Apophenia: Understanding and

meaning in information abundance

George SiemensIADIS 2007

Lisbon, Portugal

Learning about Portugal

• Language• Culture• Customs• History

• Sites/locations reflecting traits

• Information sites• Skype (Portuguese)• Opinions of colleagues

Once here..

• Tours• Walking• Sights, smells, sounds• Food, beverages

What does it mean to “know” Portugal?

Gee, thanks George. We knew that.

We know, but is it reflected in practice?

Ideology?

Multiple facets

Multiple experience

To know is to connect multiplicity

We are giving our learners a one-

dimensional experience

Beyond monochromatic approaches

Current methods ≠ needs

Abundance– Destroys current linear, expert approach

“In a world of rapid change, quick access to knowledge becomes as important as knowledge itself”

Daniel Rosenberg

New Old Ideas

Conrad Gesner: “Confusing and harmful abundance of books” (1550)

Journal of History of Ideas (Jan, 2003)

Humanity’s knowledge and our means to share it are increasing at an accelerating rate. Yet, our perceptual and cognitive abilities stay nearly constant.

http://www.infovis.net/printMag.php?num=170&lang=2

Growth is accelerating

• 800,000 scientific journal articles in 2002, 1 M in 2006 (Boyack)

• IDC (six fold increase: 2010)

• Berkeley – How much information

• Data smog (David Shenk)

Not enough experts to make sense of it all…

Knowledge needs

Requires:– New tools– New methods– New mindsets

New tools

• Encyclopedia (aggregate)• Pageflakes• ManyEyes, data visualization

New methods

• Patterning by software• Trails of “the many”• Networks

GDP

http://www.worldmapper.org/

Population

http://www.worldmapper.org/

Patterns, history

New mindsets

• Bacon: taste, swallow, chew (1612)• Louis-Sebastien Mercier: Four books,

eliminate the rest

Interact with patterns, not with information

How are our students interacting?

• Superficial (Wikipedia)

• NEED multiple points of input…representations…facets

• Need nodes to form networks

http://www.quintura.com/

Exposure of periphery: loose connections

http://news.com.com/The+Big+Picture/2030-12_3-5843390.html

Tags: Web of meaning

Visualization

• Grunt cognition

• Move to meaning/sensemaking

• Provides insight

• New connections

Money Street

World Health Chart

Mapping conversations, connections

http://www.cmu.edu/joss/content/articles/volume8/Welser/

Yeah, ok, but what’s the use?

• Network models of learning are adaptive

• Multiple approaches…multiple experiences

• Today’s information is tomorrow’s sensemaking

• Complex, integrated understanding

Challenges

• “Why of” education: transformative & reactive

• Foster basics…but honor known (history as a conversation) (Spencer, Dewey, Piaget)

• New research – rewriting monthly

We need to question deeply the assumptions on which we are building tomorrow’s education

www.elearnspace.orgwww.knowingknowledge.com

www.connectivism.ca