Where the wild things are: Connectivism, CCK2011#

This unpolished rant was brought on by wikipedias flame wars on connectivism as well as by Latour's and Law's discussions as to whether Actor-network theory is a theory or not.

I always thought philosophy and theory were a matter of scale; the one grander, more over reaching, and the other more grounded, more empirically tested. That the philosophy required internal consistencies a complex arrangements of how the world is seen and constructed and so can make meaning of the world.

Isn't philosophising about what ontologies, epistemologies,are? what is knowledge and how is it known...and in talking philosophy down to earth, what produces the 'good life' which is essentially contestable? While theorizing is more grounded in day to day practicalities?

Kurt Lewin suggests there is nothing so practical as a good theory.
So a theory gets tested in empirical research, in application, in my view it is not necessarily predictive, though this is the stance of 'scientific method' that it be repeatable and so provide consistency... case studies too can provide more and less support, more or less weakening of a theory.

In philosophising a good philosophy, paraphrasing John Dewey (1958) in Experience and Nature:

“Does it end in conclusions which, when they are referred back to ordinary life experiences, render them more significant, more luminous to us, or make our dealings with them more fruitful? Or does it terminate in rendering experiences more opaque than they were before?”

So I'm thinking ANT is philosophy. And at its finest :)
Its descriptive, and there are empirical accounts
But its not predictive.
It does not over-reach itself.
It illuminates knowing this also creates shadows: a self-conscious theory.
But importantly it meets Dewey's account for being fruitful, for creating the conditions of also knowing that things might be otherwise.

For connectivism, it's still establishing its clarity, its alignments, its contradictions, its loves and betrayals. But theory does not come into the world brand spanking new ready to go...its a little unfair to treat it in the same ways one might treat an adult or a teenager, when its still toddling. And a toddlers survival is not just about it's own robustness, it's also about the readiness of others to engage in more and less supportive ways.

Law in a sociology of monsters describes the newness of things also, citing a story

I said 'I think they might also be called "hopeful monsters".'
She said' What are hopeful monsters?'
I said 'They are things born perhaps slightly before their time; when it's not known if the environment is quite ready for them.' Nicolas Mosley, Hopeful Monsters, p.71

So let us not forget readiness is a distributed state also. A networked proviso.

I now turn to how criticism might be enhanced taking a relational approach.
Latour suggests in doing research one should always be respectful of one's informants/participants/people we work with...and as much as reasonably possible:

Always assume people are right, even if you have to stretch the point a bit. A simple rule, my dear pupil when you're studying a project. You put yourself at the peak of enthusiasm, at the apex, the point when the thing is irresistible. (p.36)

No reason we should not be so generous to newer theorists and theories in the making. They are not attempts to deceive.

And like Donna Haraway, to say, from a distance, that one knows better, is to see everything from nowhere as one's own situated knowledge is not acknowledged but treated as a gospel truism. Some reflective work on one's own positioning and how one positions others in the network might be useful here. A network is not a hierachy. There is no one at the top with a supreme world-view, instead accepted wisdom (knowledge) is also made and distributed on a network.

I take an ANT stance with this, being connected means being in relationship, so what would happen were the question treated relationally? In considering critique instead of criticisms, if instead of thinking is this good/bad/right/wrong we were instead to consider, what does this bring to the relationships with others (human or otherwise): then not only might it illuminate, and render less opaque as Dewey would ask, but perhaps we might also ask in what ways might that which is looked at, as well as the theorizing undertaken, be otherwise?

The following is a beautiful piece of prose on the type of criticism yearned for by one philosopher, from an anonymous interview titled the masked philosopher:

"I cant help but dream about a kind of criticism that would try not to judge but to bring an oeuvre, a book, a sentence, an idea to life: it would light fires, watch the grass grow, listen to the wind,, and catch the sea foam in the breeze and scatter it. It would multiply not judgements but signs of existence; it would summon them, drag them from their sleep. Perhaps it would invent them sometimes- all the better. All the better. Criticism that hands down sentences sends me to sleep; I'd like a criticism of scintillating leaps of the imagination. It would not be sovereign or dressed in red. It would bear the lightening of possible storms."

The masked philosopher was Foucault 1994, p. 326

To yearn for such criticism is to yearn for engagement, to enquire, and not to close down, but to foster connections...such that new learning might occur.

