Sunday, September 27, 2009

How Connectivism and Constructivism Differ

After listening to the week 2 discussion in Elluminate for CCK09 I think I have understood a key difference between Connectivism and Constructivism.

In Constructivism knowledge is created or constructed by the knower. It is all based on previous and present experience. This is an idea that has always made me uncomfortable. In Constructivism the correctness of knowledge is all about perception and you can't say someone is incorrect because you are not them and they are the constructor of their own knowledge. It is right for you but not for me.

In Connectivism knowledge grows or emerges from a connection. It is perceived and meaning is inferred by the perceiver. The knowledge emergent from this connection might be correct but that is not the issue. This is where the concept of feedback comes into play. Our connections are not static and the transfer of signal between the entities can be a check for our perceptions. This is also why we don't want our networks to be synchronous all the time. We need input from different groups to give us a better way to check for accuracy.

Does this sound right or have I totally missed the point?

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Connectivism and Connected Knowledge Weeks 1 & 2

In the first week of the CCK09 class we were given a basic introduction on Connectivism. What it is, how it is different and similar to other learning theories, and how our two facilitators differ in their conceptualization of it.

Originally I thought the majority of my learning would happen on Twitter. I have found the Twitter feeds to be a bit overwhelming though. Surprisingly to me the most useful things so far has been Google Alerts and the Daily. I have also decided to use Diigio for the first time. I am still kind of lost as to how to use Diigo but hopefully I will get there soon. I had also hoped to use SL but I think I might let that go for this time.

There are so many people with so many different ideas and projects going on that it has taken me this long to actually get my thought together enough to actually write something.

Here are some initial questions I have:
  1. I feel like there is some part of the idea behind Connectivism I am missing. It is almost like I have a veil over my head that is obscuring my full view. I wonder though if this is how it is supposed to be. Maybe there isn't a clear cut definition. Maybe it is more about knowing on a different level? I had a nice conversation with April Hayman and Christy Tucker on April's blog about this and have decided I need to work on visualizing my thoughts. I guess that is what the mindmapping is for :)
  2. Is Connectivism more than the sum of it parts? Is the connection between two or more entities more than those entities?
  3. Is Connectivism somehow related to Chaos Theory?
  4. I am a bit fuzzy on Connectivism and the nature of Knowledge. This is what I think is the key idea but please help me out: Knowledge only exists when a connection is made. This connection can be neural, conceptual or social. Connections are made between entities (neuron to neuron, person to person, object to person). Knowledge is not transferred between entities rather it emerges in their connection.
I think sometimes this is difficult to grasp because we are looking at a large picture not discrete parts. I keep getting stuck on the social connections and forget about the neural and conceptual aspect which made the idea of where knowledge comes from difficult. I need to remember we are talking about multiple levels. Hopefully I am getting there!