism - Assertion that knowledge is distributed and learning is the process of creating those networks – aided through the use of technology – learning networked – knowledge distributed

Notes from AUSTAFE 08 Conference – 3/10/08

einventing the Present to Create the FutureLouise Palmer, Deputy Vice Chancellor (TAFE), Swinburne University

Successful organisations are those who get to the future first
You need to learn to ride the wave of change.

Gary Hamell – influential business thinker.

Resilience thinking model to respond to rapid change – we can not be too busy to be working with change.

The heart of resilience – embracing change.

Things change and to ignore or resist this change is to increase our vulnerability and forego emerging opportunities in so doing, we limit our options.

Building an organisation as nimble as change itself:
- making innovation a part of everyone’s job & person specs/performance reviews
- creating an ideas gateway – peer reviewed – then scoped
- creating an organisation where everyone gives their best
- Creating a highly engaging work environment
- Escaping the shackles

See different, be different – for the new world order

What stories are being told about your organisation by your staff – Are they positive? Negative?

Ken Robinson – if you want to innovate you need to be able to create – if you want to create you need to be able to dream – so we need to teach people to dream – do schools kill creativity in children?

Attitudes to Change – are similar to the attitudes to diversity – there are those who are saying “what we can do”: ‘I’m doing it’, ‘I’m ready’ – need ‘help’ to respond to change, ‘never thought of it’ – encourage to respond to change, ‘we’ve tried this before but..’ – sell the positive concept of change, ‘this isn’t something I want to do’ – because I said so – change is mandatory.

All of these groups need different communication strategies – the communication challenge – what strategies are there:
- rich narratives – every business has a story and often more than one – need to be used as a leadership tool – affect people at an emotional level – walk the talk – people tend to remember a story – choose language carefully – build stories with audience at the front of mind – keep the messages simple – 3-4 key messages – and stay on message - consider media training – create message which embraces resilience

Swinburne University/TAFE has a mission of ‘sustainability’ and adopts this mission into all of their practices

What is VET pedagogy?
- learner centred
- work focused
- attribute inclusive

Narrative is a core competence for management – it’s the ability to connect and stir empathy in people.

Web 2.0 – sharing power and sharing voice – there needs to be more use of web 2.0 in business – need to develop a digital engagement strategy – create a ‘thoughtocracy’ – creating online spaces where people can keep in touch with each others’ activity within the organisation – networked intelligence

AUSTAFE 08 Conference – 2/10/08

A business approach to the Business of Social Inclusion
Dr Mark Bagshaw, Director, Innov8 Consulting Group

A Changing World
- gap between rich and poor can’t continue
- education is paramount
- business is not doing it part
- governments need to be stronger

If people with a disability were engaged in the workforce there would be an additional 161,000 people in the Australian workforce.

We haven’t built a society which supports the needs of disability groups.
606.000 people are receiving a pension at a cost of $12.5 bn just in pensions.

Attitudes to Diversity must change.

Skilling Australia: The Opportunities and Threats for TAFE
Philip Bullock, Chair, Skills Australia

Skills need to be holistic.

1 in 4 people unemployed today are ‘long term unemployed’
We have over 20% unemployment in youth
2006 Adult Literacy and Lifeskills survey – low literacy, numeracy and problem solving skills in Australia
Only 50% of apprentices are completing their apprenticeships

Productivity Places Program
630,000 additional training places over 5 years
284,000 for job seekers

Providing people with the opportunity to undertake training and education is paramount.