I don't know if i believe in connectivism as a new theory of learning, but what i do know is a connected world makes learning occur in ways that would previously have been very difficult. Technologies bring about new ways of being in relationship, and no learning is possible without relating.

Ref:
Dewey, J. (1958). Experience and nature. New York, NY: Dover Publications.
Michel Foucault, interviewed anonymously in Le Monde by Christian Delacampagne, April 6–7, 1980; reprinted in M. Foucault, Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth (ed. Paul Rabinow, tr. Robert Hurley et al.), The New Press, New York, 1994.
Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies 14(3), 575-599.
Latour, B. (1996). Aramis: Or the love of technology (C. Porter, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Law, J. (Ed.). (1991). A sociology of monsters: Essays on power, technology and domination. London, England: Routledge. Retrieved from http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=FsINAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=A+sociology+of+monsters:+Essays+on+power,+technology+and+domination&source=bl&ots=PN2gGPt9al&sig=Y1kZy4EfVYcqKssYcB-J9L5zZ_8&hl=en&ei=XRHKTPfyJYfcvwPyl5nWDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

CCK11 Revisiting Connectivism as a theory of learning

Bother, cant make a table work here...cant share whats in my head when the actor i ask to carry it to others ... blogger ... turns it into scrambled eggs.

A translation too far.
Now I'm talking to myself
An iterative process.. engaging with the technology, the thoughts of others....the docs...

I need a space to put a pdf ... that others might link to...
could play on prezzie... but my fledgling prezzie skills would take me too long...

mmm...managed it there as not quite scrambled eggs...cant make a table that behaves...sizes and columns...
ah...deleted most...some wont go away but layering a pdf on top covers up my mess......see http://prezi.com/gebyyxino6og/cck11-meets-ant/
You can click on the prezzie below and zoom in
Please feel free to adapt further, make an attribution to me if you use it...
and invite me to come look...

Adapted from a table George Siemens has on learning theories in week 1 readings, but with an additional column expanding on connectivism to consider actor-network theory
I dont have the time to present it in a more engaging, enticing way, feel free... please feel free to become an actor in my network...or to make me one in yours :)

Im back to the phd

CCk11 meets ANT on Prezi

connectivity

am finally reading some John Seely Brown...I have a working premise that useful connections will hit on me at least twice.
Its probably not the most reliable premise for incidental learning, but in being slightly more discerning than 'read everything', its working for me as i continue to be overwhelmed by the too much to read, too little time, of being a phd student who wants to complete.

so when i tripped over this person's name twice...i googled it up...and found some pleasant writing :)

Here's a snippet

Clues provided by context

Consider, for instance, something as simple as a telephone-answering machine. Its use is not quite self-explanatory. A moment's thought reveals that the common message "I'm not here now" is, in the abstract, nonsense.
Whomever "I" refers to should be "here", wherever here is, "now", whenever the phrase is uttered. Yet in practice, despite its formal incoherence, the phrase turns out to be much more efficient than attempts at formal coherence, such as "If you're hearing this message, then I will not be at home at the time at which you will be calling."

What gives the more pithy phrase its effectiveness? Clearly, the words alone do not clinch the matter. To be understood, they rely on peripheral clues for interpretation. Background clicks and whirs, hisses from the tape, and the recorded quality of the voice itself all help callers realize that they are hearing a recorded message, and thus prepare them for a message's particular - if in the abstract peculiar - logic. These peripheral resources are not usually regarded as part of the information with which information technology is concerned. Yet, appearing unproblematically in the hiss of a recorded message, peripheral contributions can nevertheless be quite informative, allowing someone leaving a message and someone hearing it to communicate with a simple efficiency.

Important though they may be for design, these peripheral resources are not necessarily designed themselves. More usually, they evolve, as people - often quite unreflectively - enlist the support of contingent properties of a technology to keep things simple.

He writes directly, and he writes how the detective novel clues are missing in this webpage of subtitles and headings. There's playfulness; enjoyment and enticement in the multilayered approach.
And it reminds me of bits of my thesis writing.

He argues for the use of materiality, or performativity, though these words are not found on this page. He argues for simplification, yet what is here validates the complex.
and here he writes what i feel...and do...how clever is that?

