Connectivism

George Siemens makes an interesting yet vital comment at the end of the video segment on the complexity of education vs education being complicated. As we look at  connectivism and the theories that surround or support this relatively new learning dynamic, the world suddenly become complex. the complexity of our societies, politics, information that is available and how we access this information suddenly boggles the mind. The integration of this electronic, dynamic and color corrected digital world has made us more sensitive to the plights of what devastation, destruction, genocide and any other form of mas hysteria you can imagine. Our information is instantaneous and with us at all time. We had in the past the ability to shut out what we did not what to know about. We could turn off the TV, not read the papers and filter what was known to whom and when. Not so any longer. 

With the injection of smart phones in to common consumption,  the integration of mobile web and technology and the desire by most to know what is going up to the minuet through social networking, RSS news feeds, digital news papers, twitter accounts and so on, it is no wonder our world and education systems have become complex. We demand knowledge and news now, we have become the instant gratification generation. Doubt it? Well think of this, when some one sends you an email, are you impatient if your waiting for it to come in? How many times have  you told the microwave to hurry up when cooking something that normally would take 30 minuets instead of 3. some of you are probably laughing because you just realized the truth of this, others because you realized that you do it, and the rest just because it sounds silly, but they will think about it and start to see what I am speaking of. 

So this week we were to create a mind map to look at and visualize how we get our information, connect with others or pretty much as I look at it, go about our new daily lives. Mine is no better than the rest, I am jacked in plugged in and mobilized just like everyone else. I am a news junkie, I like to know what is going on. I do not watch much TV because they dramatize the news. I prefer to read and discern what is content and what is not.  I am just as plugged in with my HTC EVO, my iPad, my Macbook Pro and my Kindle. I use social sites, RSS news feeds, digital news content and even surf the web the old fashioned way to find information. As well I am involved in our classes at Walden researching learning and using that knowledge for our discussions and posts. So here is my submission to  you on my digital world. 

As one can see by examining it I am just as connected as the next and am finding new ways to stay and be involved with my peers and family through technology. As well being in an ID program, learning how to use this and other technologies for the successful completion of the ID curricula.  

My network has changed how I learn through the ability to be plugged in and location information on the fly. Having to spend hours at the library was never any fun and the resulting search engines like Google and Bing among others, allows me to research data faster and to get many more perspectives on the information to make my own conclusions. As it was once said there are three sides to eery story, yours, theirs and in the middle is the truth.  I prefer to research since I like to see more than one side and see what the plus and minuses are of each to see what may work best. 

The digital tools I have adapted to are well pretty much everything. I search on my phone, my iPad my computer at home, all offer access to information and allow the the flexibility and mobility to keep at tasks at hand as well as provide an abundant resources to  learn from. I noticed how connected I was when my father passed in April of this year and I was in Iowa for the funeral. there is not much in Iowa and all of us, my brother and mother and sister in-law, were all going through withdrawals not being able to get enough signal to stay connected. It was rather comical in a sad time.

I would say that the  current state of technology, education and the interconnectedness of  both can be seen everywhere and that it really cannot be refuted. Examples are remote conferences through tools like Webex. Video conferencing for training seminars in organizations, online learning and training. Even on the simplest of jobs such as fast food, most places have videos to watch on the company and the job process. This is the most basic of electronic information transfer, but it is valid non the less. Even in the 50's they had movies that were training and that could be looked at as the start of connectivism with digital learning. 

In closing I would like to say that I believe that many of what the connectionists prescribe to are valid points. We do learn socially, though not entirely, and our social dynamic is changing. We are a people who have been plugged in and  are just no taping what this new resource of ideal can explain, investigate and be useful for. Also with this new world comes the integration of social connectivity which really begins to expand exponentially due to the connectedness of us as individuals, both socially, geographically and globally. We are a global community and interestingly enough, we are just now realizing this. 

Network

So this week wer are discussing  Connectivism vs Constructivism and social networking. Which I found kind of redundent after reading and researching more on each of these theories. They are almost identical in every way and the information that is available on both comes from allot of the same socurces. There are a sundry of good resources onve being from George Siemens who is a major contributor to the Connectivisim movement. Ther is allot of data on the comparison of Cognitivisim, Behaviorism, Connectivism and Social learning therories and how they interact and he works deeply on the importance and move in the digital age of education and learning. There is a focus on seve aspects that are influencital of connectivism that he explores in his paper and explains a sundry of elements for todays educational experiences in the digital world. As well he hosts a site http://www.elearnspace.org/ that hosts a book Knowing is Knowledge. I found it very interesting and has allot good information and resources for people like us in the ID field.

Looking Forward in Reverse

Learning, the concept of assimilation of knowledge into ones memory, be it long or short term. Theories are abound with ideas of how the human brain "processes" information and "stores" the "data" it assimilates. Does it tie it to already acquired knowledge does it learn through cognition through behavior or stimuli response. How does the brain allocate what goes where and how chemically does the brain store said information and know exactly where to look index wise to find this information. These are all very pointed questions that for years have plagued man in trying to discern what makes knowledge possible. Socartes believed that the only knowledge is that we know nothing, which I find interesting since the more we learn how little we actually know, an interesting paradox to be stuck in for sure. 

