#CCK11: Connectivism-MindMap

Putting together the points from the different sources on Connectivism in the form of a mindmap:

#CCK11: Week 1 Highlights - Connectivisim Defined

Given below are the highlights from the readings for the first week of the CCK11 course. 
Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age

1. Know-how and know-what is being supplemented with know-where (the understanding of where to find knowledge needed)
2. In today’s environment, action is often needed without personal learning – that is, we need to act by drawing information outside of our primary knowledge.
3. What adjustments need to be made with learning theories when technology performs many of the cognitive operations previously performed by learners (information storage and retrieval)?
4. …chaos states that meaning exists – the learner's challenge is to recognize the patterns which appear to be hidden.
5. The capacity to form connections between sources of information, and thereby create useful information patterns, is required to learn in our knowledge economy.
6. Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing.
7. Connectivism also addresses the challenges that many corporations face in knowledge management activities. Knowledge that resides in a database needs to be connected with the right people in the right context in order to be classified as learning.
8. Connectivism presents a model of learning that acknowledges the tectonic shifts in society where learning is no longer an internal, individualistic activity.

What Connectivism Is

1. Connections form naturally, through a process of association, and are not 'constructed' through some sort of intentional action.
2. Hence, in Connectivism, there is no real concept of transferring knowledge, making knowledge, or building knowledge.
3. What you are talking about as 'an understanding' is (at a best approximation) distributed across a network of connections.
4. “To teach is to model and demonstrate, to learn is to practice and reflect.”

Connectivism and its Critics: What Connectivism Is Not

According to Connectivism:

- learning occurs as a distributed process in a network, based on recognizing and interpreting patterns

- the learning process is influenced by the diversity of the network, strength of the ties

- memory consists of adaptive patterns of connectivity representative of current state

- transfer occurs through a process of connecting

- best for complex learning, learning in rapidly changing domains

The learning process is influenced by the four elements of the semantic condition:

• Diversity
• Autonomy
• Openness
• Connectedness

Learning is not a process of ‘transfer' at all, much less a transfer than can be caused or created by a single identifiable donor.

 

What is the unique idea in Connectivism?

1. Tools augment our ability to interact with each other and to act. Tools are extensions of humanity, increasing our ability to externalize our thinking into forms that we can share with others.
2. Connectivism is the application of network principles to define both knowledge and the process of learning.
3. Connectivism focuses on the inclusion of technology as part of our distribution of cognition and knowledge. Our knowledge resides in the connections we form – whether to other people or to information sources such as databases.
4. Connectivism recognizes the fluid nature of knowledge and connections based on context. As such, it becomes increasingly vital that we focus not on pre-made or pre-defined knowledge, but on our interactions with each other, and the context in which those interactions arise.
5. Making of coherence in a subject matter one is new to is about dialoguing with other learners. Make conversations a priority and let learners interact with the content, with each other, with the technology they will use for sense-making.

What is Connectivism?

1.       Connectivism focuses on:

• Our need to externalize to make sense
• Our need for frameworks/structures for sense-making
• Our need to socialize and negotiate around knowledge
• Our mind is a patterning mind: we are attuned to note, recognize and draw patterns from complex systems
• Our desire to extend our humanity through technology

2.       The experience of learning is one of forming new neural connections and conceptual frameworks.

3.       Learning occurs in continually fluctuating space.

4.       Connectivism is focused on the primacy of connections and networks.

5.       Types of networked learning:

• Neural-biological: neuroscience and AI states that learning is the formation of new neural connections.
• External-Social
• Conceptual

 6.    Connections create meaning: how we put together ideas is our conception of a particular field or state of knowing in that field.

 7.   Learning in a network sense is a function of:

• Depth and diversity of connections
• Frequency of exposure
• Integration with existing ideas and concepts
• Strong and weak ties (weak ties bridge separate worlds)
• Different types of networks with different types of attributes will serve different types of learning needs

Technology increases our ability to dialogue with others which results in a complexification of opinion.

#CCK11: Introductory Post--Reasons for joining

I joined the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (CCK11) MOOC a tad late. It is a 12 week course that started on January 17 and will continue till April 11. I am really excited to see what it holds. This is my introductory post. I am a bit worried that I am lagging behind in my reading but not too worried since many of the articles and posts that are linked are stuff I have already read. I am eager to go through this journey as a part of a group of people who are passionate and keen about the same things that I am.

The course syllabus was especially intriguing, and my special interest is the Adaptive Systems which is coming up in Week 7.

Week 1: Connectivism
Week 2: Patterns
Week 3: Knowledge
Week 4: Unique?
Week 5: Groups, Networks
Week 6: PLENK
Week 7: Adaptive Systems
Week 8: Power & Authority
Week 9: Openness
Week 10: Net Pedagogy
Week 11: Research & Analytics
Week 12: Changing views

Key reasons:

1. I have been reading and am highly influenced by the writings of George Siemens and Stephen Downes.
2. The theory of Connectivism fascinates me, and I see its absolute relevance in this age of networked learning.
3. I am also intrigued by complexity and chaos theory and do quite a bit of reading around these topics, which gets random at times. I tend to stray on the web. This course provides focus and a “guided” yet flexible path that will help me to do concentrated reading.
4. I wanted to experience the feel of a MOOC. I think MOOCs will increasingly become a way of sharing and learning together.
5. Dave Cromier’s video on What is a MOOC? pushed me to join. It rocks! It made me want to be a part of this learning experience.
6. The fact that I don’t need to read everything but the more I do cover, the more I can participate. This is a great motivator for me to cover as much as possible because I hate to feel left out.

10 things that Dave Cromier says about a MOOC that inspired me to join CCK11

1. The key characteristic of a MOOC as a participatory, open and distributed course
2. It’s an event around which people who care about a topic get together (although learning is not an "event")
3. All the course work gets done in areas accessible to everyone—absolute transparency of the learning process
4. Everyone gets to learn from everyone’s work
5. A MOOC promotes network creation and facilitates engagement with other participants (a key learning skill of the 21^st C where knowledge resides in friends and “knowing where is more important than knowing how or when”)
6. There’s no single path through the course—I can choose my learning path and different ideas can coexist and new ideas emerge
7. A MOOC is a lot like being on the web but it is paced, which also gives me a good reason to keep focused
8. The need to “declare” myself and create artifacts that will help me to make my learning process transparent (this post for example is a start)
9. It is a perfect blend of curated content and emergent knowledge, ideas and viewpoints
10. The 5 steps to be successful in a MOOC—Orient, Declare, Network, Cluster and Focus—are also the key learning skills required in the networked age. This, I thought, would be a great place to hone these skills. 

The points are synthesized from the following 2 videos:

• What is a MOOC?
• Success in a MOOC

So, I signed up.

What did I do next?

1. I joined the Google group here.
2. I went through the webinar recordings.
3. Saved the Twitter search for #CCK11
4. Scanned through the paper.li creations for CCK11
5. Subscribed to the CCK11 Daily

This has been my Saturday morning so far. I am now settling down with another cup of coffee to watch the 2 webinars:

• The Course Introduction and Overview
• Educational Data Mining: A Methodological Review

I will try to follow these up with some more readings from the daily. Will be back soon with my next post.