Striving for Excellence: Improving the Quality of VET Teaching, Learning and Assessment
Malcolm Goff, Chief Executive Officer, TVET Australia

Quality Outcomes for VET:
Competency Standards, Quality Policy Framework, VET Learning Resources, National VET Workforce

The importance of the National Training System being “more dynamic and flexible to meet the needs of industry and students if it is to delivery skills that the Australian economy needs now and into the future” – Skilling Australia for the Future, April 2008 – the productivity agenda

“Focus is on ensuring that the next generation of Training Packages provides greater flexibility and adaptability by being highly responsive to industry’s existing and future demand for new skills”

Quality Policy Framework: AQTF2007
“Focus is on ensuring that the quality management of the national training system delivers quality, client focused training and assessment. This includes monitoring and evaluating regulatory arrangements, accountabilities and decision making process at the strategic level”

VET Learning Resources:
“Focus is on providing access to: a national catalogue of quality teaching, learning and assessment resources; national and international licensing services” – www.tvetaustralia.com.au - will be one of the LORN repository owners shortly.

Another national repository is the Resource Generator.

National VET workforce development:
“Focus is on ensuring that the skills capacity of the VET workforce is increased and deepeneand that the demand for skills and skills training are matched”

The Social Inclusion Dimension: What is it? Why does it Matter?
Martin Stewart-Weeks, Director, Public Sector (Asia-Pacific), Cisco Systems

Cisco sends its products to market when they’re 70-80% ready – and lets the market work out what else needs doing to improve them.

Innovation isn’t what it used to – we need to innovate like we never have before.
New ethics of innovation is very challenging for industry.
We are currently in a shift from an institutional model (ego-centric) to a relational model.

TAFE is both a victim and an agent of this transition.

An Agenda:
Social Innovation
Challenges
Implications

Innovation is moving to a connected Ecosystem – ie from in house labs to the connected global marketplace

Because the really smart people you need are not working in your organisation, you need to connect and integrate them into your system.

The Governance Framework – Culture – most innovation doesn’t come from the centre – but from the ‘edge’ – frustrated, disgruntled customers are a great source of innovation.

Social innovation solutions are willing to try something different, provide an effective solution and leave behind new and sustainable capabilities, assets or opportunities for wider social change

Geoff Mulgam, Young Foundation – need to become more rigorous and systematic about how we develop and move social innovations in our organisations.

Bees – individuals, entrepreneurs – TAFE employees – Trees – TAFE as an organisation

Charles Leadbeater – We think – Six Lessons – Social Innovations – we are what we share – relationships are critical – framing counts – people enact change – public sector orchestration – new measures – political leadership

ASIX – Australian Social Innovation Exchange – raise the profile of social innovations as a key contributor to new thinking about sustainable solution to unmet social needs in Australia, to lift the speed of the social innovation cycle. Have a Twitter account: sixlive

A new ethic of public value – the power of distributed networking; mind set – changing from ego-centric to everything 2.0 – co-creation of content – openness – harnessing the network – peer production

The new wealth of nations is in the networks – value not just in $$ but in the connection between people. Yochai Benkler's book – The wealth of networks

People subscribe to people – the clue train manifesto

TAFE as a ‘victim’ – TAFE as an ‘agent’

Connected, open & distributed, network centric – the network knows more than we do – user participation and co-creation – people enact change – the importance of relationships – bees and trees

Are we backing people or organisations? – shared mental model – culture – governance – leadership – investment and resources – control and openness – knowledge management and collaboration

New truths:
First it is ridiculed
Secondly it is violently opposed
Thirdly it is accepted as being self-evident

TAFE as an Agent of Social Change
Conversation Café - Dr Mark Bagshaw & Martin Stewart-Weeks

Medical, emotional, social, environmental and vocational learning – we need to consider the different types of learning and how we can do this training in parallel.

Attitudal and prejudices prevent change.

An education is not social inclusion in its own right.

Social Diversity training/reform is so important for the improvements of engaging migrants and people with a disability into the workplace.

Contestability in VET: The Good, the Bad and the Elephant – Panel Discussion
Hugh Guthrie, NCVER; Phillip Bullock, Skills Australia; (Malcolm Goff, TVET Australia - absent); Louise Palmer, Swinburne University; Adrian Marron, TAFE SA

Phillip: Contestability is a ‘jurisdictional’ decision – an institute needs to understand where they are in the market – how can TAFE equally participate in a contestable training market when they are restricted by the decision making structure of a government body.

