tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post4464863694338373761..comments2024-03-28T03:32:41.433-04:00Comments on Half an Hour: That's Week One in the Record BooksStephen Downeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06140591903467372209noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-1486499692340794422008-09-15T20:06:00.000-04:002008-09-15T20:06:00.000-04:00To rlubensky,First of all, I am not offering an ar...To rlubensky,<BR/><BR/>First of all, I am not offering an argument for Connectivism here.<BR/><BR/>I'm just trying to describe the theory, to make it clear. <BR/><BR/>Second, I am writing here not about a <I>learning</I> theory, but about connective <I>knowledge</I>. <BR/><BR/>So comparing it with acquisitional and participatory learning theories would be irrelevant.<BR/><BR/>And third, as we'll see later, the connectivist approach pretty much rejects the idea of 'knowledge as apparently discrete, bounded entities'.<BR/><BR/>And fourth, I want to avoid being dragged down the road of 'the experience of intersubjective discourse, situated learning, knowledge building and identity formation.'<BR/><BR/>All of this ground has been well-covered by others (who, unfortunately, have left us just as uninformed about the process of learning).<BR/><BR/>Connectivism begins by talking about <I>knowledge</I> differently.<BR/><BR/>If that's difficult to follow, I'm sorry.<BR/><BR/>But skipping over this and jumping straight into learning theories misses the point.<BR/><BR/>It's because much (most, even) of our most important <I>knowledge</I> is connective that our learning must be connective. Not the other way around.<BR/><BR/>So (and this is a point for everyone now) when I talk about knowing about things by knowing about how they're connected, think of this as a type of <I>knowledge</I>, not a type of learning.Stephen Downeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06140591903467372209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-79223250567856970122008-09-15T19:53:00.000-04:002008-09-15T19:53:00.000-04:00Hah, I meant Connectism, not collectivism!Hah, I meant Connectism, not collectivism!rlubenskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11518962181442701634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-20180328385777238712008-09-15T19:52:00.000-04:002008-09-15T19:52:00.000-04:00Stephen, I'm not convinced that the best argument ...Stephen, I'm not convinced that the best argument for Collectivism is to categorise it against rationalism or empiricism, or to raise the old chestnut of qualitative vs quantitative. While of course these have ontological and epistemological significance, they speak more about methods of knowing than the nature of knowledge. <BR/><BR/>I think it would be more fruitful to line Collectivism up against acquisitional and participatory paradigms of knowledge and learning (see Sfard, 1998), which are reflected in the metaphors we use and the intentions we pursue. <BR/><BR/>In my opinion, you can approach Connectivism both as a realist or a constructivist. It is the unit of analysis that is different between the acquisitional and participatory, as one would expect of different paradigms. <BR/><BR/>The acquisitional approach focusses on knowledge as apparently discrete, bounded entities (whether reified or not). The participatory approach is about the experience of intersubjective discourse, situated learning, knowledge building and identity formation. And Connectivism expands on the dynamic structure and emerging effects of complex human systems. <BR/><BR/>All three paradigms tell a relevant story about knowledge and learning.rlubenskyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11518962181442701634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-27942222221213221062008-09-15T12:20:00.000-04:002008-09-15T12:20:00.000-04:00You say:"I believe that this is because the theory...You say:<BR/><BR/>"I believe that this is because the theory is neither collectivist nor individualist."<BR/><BR/>This is key. As George said on his connectivism.ca blog post (see "Call for a New Discipline") before the course started, the key to working connectives is <I>change</I>. The objective is not to come to some "one best way" of doing things, but to create systems which are <I>agile</I>, which can bend and flex and re-assemble based on dynamic contexts.<BR/><BR/>This is a well-known subject in IT, in both design and planning phases. Social ideologies aside, it works very, very well for software development.Eyal Sivanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14053761151840918993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-4834759640996220592008-09-14T08:26:00.000-04:002008-09-14T08:26:00.000-04:00> I find that indefensible. You are promulgatin...> I find that indefensible. You are promulgating a belief system, and you can't stand challenges to it?<BR/><BR/>This is a course, not a philosophical debate. You are free to disagree all you want, but I am not going to take the time I have devoted to explaining the theory and spend it in a pointless argument with people who haven't taken the time to learn about the theory and who have no intention of considering the possibility that it might be true.