"the new information generated in one year is more than a thousand times larger than the size of the entire print collection in the Library of Congress. It is hard to grasp the consequences of this much new information being generated each year, year after year. But people have invented their own strategies to navigate through this immense sea of information."

And here another snippet...here i am ...unable to sleep...and turn to my computer for a useful way to while away my time...i might as well be doing something useful....a phd...and that requires engaging with thinking- my own and others...so im blogging up my thoughts...

Communication technologies have become our central tools to socialize, exchange, build knowledge, they have become part of our private and domestic lives.

I'm entering into ... media as an environment (see macluhan or melkowitz) a context not as imaginary world or of distant world with me as voyeur...but of connection.

Im in it...and if you are reading this, you are too.

Truth and transparency; Knowledge construction in a hyperlinked world

Truth and transparency in a knowledge era is well illustrated by David Weinberger in a presentation at the Personal democracy forum 2009, here he demonstrates an ecology of knowledge, where Knowledge is produced in links and has an opening commodity rather than as Facts where the binary of solid indisputable information as a discussion closer, its this or that.

Weinberger presents a coherent argument challenging the common but wrong question of trying to dispute if the internet adds or detracts. A question also thrown at value of wikipedia and google searches as students (and others) find information to substantiate claims made. And I take from this the same faultiness in similar questions posed of other social networking devices including the cell phone and texting; the wrong questions asked in: 'Is it good or bad?' What the balance? Does it open us up or close us down? Who is right or wrong? Weinberger categorically states that such questions are not important, no matter if it opens us up a little or alot, it doesnt matter...what we need is a space that works with diversity, with difference rather than one that works with individual truths. We have to work to make a space for constructive difference.
Its a clear argument, for difference is always with us. How then do we manage the awareness and relevance of this difference. I suspect it is poorly, for we tend to get enmeshed in the binary again of is it good or bad as if universal truth was where we were at. But the world has moved.

Knowledge and facts are as Weinberger names them "loose edged and messy" and we become increasingly conscious of this as we manage information in the making, not just the information that's decided as being valid, peer reviewed etc. Now our knowledge is available to us with links, we have the diverse views but I suggest we now need the tools with which to make our own minds up. I suspect we might need to reconstruct knowledge- just as Weinberger is doing, and move out of our positioning of binaries of good or bad. My next concern is about how might we learn more about the importance of difference, of context, of social justice.
Weinberger presents well that in the whole of human history, knowledge and facts remain disputed, that our ability to settle on anything comes with a history of contention and so we might as well get used to it. He likens this to triangulating and more, a multisubjectivity; where transparency is the new objectivity. He has more on this written on his Joho the blog blogsite, transparency is the new objectivity.
To paraphrase David Weinberger:

Knowledge in a hyperlinked world then becomes something to unsettle, something to consider in context...something to discuss in conversation, to debate, to exist in chaos, and unsettled argument is a better approximation of reality than a paper based world could ever give us.

But I'm still left unsettled, when and where do we learn of respect, of valuing context and the differences in others such that wisdom is not an imposition on others.

This has broadened my appreciation for connectivism and connective knowledge approaches to teaching and learning (ref Siemens and Downes), there is need to understand not only how knowledge is constructed, but also in the connections; beyond the capacity of current communication technologies that make such linking and awareness of divergent views possible, there is also a need to consider how valuing and respect for difference are managed.
Following this prompt to my thinking, i might just sign up for CCK09, but the current phd is going to restrict this to being a participant observer.

what's in a name ; networks vs groups

I like the idea of connectivism for a theory of learning.
I can accept knowledge is not an out-there thing, that it is held in nodes, constructed in connections.
That the connecting and means of connection have influence and are worthy of focus.
BUT I continue to have a problem with the narrow conception and responses to ongoing dialogues regarding groups and networks.
An integration of actor-network theory (ANT) would provide responsiveness to the continued critiques defended in arguments of well if it doesnt do this it was a group not a network, to which there is no answer.
Does the one do cooperation vs this is collaboration, aligning vs intersecting? I'm not convinced, the real world is so much messier than that. The attributions are not stable.
A deeper understanding of how groups/networks function is needed.
Its the function that matters, not the name. The attributes of a group vs a network seem currently focused on their instrumental nature. It's to narrow a conception to say groups do this, networks do that, as this fails to account for shifts.
The rhizomatic understanding is useful as it can map the shifts, but is less useful in explaining their nature.
ANT provides for a deep understanding of shifts, whether fluid or fractional.
ANT also allows for this to be explored, retrospectively or in process.
Moving the debate away from group vs network as entities of fixed attribution could further add to the development of connectivism as a learning theory by providing insights into how to work the net as well as demonstrating connectivism in action; of learning as something worked in the nets.
Suggested authors for further reading:
Bruno Latour
John Law