Louise: if you have a certificate at a certain level – you will not be able to undertake another different certificate at the same level at the ‘government subsidised’ rate – or if you hold a diploma or degree you will not be entitled to government subsidised pricing for a qualification which is less than that diploma/degree.

Adrian: the training market is ‘imperfect’ and will need some regulating to allow for these imperfections.

From the floor:

What impact will contestable funding have on social inclusion and innovation? We need a strong ACE and school sector involved in VET.

What is actually being contested? Need to accommodate Industry, the individual and the RTO – jurisdictions will be able to determine how they manage their additional ‘contestable’ funding/pricing to meet the needs of their State/Territory. Pricing will occur around the skills needs of their economy.

Rethinking Epistemology

I started this week’s CCK08 course work thinking – ‘what the heck is ‘epistemology’ and discovered that it is ‘the study of knowledge’

So …

What new knowledge have I formed since learning about the study of knowledge?

How did I form this knowledge?

How does this new knowledge formation link to learning theory of Connectivism?

What knowledge have I formed since learning about the study of knowledge?

I’ve learnt a new word – ‘epistemology’ – and I can even spell it too.

I’ve learnt that just like carbon can ‘morph’ into coal, diamonds or graphite, dependent on how the environment has caused the carbon atoms to connect, knowledge is formed dependent on the way we connect with our environment and our networks.

Traditionally, information has been ‘controlled’ by those who had the power to present, print, or publicise it – forming a ‘gate-keeper’ approach to knowledge – whereby information was released into the environment by a selective and controlled means. However, the onslaught of information via the internet has allowed individuals to connect, create and collaborate in the development of knowledge in a completely different way. People are no longer restricted to the propaganda of their restrictive information sources. The internet has allowed the democrasisation of knowledge, widening our environments through online social networks, to an avalanche of information and new knowledge formation

How did I form this knowledge?

My new knowledge has been formed through ‘networks’ – neurological networks in my brain, and through environmental networks in the ecology of my surroundings.

New neurological networks have been formed, connected to previous understandings of ‘knowledge’ and ‘networks’ to form a new understanding of ‘knowledge’.

The exposure to information through George, Stephen and Dave’s resources – as well as my online learning network, like Twitter, when Mike Bogle - “#CCK08 Fantastic post by Sinikka on nodes and connections - http://is.gd/2OuM” last Friday – has also contributed to this new understanding.

How does this knowledge formation link to learning theory of Connectivism?

What I’ve realised by raising this question is that I don’t really yet understand the learning theory of Connectivism, as I’m finding it hard to find the connection between my new knowledge and the theory of Connectivism. Except to say that learning or knowledge is like the weather – it’s always changing and a little unpredictable due to its interconnection with its environment – and by understanding how the connections and networks of my environment allows me to formulate new knowledge by being exposed to a diverse range of networks – my learning/knowledge development this week has occurred because of the way I have ‘connected’ with my Connectivism learning environment, and if I had chosen a different way to interact with my learning networks, by reading different resources, entering into the online discussions, or reading the blogs written by other CCK08 participants about ‘Rethinking Epistemology’ then I would have changed the final output of my new knowledge.

CCK08 - week 2 – Rethinking epistemology – Connective knowledge

Epistemology:

“The branch of philosophy dealing with the study of knowledge; theory of knowledge; A particular theory of knowledge” en.wiktionary.org/wiki/epistemology

Presentations and Papers

Types of Knowledge and Connective Knowledge - Stephen Downes

Video introduction to Week 2 (George Siemens)

Readings

Learning Networks and Connective Knowledge - Stephen Downes

Shifting Knowledge (from Knowing Knowledge) – George Siemens

Rhizomatic Knowledge (Dave Cormier) - free registration to Innovate is required to read the article.

