Literature Review: Connectivism

by Jan Herder July 25, 2012

Origins of Human Behavior Summer 2012

Theme: Is Connectivism a coherent theory of learning for the 21st Century? If so,

what does it tell us about how our teaching and learning should react to this? How

does it resolve the tension between global and local learning communities? Do any of

Kagan’s Guiding Themes offer insights?

In terms of the guiding question for the class, “what does it mean to be a human

alive in the world around one?” --It is an incredibly exciting time to be involved

with education. As a teacher for 25 years I have seen the changes going on and I

have developed innovative ways of teaching. Around 2006 I noticed something had

happened in the world around me. Finally that Christmas, when we had all of our three

teenage girls together in quite some time, something funny happened. They were

looking at something called ‘Youtube’ and wanted me to watch a video. My daughter

said, ‘we don’t watch TV anymore.’ I was shocked. So much of our lives growing up,

and their lives as younger children, had revolved around the ‘tube.’ Now it was on line,

almost live, no commercials and they were making videos! That was an ‘Aha’ moment

and I have been exploring and learning and experimenting with teaching, technology

and blended learning ever since.

The world is going through a paradigm shift from a resource extraction economy to

a knowledge based economy; from an industrial model of education to an ecological

model. I am looking at connectivism from the point of view of asking questions about

the paradigm shift occurring in the world, and in education. A new theory of knowledge

has recently emerged, bringing with it a new theory of learning: Connectivism--

a new learning theory, in fact, is required, due to the exponential growth and

complexity of information available on the Internet, new possibilities for people

to communicate on global networks, and for the ability to aggregate different

information streams. Siemens argues that “knowledge does not only reside in

the mind of an individual, knowledge resides in a distributed manner across

a network . . . learning is the act of recognizing patterns shaped by complex

networks.’ These networks are internal, as neural networks, and external, as

networks in which we adapt to the world around us (Siemens 2006b). (2)

Connectivism follows many of the themes and theories about developmental cognition,

it shares the constructivist approach to making meaning and building connections, it

honors Piaget and Dewey understanding knowledge as active. (3)

I set out to look at some of the literature and research as well as primary sources

about connectivism--but just a few of the pivotal ones, as the material from both

Stephen Downes and George Siemens is voluminous. Connectivism emerged as

a learning theory very recently, dependent as it is on the development of ubiquitous

broadband: between 2005 and 2007. Both Siemens and Downes are transparent about

their sources and influencers. Reading their material was like taking the course “Origins

of Human Behavior” because each theory from Dewey, Vygotsky to Skinner, Wenger

and Kerr is discussed and analyzed according to the connectivist point of view. Each

researcher then followed with their own summary of the antecedents to connectivism, in

their own words.

Since my teaching style has been constructivist and experiential based, I wanted

to see what was happening with learning and teaching--both on and off line--in a

connectivist world view. I was fortunate to stumble on a recent issue of the peer

reviewed journal: The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning

and its Special Issue - Connectivism: Design and Delivery of Social Networked

Learning, Vol 12, No 3 (2011)

http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/issue/view/44 I am using this journal as the basis

for my review, along with some other sources.

In Emergent Learning and Learning Ecologies in Web 2.0, 2011, (4) Williams,

Karousou and Mackness spend much of their time defining the vocabulary, as it helps

distinguish the uniqueness of connectivism. George Siemens puts it this way:

Ecologies and networks are reflective of chaos and complexity theories main

tenets and provide a suitable replacement for the current classroom and

hierarchical model of education.(5)

Drawing from complexity theory emergent learning is identified as a distinguishing

characteristic.

emergent learning: learning which arises out of the interaction between a

number of people and resources, in which the learners organise and determine

both the process and to some extent the learning destinations, both of which

are unpredictable. The interaction is in many senses self-organised, but it

nevertheless requires some constraint and structure. It may include virtual or

physical networks, or both.

and again:

Emergent learning is likely to occur when many self-organising agents interact

frequently and openly, with considerable degrees of freedom, but within specific

constraints; no individual can see the whole picture; agents and system co-

evolve.

This is contrasted with prescriptive learning:

Prescriptive learning, then, is based on knowledge which is pre-determined for

the learners and duplicated and distributed at scale through traditional schools

and universities, through print and other mass media, and through national

quality-assurance institutions.

Finally, Williams, Karousou and Mackness conclude that there is

“a need for a shift from a monolithic learning environment in which everything

must be controlled and predictable to a more pluralistic learning ecology in which

both prescriptive and emergent application domains and modes of learning have

their place, and in which it is possible to celebrate the unpredictable.”

