Dissecting Connectivism

Day one of CCK08 begins today and we’ve been provided with a hefty reading list to get our heads around and start to ponder and discuss.  In addition to this, George Siemens has put together a presentation – “What is connectivism” (audio only version) – to help introduce the topic, as well as place it in the context of several other learning theories such as Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism.

Following on this he’s asked us to consider “Do you agree? Does connectivism add something not covered by existing theories of learning?”

My Learning Curve

Thus marks the beginning of a tremendous learning curve, as I have only a basic understanding – if that – of all of these theories.  I’m in the midst of the other readings as we speak and hope to develop a better appreciation during this process.  In the meantime I have also begun to discuss some of the ideas with members of my various networks.

I expect much of this process will involve building/establishing a wider context within which I can begin to explore these ideas.  Almost inevitably this will include seemingly unrelated discussions.

For example a Twitter discussion I had today with @petrock that went like this:

Mike: Spending a lot of time tonight asking questions like “what is knowledge”. Is it discovered, made, acquired, realised or something else…

Mike: Also, is knowledge static, dynamic, dependant on context, etc?

petrock: @mbogle Typically, I don’t see knowledge as discovered. It’s not realized either. Made & acquired, yes. But this depends on the definition.

petrock: @mbogle For instance, a discovery or apparent realization is made and then knowledge is constructed to express that. What do you think?

Mike: @petrock Would you say for example a link is established between two concepts or ideas, and then the nature of the connection identified?

Mike: @petrock Next question is, are we talking about constructivism right now or is this something different?

petrock: @mbogle I think I agree with seeing a “link” and then identifying that. Constructivism may apply but not necessarily. For instance…

petrock: @mbogle Does knowledge made from self-realization fit “constructivism”? Seeing how one acts seems different than linking pre-existing ideas.

petrock: @mbogle If I act like an ass and see it, I have realized something about myself but haven’t really linked theories or used others’ ideas.

Mike: @petrock “I’m not sure” would be the short answer Couldn’t self-realisation involve linking of private/internal ideas?…

Mike: E.g. in order to “realise” something don’t you need to have a comparative point of reference and therefore a way to link ideas?

Mike: In your example, the point of reference could be the ideal, and the realisation occuring when compaing ideal to reality.

petrock: @mbogle Ahh, I see. Yes it could be a result of comparing the ideal to reality. Though, I meant a genuine realization in my example.

petrock: @mbogle For instance, I hurt someone and see that hurt first-hand. I didn’t read in a book what an “ass” is. Rather, the fact penetrated me.

Mike: @petrock But even in this case you’d be making a conclusion. E.g. instead of just observing an effect, you’d also be realising your relation to it

Mike: @petrock …and then comparing this to an ideal of some kind, such as “you’re not suppose to hurt people.” Getting late here too

Comparing Learning Theories

At this stage I can clearly differentiate Behaviourism and Cognitivism from Constructivism and Connectivism, but I’m having some trouble differentiating  the latter two from each other.

Stephen Downes’ “What Connectivism Is” should hopefully shed some light on this.  If you’ll excuse me for quoting this at length, I suspect I’ll need to read this several times before I fully appreciate the implications:

“In a representational system, you have a thing, a physical symbol, that stands in a one-to-one relationship with something: a bit of knowledge, an ‘understanding’, something that is learned, etc.

In representational theories [such as Constructivism], we talk about the creation (‘making’ or ‘building’) and transferring of these bits of knowledge. This is understood as a process that parallels (or in unsophisticated theories, is) the creation and transferring of symbolic entities.

Connectivism is not a representational theory. It does not postulate the existence of physical symbols standing in a representational relationship to bits of knowledge or understandings. Indeed, it denies that there are bits of knowledge or understanding, much less that they can be created, represented or transferred.

This is the core of connectivism (and its cohort in computer science, connectionism). What you are talking about as ‘an understanding’ is (at a best approximation) distributed across a network of connections. To ‘know that P’ is (approximately) to ‘have a certain set of neural connections’.”

Justified true belief

The ‘P’ that Downes refers to in the final paragraph of the above quote appears to refer to notion of Justified True Belief account of knowledge.  According to Wikipedia (“Gettier problem“), this suggests that:

…the claim that knowledge can be conceptually analyzed as justified true belief — which is to say that the meaning of sentences such as “Smith knows that it rained today” can be given with the following set of necessary and jointly sufficient conditions:

A subject S knows that a proposition P is true if, and only if:

1. P is true
2. S believes that P is true, and
3. S is justified in believing that P

I’m still trying to get my head around all this.  If anyone can provide some insight I’m all ears.  In the meantime I’ll keep reading.