<BR/><BR/>I will also caution, one time only, that I do not tolerate personal attacks on this blog, and will remove abusive comments without warning or response. The whole web is open for people to post their diatribes; there's no reason why I should be required to make a space for hostile attacks on my own site.Stephen Downeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06140591903467372209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-87438712098445540612008-09-13T21:57:00.000-04:002008-09-13T21:57:00.000-04:00No, "someone isn't wrong on the Internet," someone...No, "someone isn't wrong on the Internet," someone simply didn't buy your line.<BR/><BR/>Re: "I really don't want to be drawn into arguments about the defense of it. Because these are disputes that will not be resolved by argument. If you think connectivism is fundamentally wrong, then noting I say is going to change your mind."<BR/><BR/>I find that indefensible. You are promulgating a belief system, and you can't stand challenges to it? Huh? You can't remain curious about the challenges to your doctrines because you are so hell-bent on disseminating them. You're like some other ideologues, too, saying that "proof" that you are right must be seen in the fact that you have two kinds of critiques, one that it is too much individualism, and one that it is too much communism.<BR/><BR/>Communism fits for me because of the constant destructiveness and false claims of public good and ends justifying means, hiding in fact a very stealth-like controlling mechanism by a few. So you know what? There are individualisms in communism as well -- tyrants. That's how it works. That's how it sustains itself, masking itself as the public good, yet appearing to be "about the collective."<BR/><BR/>You (and others) just wave away challenges or critiques and say "believe in my system first, that's the only way to understand it -- criticize if you must, but only by endorsing it as legitimate." Huh? What kind of science is *that*?<BR/><BR/>I'm so curious how minds get turned to ideologies like this, how the become so obsessed and trapped. It's fascinating to see the defensiveness involved.<BR/><BR/>It also seems to me that you're really spinning your wheels on some of this new tech. There's a function on Google blog feeds that is a "share" (I think) that you could just provide to take care of lots of it if you just put it in Google news. AFAIK it is one URL that shows all the feeds you get as a share for everyone else. Grasshopper seems needlessly cumbersome. You don't have to RSS the hell out of something that already has CCK08 on it everywhere. <BR/><BR/>Basically, an engagement with a system like this is more interesting for what it shows about minds online and their actions than for anything achieved in "putting over" the doctrine.<BR/><BR/>You really should fix up the Moodle to contain just a few more links to things like the readings list -- which you simply cannot find there. <BR/><BR/>And would it hurt to put a clear link here on your blog to any videotape you did that explains more verbally what your system is?<BR/><BR/>Prokofy<BR/>Catherine FitzpatrickUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17462957723334149373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-36784321814404836062008-09-12T20:57:00.000-04:002008-09-12T20:57:00.000-04:00Whether this is a course or not, a real theory or ...Whether this is a course or not, a real theory or not, technocommunism or anarchy - I've had more synapses firing this week than in a long time, and I just want to say a simple "THANKS" to you and George (and all the others behind the scenes).Jeannine St. Amandhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16912979606015914521noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11679714.post-36655849666016699252008-09-12T18:25:00.000-04:002008-09-12T18:25:00.000-04:00Stephen, I love your recap of the first week: a ve...Stephen, <BR/><BR/>I love your recap of the first week: a very honest, helpful guide to the importance of pacing for such an immensely innovative and fascinating experiment. The very nature of the laboratory seems to demand speed and an all encompassing consumption of what's been said. And I think your idea here of slowing down and working through the ideas is right on. Much of the initial reactionary responses will die down and the "course" will assume an identity (or identities) and the discussion will benefit accordingly. <BR/><BR/>I was interested in your choice of the Moodle Forum, it seems like forums, in my experience, beg such reactions, and it is where most of them occurred this first week. Moreover, it's not really such a useful tool for the PLE in my opinion. I found for the first week that I was more interested in thinking about yours, George's and Bill Kerr's framework, than jumping in the fray right off. <BR/><BR/>The gradual sense of such a experience is important, especially if th course does ostensibly posit a position (namely there is such a thing as connectivism and it is worthy of study) and go about defending it. Seems like a space for thinking about educational theories more generally in the first week, and the logic of thinkers like Vygotsky, Illich, etc., may have helped in this regard. <BR/><BR/>I always think of a course as an open ended argument that you develop and define over time, seems like this structure posits a theory immediately and to some degree out of intellectual context, and digs in to defend it for the entire semester which could be a dangerous approach.<BR/><BR/>Great stuff, and I'm interested in how you are hacking out rssHopper, it sounds similar to what folks are trying with WPMu curse syndication.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, enjoy your weekend.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com