As with any theory defining and redefining vocabulary helps distinguish and clarify

ideas; there is an excellent example of the connectivist vocabulary on the wikiversity

site. (6) This features an aggregation of terms and emerged as part of the Mooc’s

CCK09 and CCK11, with an impressive 40 some odd terms. MOOC’s are Massively

Open Online Courses, pioneered by Downes and Siemens, they are expressions in

practice of the connectivist learning theory. There has been a good deal of commentary

and criticism of connectivism since the idea was floated around 2006, by William Kerr

(7) and by many others. (8) Many of these criticisms revolve around the claim that it is a

new theory of knowledge. Stephen Downes probably has the best responses to this (9)

in his post Connectivism and its Critics: What Connectivism Is Not.

The other major criticism is taken from the claim that knowledge can also be distributed

and not reside in the individual. Here is a re statement of some of the major principles in

the theory of knowledge:

Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.

Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.

Learning may reside in non-human appliances. (10)

It is worth noting that it is often described as a theory of learning. And this is central to

my guiding theme in this review. One of the major attractions of the theory to myself

and others is that it seems to capture and explain the meaning of working in an online

and networked environment. As I mentioned earlier in reference to my experience with

my children not using the television anymore, I began exploring what was going on,

online, early in 2007. One of the frustrations at Johnson State College is the lack of

colleagues who share any of these interests. I have turned to the vital, engaging and

immersive online world to connect, collaborate and develop. Connectivism captures the

spirit of this engagement and gives me a way to organize and understand its dynamic.

This is often cited as one of the reasons connectivism is so popular with educators

experimenting with technology.

In The Challenges to Connectivist Learning on Open Online Networks: Learning

Experiences during a Massive Open Online Course, (11) Rita Kop of the National

Research Council of Canada, explores the experience of a MOOC and looks at

what we can learn from it. Kop identifies the 4 major aspects of learning in a MOOC:

aggregation, relation, creation, and sharing, noting that in the MOOC she examined a

very small number of participants actually created, but seemed content to engage in the

sharing, aggregation and relations of the course experience and content. Her criticisms

revolve around the advanced literacies necessary to participate meaningfully in such a

course. Kop points out the need for 2 of the critical 21ist Century Literacies, self directed

learning and presence:

there are literacies critical to connectivist learning. Downes (2009) speaks of

critical literacies, others of 21st century skills (Partnership for 21st Century Skills,

2009).

Here are some of the critical 21st Century Literacies associated with connectivism(12):

Managing your Digital Identity

Wayfinding and Data Gathering

Self Expression and Participation

Relationship Building and Development

Recognizing Authenticity and Legitimate Authority

Information Management

Self Directed Learning

Critical Thinking

Concise Reflective Expression and Inquiry

Self Reflection

Interpreting Visual Data

These literacies share in the idea of 21st Century Literacies (13) as the reference to

the Partnership reflects. Many of the driving factors of the Common Core Idea relate

back to the perceived lack of these literacies in our population by policy makers. Kop

points out that if you do not have these essential skills you can’t participate meaningfully

in a MOOC. There are some skills particularly that are needed for the connectivist

environment: presence and self directed learning. (Kop 2011)

Self-directed learning. A connectivist learner has to be fairly autonomous to

be able to learn independently, away from educational institutions, and to be

engaged in aggregating, relating, creating, and sharing activities....Presence. the

closer the ties between the people involved, the higher the level of presence and

the higher the level of engagement in the learning activity.

In a more general sense, and especially from a constructivist point of view, you would

have to underscore the “content creation” aspect of these literacies. As it turns out, that

was precisely the part missing from the experience and results of the course. As Kop

(2011)says,

They mostly felt happy to aggregate, relate, and share resources, but only a

minority of 40–60 PLENK participants were engaged in the creation of digital

artefacts, such as blog posts and videos, and in the distribution of these.

Thinking about the guiding themes that Kagan refers to in his The Nature of the Child,

(1982) the distinction between the subject and object have blurred, or have become

networked. There is tremendous continuity in the connecting of nodes and ‘aggregating,

relating, creating and sharing activities.’ In terms of biology and experience, the

network activity of connectivist learning, related to synthesis and connecting, mimics

the synaptic processes in the brain. In this sense the connectivist theory of learning is

biomimic, and draws on neuroscience for inspiration and as an analogy.

The lens of qualitative and quantitative is an entire review on its own. There are two

kinds of qualitative sides to connectivism. On the one hand there is data about how

people left their footprints on the web: Learning Analytics. This is the statistical use of

actions that are recorded, aggregated and analyzed by software to learn more about

how the learning occurred. And secondly, in terms of the potential for scale of users.

xEd and Coursera boast MOOC’s with over 100,000 participants. What the reality of this

means in terms of learning has yet to be determined. In other words, in terms of quality,

the jury is still out.