So how do we proceed with the knowledge that we know little to nothing about how we gather, store and access information we assimilate? FMRI is an interesting way to go, you get a fun Technicolor show and you get to see how they brain interacts with itself. Yet as scientists state it may be a good way to learn how our brain functions.  Why is that you ask? Well I have an idea, because nature likes to shake things up. Just about the time we think we have an answer an anomaly appears that turns out not to be an anomaly after all but an unforeseen reality. I find that the world likes to keep you guessing. You think a person with head trauma will be a vegetable, the human body finds a way to compensate and overcome the faulty parts. Many times it has been seen through medicine that the human mind unparticular is unpredictable and resourceful. This is seen in cases of blind people with adaptive hearing and smell and touch to compensate for the lack of vision, deaf people being able to compensate by feeling even minute vibrations.

So now that we know what the brain can do, the question is how does it do what it does. Many of the theories that we cling to or learn about have many concepts and ideas that are based on observation and research. My question is we can observer externally all we want and draw conclusions based on behavior only. Even though many of the studies and theories are not technically behaviorist in nature, they still have the same observational challenge, only what we can measure on the external front. There are newer concepts which start to make use of technological advances in digital biology and FMRI. These may be able to give us a better more well rounded idea of exactly what does the brain do and how.

Isomophism looks at the relation of or mapping of relationship to properties or operations.   it is based off of the mind is like a computer concept. Then you have the connectivism which focuses on network learning.  So the brain, as we look at it, is electrochemical by nature, adaptive and plastic.  So why do people have issues believing that the human mind is not like a computer. Perhaps the better question is why are computers designed like a brain.  Let’s think about this for a second. 

Our brains are the  central processing units. It evaluates many things that goes on with the body as well as contains the storage, networking, firmware and programming. Be it biological in nature or knowledge gained from stimuli, the brain deciphers and uses the encoded instructions that were programmed in either from nature or genetics and what we learn day by day, situation by situation and stimulus response. Our firmware tells us how to use our eyes , ear lungs, legs and arms. It tells our heart to beat and our lungs to inhale, although we have to learn how to control our extremities, this is not so different from adding peripherals onto a computer. Wit the instructions from our neural network we learn how to move and control them through experience or connectionism/ isomorphism. The ideas that we learn by connecting events together.  

All of these things I believe show more and more that perhaps we do not learn the way computers do, but that computers learn like we do. They are accelerated due to the strictness of the instructional programing that they are given and they are also limited by the parameters we set for them, but is that not what our parents do to us as children. Stop at red, go at green, what is green how do you define green, etc. This learning is no more or less than programming. Walk, run, jump, this is what this is, as we mature and age, we learn more and more through our own interaction with the world. Much like the networks of today learn from the interaction of the computers on a network, the usage of each user, the software integration, we are literally building a digital biosphere.Here is an interesting PDF on adaptive networks  May sound out there but it's just a though.

Cognativconnectionbehaviorsocialadultism

So now we are working on how the learning process works not just what it is. Focusing on the different theories or models that make up learning. Looking at this weeks resources and reading the blogs of Kerr and Kapp, I find that I can actually believe a little of what they are speaking of. Looking at the different theories that make up the process of learning, it is easy to see why people debate how we learn. I mean look at the compendium that is learning theory. We have everything from behavioralism, where any action is a behavior to cognativisim which runs counter by saying the way people think impacts their behavior. By looking at learning this way one can see that behavior cannot be tied to how people think, and that thinking cannot be a behavior. Then you throw connectionism or Constructivism In the mix which states that learning is tied to relating knowledge to past experience. Then you have the sub sets of operant conditioning, learning is from external stimuli, for behaviorism and humanism, learning is a personal act, under constructivism. Each of which points to the same conclusion that being from the Socratic ideal that the only knowledge is that we know nothing. Which I find quite poignant when discussing learning.

Look at all of the schools of thought that we have. Look at how intertwine and all point to the same conclusion over and over again. We have no clue what triggers learning or how the mind works. Sure with RFMRI we get a cool technicolor light show, but do we truly have a grasp on how the mind works, where the information we assimilate daily and through instruction really goes or how it's stored? The answer is we have no clue. We can find patterns with recognition and we can find similarities in how the brain functions. Yet as proven time and time again nature is unpredictable. Just when you think you have something figured out, or that we are on the cusp of a break through, wham nature slams the door and goes on guess again. It's like playing let's make a deal, you get a winner every once in a while, but more often than not you get the zonko.