An exploration into the unknown; between the nodes; a reality waiting to be constructed or connected?

In a constructivist approach, knowledge is built, and I would argue, built collectively. The implication is that it occurs because of connections. Its not that it, knowledge, is out there just waiting to be found, as if it were to fall from a tree, but that it is made through aggragation, this with that as well as with these people and these appliances that make it possible.

My studying of connectivism through CCK08 and as espoused by Siemens and Downes leads me to contemplate that knowledge does not exist 'out there' as a reality but is held in the nodes of connections. And thus occurs in contested forms where different knowledge/s will be held based on the aggragations of people and technologies being available to them.
There will be and are tensions between different enactments, performances, posturings as to what is good, bad, desirable. This is not at all surprising when knowledge is seen as an aggragation of what is thought known and possible within one technosocial mileu.

In that there are constantly changing mileu, across space and across time, this supports a belief that reality and realties will be experienced as multiple. An actor-network take on how reality and realities are constructed through enactment.

This seems to sit with Law (2004) where he is explaining how tensions appear between different enactments (and knowledges) of reality is made manifest. And that realities are then crafted and acknowledged as indefinite gatherings, coherent and non coherent.
And taking this still further, there is strength where knowledge is continually growing and evolving being formed by differing aggregations of sociotechnical possibilities. Stagnation only occurs where limits are imposed, where boundaries are placed on what's possible. Perhaps enlightened thinking is only possible when such borders are permeable, where there is flux, where things create their own durability because they are changing and adaptive, where intersections are possible and valued. That "things hold together precisely because they dont." (Law, p.142)

reference
Law, J. (2004). After method. Mess in social science research. Abingdon: Routeledge.

Wrapping up CCK08; Assessment matters; focus on being knowledge-able rather than knowledgeable.

My issues were:
1. an annoying split between formally enrolled for credit and those not
2. the value of ANT (actor-network theory) informing connectivism
And to some extent both were addressed in the wrap up.
Future renditions of the course might spend a pre course time in developing skills working with the technologies involved. This acknowledges the influence of non human actors on the learning possibilities, a very ANT accepting alteration. And the issue of difference for those taking the course for credit, or not, evolved into a conversation on assessment matters:

Innovative assessment being a significant block to creativity in education.In higher ed at least, assessment drives learning and how might this be altered? Currently what someone thinks they know is matched to what they think the learning should be about, and this predefined view limits learning. "What if assessment no longer drives instruction, instead assessment could be a byproduct evaluating at set times eg an eportfolio."
I had always considered assessment as a sample of student work and it frustrates me when i see it considered as driving and therefore limiting, the learning that occurs.

To my mind, even if we were to shift to an eportfolio approach this is still likely to reflect the limits imposed by the start stop nature inherent in the University where what goes into the portfolio is still controlled by those who think they know what is needed setting the tasks that accrue in an eportfolio...

What was better about the CCK08 course was i set my own goals more or less around a particular theme. It wasn't a predefined learning curve. The timeline was controlled, more or less and for those enrolled for credit even more so, but for myself its an example of a more open learning style. It is an example where what i developed 'inside' of CCK08 is useful to me for other purposes, my Doctorate, my career as an academic...
A reminder from Stepehen, 'assessessment tends to be a proxy measure'. That is, assessment tends to be of knowledge about rather than knowledge for. Might we focus instead on measures of being knowledge-able rather than knowledgeable?

