Connectivism

I delivered a presentation at University of Manitoba yesterday on Connectivism and Web 2.0. I’ve recorded the audio in Articulate…feedback, criticism, reactions, etc. are appreciated.

In response to a recent post, corrie raised some questions about the value of connections: ” But connections connect things-of-value. Without those things, the connections are useless.”

Stephen Downes replied, stating “But what we remember, what is significant, is the relation between the things. Why? Because our perception of the thing changes. We see it in different light, from different angles, in different contexts.” Essentially stating that content changes. If we are connected to content – we will continue to grow and learn…as a result, the connection is the point of value.

This discussion opens a question that was re-enforced while attending the Beyond Boundaries conference today. The keynote presenter mentioned developments in online education – MIT OCW, connexions etc. The focus was heavily on the content aspect of education. I’m not ant-content. A learning network consists of nodes (content) and links (connections). The network is useless without both.

In the history of human knowledge we have generally favored content – because creating connections was high-cost (1 instructor 30 students). Content was much easier – scrolls, books (go printing press), libraries, etc. Time and space, however, limited the capacity of (and opportunity for) connection forming. Essentially, the content/connections debate is lopsided. Our perception of content is too prominent in the learning process. In fact, when most people talk learning, they think of content – book, course, program, audio, and video.

The internet and it’s child – elearning – changes that. Suddenly connections are possible. With anyone. Almost anytime. Developing collaborative technologies are continuing to extend our potential to connect to content and people. But in the process, it also alters content. Content development pace increases. What is the impact? We need to continually reference back to content, due to rapid changes. But this is a big challenge – our tools and approaches aren’t very friendly towards quickly changing content – we still have to “go to” a website to see if it has changed. RSS changes that…and many newer “web 2.0″ tools fill out the connection-based landscape. Essentially, learning networks are correcting the existing deficiency of connections (in relation to content). In part, connections need to take a prominent role – because connections permit the formation of new content (i.e. content is sub-servant to connections).

With that stated, what then is the value of content? Or connections? At best, they should lead learners to reflection and interaction. Learning is not content consumption. Learning happens during some process of interaction and reflection. Content, then, can be a lead into learning…or it can be a by-product of the learning process. In the end, in our world today, we MUST focus on creating connections first (when I speak to learning designers, the first focus in design (after profiling learners) is to seek or create content. Why? What about content makes people think that it’s learning (or even the start of learning)?).

Connections, on the other hand, are a more direct lead into learning, simply because connections are more vibrant than content. By this, I mean that connections are more social and action-oriented than content. Blogs are a great example. When I read Stephen’s, Maish’s or Will’s blog…I take their content…reflect on it, and incorporate it into my own thinking and blogging. While I value their content, the greatest value is the RSS feeds that connect me to their content (or in Stephen’s case – his daily email as well).

Transfer this thinking to corporate environments, what’s more important – what is currently known (existing content/knowledge) or our capacity to continue to know more (connections)? Social, collaborative tools – blogs, wikis, groupware, listervs, live/online meetings, mindmaps – all provide individuals with the capacity to continue to know more. Connection-forming tools will always create content, but their value lies in our ability to reflect on, dialogue about, and internalize content in order to learn. Put another way, content is knowledge frozen at a certain time (i.e. a magazine article), whereas a connection is a pipeline to continue to flow new knowledge.

I’m beginning to encounter more articles, concepts, thinkers who see a world similar to the one I see. Connections, connections, connections. For educators, a networked world – versus a world of silos – creates, as Will Richardson states, a very different world. How we design content, how we organize courses, how we engage learners…it all changes.

A few resources exploring similar themes:

Dave Pollard explores “next generation KM” and arrives at the same conclusion I have with connectivism: the move from collection (courses) to connection (networks).

David Weinberger also sees the value of connections: “We don’t need perfect knowledge in an age of knowledge abundance. We just need pretty good knowledge, and that’s something we don’t need perfect gatekeepers for. To the gatekeepers what looks like chaos and the degradation of learning to Netizens looks like an exponential increase in intelligence…Links, not containers: A page is what it points to.”

It’s the relationship: “All KM-enlightened people know that it’s not about document management, but few understand that it’s not about people either. What it’s about is social relationships. Good social tools manage feeds and links, not content.”