In terms of the themes that I am using to look at this theory of learning, I would

agree, it is a coherent, though not complete, theory of learning. It addresses the type of

learning occurring in a networked world. But this is clearly a work in progress as things

are changing so fast. Anderson and Dron comment (14), in their contribution to the

Volume, Three generations of distance education pedagogy,

Connectivist models are more distinctly theories of knowledge, which makes

them hard to translate into ways to learn and harder still to translate into ways

to teach. Indeed, the notion of a teacher is almost foreign to the connectivist

worldview, except perhaps as a role model and fellow node...Another notable

trend is towards more object-based, contextual, or activity-based models of

learning....This represents a new and different form of communication, one in

which the crowd, composed of multiple intelligences, behaves as an intentional

single entity...We and others have described these entities in the past as

collectives (Segaran, 2007).

Frances Bell concludes, of the University of Salford, United Kingdom,(15)

I argue that connectivism makes its contribution mainly as a phenomenon, “a

thing as it appears, rather than as a thing in itself”.

As for the question I posed about the tension between local and global, connectivism

addresses this quite well. On the one hand you can have local nodes, but the nature of

networking is global. As Anderson and Dron point out above, the real challenge is how

to integrate this and apply it in teaching. I am interested in exploring this further, and

perhaps in the context of my Masters Thesis.

Conclusion:

After reading about some of the data of what we learned about learning in moocs,

especially Terry Anderson and Jon Dron from Athabasca University, it occurred to

me that organizing this in a way that shared its epistemology, spirit and message

was ecological design. Connectivism, as a learning practice, needs something at

the beginning, and at the end. This is needed to give structure and ground to the

learning process, a home; local and connected. Design thinking and design science

offer a telos, an architectonic, a way to structure the learning and the end: a concrete

product. This could be a 3D printed object, software, a program, a production, a song, a

business, the operation of a facility, or a school. Grounded in a specific place on earth,

and rooted in the place, each node connects to the world, designing for abundance and

contributing to the diversity of the planet, not its extinction. Buckminster Fuller believed

we can design ourselves out of this predicament--after all, we designed ourselves into it.

References:

1) http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/seismic-shift-epistemology.

2) KOP, R., HILL, A.. Connectivism: Learning theory of the future or vestige of the

past?. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, North

America, 9, jul. 2008. Available at: <http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/

523/1103>. Date accessed: 22 Jul. 2012.

3) George goes into all of his predecessors theories and reevaluates the

developmental theories of learning in many of his publications, including this slide share

presentation “The Roots of Connectivism” http://www.slideshare.net/gsiemens/ec-i-831-

sept09

4) Roy Williams, University of Portsmouth, UK. Regina Karousou, Independent

Educational Researcher, UK. Jenny Mackness, Independent Education Consultant, UK.

http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/883/1686

5) George Siemens, Week 6 blog CCK09

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?

id=1SbKRX97g1tVgxE3gVWIvA8injDYe_9JVwGjYCLzXe3k

6) http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Connectivism_glossary

7) http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2006/12/challenge-to-connectivism.html

8) https://sites.google.com/site/andycoverdale/texts/critique-of-connectivism

9) http://www.downes.ca/post/53657

10) http://p2pfoundation.net/Connectivist_Learning_Theory_-_Siemens

11) KOP, R.. The challenges to connectivist learning on open online networks: Learning

experiences during a massive open online course. The International Review of

Research in Open and Distance Learning, North America, 12, jan. 2011. Available at:

<http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/882>. Date accessed: 25 Jul. 2012.

12) http://learnadoodledastic.wikispaces.com/Connectivist+Taxonomy

13) http://www.p21.org/ Partnership for 21st Century Skills

14) ANDERSON, T., DRON, J.. Three generations of distance education pedagogy.

The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, North America,

12, nov. 2010. Available at: <http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/890/

1663>. Date accessed: 20 Jul. 2012.

15) BELL, F.. Connectivism: Its place in theory-informed research and innovation

in technology-enabled learning. The International Review of Research in Open and

Distance Learning, North America, 12, nov. 2010. Available at: <http://www.irrodl.org/

index.php/irrodl/article/view/902/1664>. Date accessed: 22 Jul. 2012.

Primary Sources:

George Siemens Connectivism: Learning as Network Creation (2005)http://

www.elearnspace.org/Articles/networks.htm

George Siemens Connectivism Taxonomy

http://www.connectivism.ca/?p=53

George Siemens’ Blog: eLearnspace

Questions I’m no Longer Asking

http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2010/11/02/questions-im-no-longer-asking/

Steven Downes, An Introduction to Connective Knowledge (2005)

http://www.downes.ca/post/33034

Secondary Sources

Connectivism Glossary

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Connectivism_glossary