knowledge as a (gather)thing CCK08

There's a similarity between connectivism, rhizomatic learning and actor-network theory. Each places knowledge within a relational context or network.
The difference with actor network theory is that it
1. emphasises knowledge as a performance involving both human and non-human entities.
2. emphasises the work involved to gather together entities that make certain things more or less substantial.
The difference is the degree to which ANT is prepared to name non human influences as integral.
In doing this course, I needed a computer and/or a cell phone preferably with web access. I am enhanced when connected to my laptop= my reach is extended; my ability to hear and to share across the globe made possible with broadband access and the Internet. I am also able to trust to my outsourced memory contact with artefacts of seminal writings (Latour, Law, Mol, Haraway as well as those of Dave Cormiens, George Siemens, Stephen Downes, Deleuze and Guattari, Gregory Bateson...). I am able to access more- the libraries of the world through other relationships i have, and I get to quickly find relevance by maintaining an endnote library reference system at my fingertips. In addition to these interactions which are substantially non human, I get to talk to others similarly connected with similar accoutrements.
And according to Latour, the more actors involved in such a gathering the more 'it' (knowledge or a particular practice) is stabilised. And becomes harder to ignore, or to go outside of, or to change.
Understanding the relational qualities of what is both shaped and shaping allows for insights into what is needed to make things otherwise...

(And hence my PhD on change with emergent technologies in a Youth counselling centre)

In taking this stance, I disagree with Stephen Downes that knowledge is nothing (elluminate talk), it is far too powerful a 'thing' to be discounted out of hand. But I take him to really be meaning that it is no(one)thing.
Knowledge is a shapeshifter.
And I am cyborg :)

Rethinking knowledge (epistemology); continuing a dialogue between connectivism and a proponent of ANT; CCK08

ruth has a small 't'.
Soren Kierkegaard
(letter T courtesy of Grewlike @ Flikr; Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License)

Connectivism holds knowledge to be transient and a 'connected' act. Rather than treating knowledge as a given, it is produced and held in connection.
Knowledge isnt made, its not like a pot to look at, or to have a shared understanding or appreciation of its value or worth or possible uses. Its not that stable.
Knowledge, as object of fact or process, I suspect is therefore multiple; where this knowledge, transient though it is, is held to be understood as of that time, in a partial way. But more than being perspectives held, this is actually ontological politics at play, reality is held together in different ways and acted on in different ways by those involved. A very ANTy perspecive on learning is made possible with a connectivism approach.
And any so called knowledge only holds together in this way until the connections are changed...so knowledge grows, shifts, gets more or less, dependent on those involved in its shaping.
And to take this further, especially with regard to an ANT informed analysis, is also dependent on the glue holding it. Whether said glue is the degree of trust or faith ... between the peoples involved or the power wielded or not... or the non human actors such as the form of technologies binding the connections. Whether this were to involve slate or paper and pen, books, through to the internet. There are non human actors who help shape said connections and which may store artefacts of the connected knowledge or which help create said knowledge by making the movement of ideas more and less possible. The emphasis on shaping allows the impact of those involved (human and otherwise) to be considered and allows for greater conscious awareness of the transience of what has historically been referred to as knowledge (as object). This theory, connectivism, shifts the emphasis of knowledge as process.

if that;then this

Stephen Downes in half an hour posts on the difference between constructionist and other 'cognitive approaches' of learning in a comparison with connectivism. He uses an example of an expert chess player who does not know play by memorized moves but by discerning subtleties in a shifting pattern.
In the online chat on CKK08 for us terrestrially time bound southern hemisphereans, the constructionist approach was described by George Seimens as not being symbolic or syntax based, meaning is not made in symbolic ways, but is more fluid, distributed.

Maybe very fast or intuitive constructionism would be like this?
Or is this pixie dust?
I could sit with rapid cycling constructionism as a form of relational learning so am still not convinced that connectivism is different to constructionist theory informed by an ANT (actor-network theory) analysis demonstrating what occurs in a global networked learning environment.

Does constructionist learning have to be as concrete as George and Stephen make it appear?
I am beginning to wonder if i am thick or in over my head.

But i contend google is my friend :) she is not to account for making me stupid.
(ref Nicholas Carr)
I am as stupid now as when i would flick through journal articles skimming for relevance. My surfing through blogs or online articles is no different. I read whats important to me. If what i read is contributing to my/or others stupidity, I would content it has more to do with PBRF pressure on academics that foster quantity over quality of research outputs. Trivial but easy to measure, and multiple reinventions of the same content thinly disguised as different pieces of research...