One thing that can be attributed to the learning process no matter what theory you cling to is that humans are visual. This is the aspect that we as ID students need to hone in on. We are working in a realm of education that is based in the visual world. Using video, multimedia presentation, audio, imagery and text, we are given a blank canvas and much like Michelangelo we have to see the masterpiece inside the the canvas we are given. Granted we are not using paint, marble, chisels or scaffolding, but we create worlds of knowledge, interaction and bring it all in a contextual format hopefully designed and implemented in such a way that learners are able to use what ever tools or learning style that works for them to make the knowledge part of their everyday life and future.

http://www.learning-theories.com/cognitivism.html
http://tip.psychology.org/thorn.html

Man vs Machine

Something in this weeks videos got me started today. It wasn't about the contradictory debate that that Dr. Jeanne Ormrod was discussing about the terminology of mind versus computer and how computer theory was not conducive to learning methods. What got me thinking was how much our brains really are like computers. She made a good point in that our minds do not naturally go from point A to point B in a natural conclusion or methodological sense of problem solving. That is a learned or programed action. Even before computing was around I think that humans had a great understand of how or brains assimilate data. For instance many of the original thinkers or researchers working to figure out how we learn and process information. Many focused on imprinting, which I equate to bios in computer. it stands for Basic Input Output System. It is the basics of computing in that it tells the computer how handle what it has installed. Similar to a human mind controlling the respiration, heartbeat, auditory, sight and tactile systems. It knows without being told that you must breath, the heart must beat, the eyes discern images, the ears discern noise and the nerves discern external factors. It may not have the programmed knowledge of what these things are but it knows without fail what to do. In some cases there is a malfunction with one of the systems so the others learn to compensate. When you cannot hear your eyes and brain intemperate information to assist in overcoming it. If you cannot see, the ears and smell get finer attuned to extrapolate information from around them to compensate.

So in this weeks assignment I found some interesting information on information processing from http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cogsys/infoproc.html and very interesting information on connectionism from http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/modOverview.php?modGUI=76

Both sites give very compelling and interesting information as to how the brain is very similar to a computer and how it functions in a way that is organic, yet at the same time very mechanical i.e. there is method to its madness. Many instances are shown from both perspectives that lead to a believable concept that the brain can be programed very much like a machine. In fact most of us are from the time we are born. Classic example, crying baby’s drive parents nuts. I have three little ones so I can attest to this. We program them form the time they are born that you cry and you get something. Initially we do not understand this but as the brain develops the child soon emerges that knows if I cry i get food or I get changed or I get held, as they get older it then becomes a game of manipulation. This falls into the realm of Schema, which is the deal of interconnected relationships or turning experiences into a meaning. Crying = getting what you want. As we grow and get older the Imagery of hat we want comes into play and we stop the crying and start pointing. Then it becomes "Uh Uh" while pointing to put emphasis on what we want. All of the time building on the basic principle is I want X I do Y. As you can see this starts to resemble a computers program. If you want this conclusion you take these steps. It's all very linear and information based.

As we move from the information processing, to the connectionist approach. In this approach to the development and incorporation of information into the brain we see that the development and organization is very much like the development of a network or the internet. Massive connections tied to one another tying new information into old information to make it retain-able and retrievable for future usage. This allows us to tie information to circumstances, or experiences that we have to make the information more relevant and real. By doing this it aids in the ability to maintain that knowledge and recall it when necessary. This leads to learning and that leads to growth. Very much like our networks in computing often called "smart networks" or "Grids". In these environments information is gathered and analyzed to behaviors and usage and to help adapt to a through a learning process what the network needs and when. These things can include network load balancing, adaptive and predictive trafficking and in some cases the ability to warn its administrators when something in the network is "sick" or not functioning properly, allowing for preventative care and maintenance to maintain up time. Very much like a human body with diseases or illness. So as you can see, maybe it’s not so far off to think that the brain and our learning capabilities are not much different than those machines that we created to do many of the tasks that we do on a daily basis.

Just a thought or two for you to mull over.

Things that make you go Hmmm...........

So reading my sites that I have subscribed to on instructional design, I have run across an interesting thing that has been on mind since I started at Walden and found some validity to on  http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/  .The issue being the complication of Mobile computing and accessing of instructional websites from mobile devices. For instance most instructional websites for education use flash for construction and design. Now I find this interesting in that a majority of mobile users use iPads and these devices do not support flash. I personally have found this troublesome due to being one of the multitude of iPad users that are enrolled in an on line school (Walden of course) and having issues viewing some of the content that is in the week by week resources. Of course you can always “jail break” your iPad and install Frash (flash for iPad) but then if something goes haywire, you could end up in a serious bind due to no support ( I worked with Apple for two years in tech support and ran into this quite often). So why use flash as a primary conduit when a majority of mobile users are not going to be able to access some content that is needed for instruction? I understand that people have laptops and desktops and access to that information from those devices. But if they are like myself why take my laptop if I can access and use my iPad when I travel I make it light fast and convenient. With the added production software of the iPad I am able to access and work just fine.

            I am not saying that Apple is right for their stance on flash and not allowing it to be installed on the mobile devices like iPhone, iPod touches or iPads. I think that they need to allow for this since they have a large stock in the education world and a majority of their users will be education based. Now I am not saying don’t use it, but there needs to be an alternative or redirection or even a link to a site that is supported for mobile devices. This is just a thought for us as ID students to keep in mind when implementing classrooms and content. I think having this knowledge and foresight would increase the buy in from students and lesson the stress that some have when trying to access their resources from remote and also build a better community of inclusivity.