Additional Readings

Rethinking Learning (.pdf)

An Introduction to Connective Knowledge - Stephen Downes

Other useful resources for This week:

Epistemology - Skids

CCK08 – random connections of today - Sinikka

Notes from readings:

Where does the learning occurs?? George Siemens

“…learning exists in the process of sensemaking”

Types of Knowledge and Connective Knowledge - Stephen Downes

“Qualitative knowledge is knowledge typically derived from the senses.” Ie “the qualities of the object”

“Quantitative knowledge is derived from the practices of counting and measuring.”

“These two types of knowledge combine the best of human capacities: our ability to perceive, to sense the world, and our ability to calculate, to think about the world. They form the foundation for language, the foundation for logic, and the foundation for all of the sciences we have had up to today.”

“Summary: Three types of knowledge
- of the senses (empirical)
- of quantity (rationalist)
- of connections (connective)”

“connectivism is the thesis that knowledge is distributed across a network of connections”

Carbon can make ‘coal, diamonds & graphite’ dependent on how the carbon atoms are ‘connected’

“It is knowledge about how such connections are created, and what impact, or effect, such a system of connections has.”

Knowledge can be different dependent on its connections – knowledge shared by the media is presented in a way in which the media organisation wants you to ‘connect’ with that information ie Fox News provides a type of knowledge which presents a ‘Rupert Murdoch’ view of the world

“*any* set of connected objects can contain information” but its how a person connects with those objects which will determine how they understand the objects

“Summary: Connective knowledge is both:
- knowledge OF networks in the world
- knowledge obtained BY networks”

“There are many types of networks, and therefore, many types of connective knowledge.”

One Network: - human brain – collection of neurons

Another Network – Society – collection of humans

Person – node in a network – connected to the nodes (people) = social network

Knowing/Understanding how networks work helps us create better networks

Does this mean that by changing the ‘networks’ you are changing the knowledge?

Video introduction to Week 2 (George Siemens)

What is a network – characteristics or attributes of a network?

Complexity science – Chaos and randomness

Power and control are critical concepts in the discussion of education/theory of learning

Tools (technology) at our disposal allow us to have a democracy to access information

Epistemology: – what is knowledge? – what is knowledge in a connected world? – in a networked world? What is the human mind and what role does it play in creating knowledge? Are we in a post-epistemology era?

We are in an era defined by knowledge – we ‘externalise’ our thoughts – can become the building blocks of knowledge – knowledge actually resides in the connections – shared manner of interacting with those concepts – information is the building blocks of knowledge – there are different views of knowledge – view of knowledge is so diverse

Learning Networks and Connective Knowledge - Stephen Downes

“the learning of knowledge - is distributive, that is, not located in any given place (and therefore not 'transferred' or 'transacted' per se) but rather consists of the network of connections formed from experience and interactions with a knowing community.”

'e-learning 2.0' – net generation – thinking and interacting in new ways – based on conversation and interaction, on sharing, creation and participation, - learning not as a separate activity – but embedded in meaningful activities

Learning is like the weather –never the same and a little unpredictable due to its interconnection with its environment

Shifting Knowledge (from Knowing Knowledge) – George Siemens

“Knowledge has broken free from its mooring, its shackles”

“Knowledge is the economy”

“Human existence is a quest to understand”

“We live as an integrated experience—we see, know, and function in connections. Life, like knowing, is not an isolated activity”

“we create structures to hold our knowledge: hierarchies, books, libraries, encyclopedias, the internet, search engines. We create spaces where we can dialogue about and enact knowledge: corporations, organizations, schools, universities, societies. And we create tools to disseminate knowledge: peer-review journals, discussion panels, conferences”

“The last decade has fundamentally re-written how we:” consume information and create knowledge

“Knowledge set free enables dynamic, adaptive, and personalized experiences.”

“Yochai Benkler …. Information, knowledge, and culture are central to human freedom and human development”

“We are in the in-between stage of” … an industrial era and a knowledge era

“We do not consume knowledge as a passive entity that remains unchanged as it moves through our world and our work. We dance and court the knowledge of others—in ways the original creators did not intend. We make it ours, and in so doing, diminish the prominence of the originator.”

“Our quadratic existence runs through spheres of interconnection. Cognitive, emotional, physical, and spiritual domains of knowledge interact in a myriad of ways. Life is not lived in a silo”

“Schools, universities, and corporations attempt to serve dissemination processes of knowledge-in-containers.”

At the End of Week Two – Stephen Downes

“People didn’t really like the coal analogy.”

“I personally think of connectivism as a theory of knowledge”

“ … any sensory input produces knowledge.”

Rhizomatic Knowledge (Dave Cormier)

“A rhizomatic plant has no center and no defined boundary; rather, it is made up of a number of semi-independent nodes, each of which is capable of growing and spreading on its own, bounded only by the limits of its habitat (Cormier 2008).”

“a rhizomatic model of learning … knowledge is negotiated, and the learning experience is a social as well as a personal knowledge creation process with mutable goals and constantly negotiated premises.”

“In the rhizomatic model of learning, curriculum is not driven by predefined inputs from experts; it is constructed and negotiated in real time by the contributions of those engaged in the learning process. This community acts as the curriculum, spontaneously shaping, constructing, and reconstructing itself and the subject of its learning in the same way that the rhizome responds to changing environmental conditions”

“the rhizomatic model dispenses with the need for external validation of knowledge, either by an expert or by a constructed curriculum”

What is 'Connectivism'?

I think I understand Connectivism as a theory – but I’m not sure I truly understand how to apply Connectivism to a range of learning situation – I’m not sure Connectivism can be considered to be a ‘separate or independent’ learning theory but more of a means by which knowledge and information can be aggregated and shared.

I understand the power of the network and can think of many examples in my work place where I rely upon my networks to help me aggregate the avalanche of information we receive – I know that if I miss anything which is relevant to me, eventually someone in our organisation will tell me about this missing piece of knowledge.

I know that staying networked through Twitter, blogs, communities of practice, learning circles, and friends – has certainly widen my access to information and I often use the aggregate of all of these networked peoples’ knowledges and experiences to construct my own understanding and opinions. I can see how technology has widen my participation in creating and contributing my own new knowledge as it allows me to access a wider base of ideas and concepts. However, I have a ‘lust for learning’.

I’m not sure however if ‘connectivism’ as an independent learning theory can facilitate the development of new knowledge in others, but perhaps provide a means to support the ability to access new information.

Through my experience as an educator, I’ve found individuals often don’t know how to independently formulate their own learning/knowledge ie they often don’t know how to:

- formulate questions
- search and filter information
- assemble and convert information it into new knowledge
- use or understand the power of networked learning to build and share their new knowledge or have it validated

These processes require higher order thinking and understanding about how we learn and most people don’t conscientiously evaluate how they learn and heavily rely on trained / knowledgeable individuals to structure or ‘construct’ that learning.

My observations of humans is that they are often sheep or sponges as they follow and soak up what they are ‘fed’ – rarely questioning their environments and networks – staying within their ‘strong’ ties, too scared, skeptical or inexperienced to move into the realm of ‘weak’ networks for fear of the unknown, unable to conceptualise the power of widen networks – particularly online networks. Developing or constructing the right kinds of networks is also a developed and conscience skill.

Although I’m a little skeptical about ‘connectivism’ as a learning theory in its own right – I believe its principles provide an individual with a means of making sense of their interconnected but disconnected world, where multi-media and technology provides access, as well as the ability to create and change information, – and building the ‘right’ network to gather the right information ie being socially networked, is a valuable and desirable skill to filter the ever increasing avalanche of information in the knowledge era – as well as help create independent and creative thinkers.

It’s creating the right kinds of learning opportunities by which an individual will be able to foster and develop these skills and not stay in their ‘little boxes’ using ‘connectivism’ which is what I’m hoping this course will help me better understand.