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?

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!

Learning Styles

As part of my Instructional Design course I took a look at learning inventories again this time with some surprising results.
I used to always test very high on the auditory part of the VARK, however for the past year I consistently score much higher on the kinesthetic side.
I also used a measure to test my Action/Reflection, Sensing/Intuition, Visual/Verbal, and Sequential/Global preferences (do your own tests here). I was not surprised to see that I highly favor action over reflection or intuition over sensing, but I was surprised to see visual over verbal (narrowly though) and global over sequential.
I think all of these results are not really an accurate measure of how someone learns though. I find it very tempting to answer the questions in a way in which I would like to be thought of. I think this is why in the past I have scored higher on auditory, I always took great pride in my ability to listen well. Now I seem to take pride in my new found love of experimentation which would explain the kinesthetic result.
Are these tests really measuring how we lean something or how we would like to learn something? Or could it be that we change how we learn depending on how we think we should?

Part 2 of the Assignement - Personas

So part 2 of my assignement in Instructional Design is to create three personas. A persona is a fictional person who might take my class. I actually really like this idea. It seems like a great way to come up with possible pitfalls/problems early on.
The first thing I need to state about these personas is that all three of them are Teacher Assistant students. That is they are all in a college program to certify Teacher Assistants.

Persona 1: Lila Pennyworth
Lila is a single mother of two in her late 20's. Lila dropped out of high school when she became pregnant at the age of 16. She recently finished her GED though and has decided to continue her education. She used computers in high school and during her GED training and has a basic competency with them. She uses the internet mostly to keep in touch with friends over Facebook. She is a caring person but sometimes seems guarded due to her shy and serious nature. Lila is no stranger to change and sees it as a necessary part of life. She is excited to be back in school. She wants to make her children proud of her while ensuring a secure future for them as a family.

Persona 2: Stella Lacombe
Stella is a married woman in her early 50s. Stella spent 10 years working as a TA but has not worked in 15 years. She would like to get back into it but has discovered that most schools in her area require a certified TA. Stella is not happy about that. "Leaning doesn't change" says Stella. She knows that 15 years of experience count a lot more than any peice of paper. Stella has not had a lot of experience with computers and feels that they are a bit too complicated for her. She doesn't understand people's facination with the internet. "Young people spend too much time in front of the computer", she thinks.

Persona 3: Travis Wentworth
Travis is a single 19 year old who lives with his parents. He took a year off after graduating high school to travel and has just returned home from Thiland. Travis grew up with a computer in his home and cannot imagine what life must have been like with out them. He is very active online. All of his social engagements are managed through tools like Facebook, Twitter and his email. He is never with out his iPhone. He plays in an MMORG (World of Warcraft) at least once a week and enjoys the social interaction he gets from it. He is very outgoing and gets along with a wide variety of people. Travis has a form of ADHD but has learned to manage it for the most part. It is because of this he has decided to become a certified TA. He remembers the help his TA gave him when he was in school and would like to be able to help other kids reach their potential.

Course Unit Topic for my Instructional Design Project

My new course is an Instructional Design course. I wasn't sure if I would like it, but after week 1 it looks promising. It is way more structured than my last course which was an introductory course to types of technology.
I have a major assignment in this course where I have to design a unit of learning. I love that there is no actual content. We just come up with the topic and design the ways to achieve the outcome. Our unit has to be very small so we can have between 4 to 6 learning outcomes and it should be applicable to our jobs or personal life.
I have chosen Critical Thinking and the Internet. Here are my ramblings which I hope to turn into an introduction this week.
This unit deals with critical thinking and the internet. By the end of the unit I want the learner to be able to, recognize what critical thinking is, why it is important when viewing the internet, learn some ways to evaluate webpages, and be able to identify possible biases in example webpages.
The target learners are at a vocational college level and they may not have completed high school. They must have at least a grade 12 english level though. Some of the students have not been in school for quite a few years. The students all live in a rural setting and most have not had a great deal of exposure to computers and the online world.
The institution is a small college with campuses spread out across a distance. All campuses service rural areas. The instructor will not be present for face to face contact with most students. The students can obtain face to face assistance at their campus but due to other students the staff are in high demand.
That is all I have right now. I hope it is a topic that works out because it would be great to turn it into a real min-course next year.
As always please share your thoughts and suggestions.

Inclusive and Induvidualized?

I was reading about Alberta Educations proposal to revamp the Special Education Program yesterday and I noticed a trend that I find interesting. In the Summary Report for Phase 1 of this discussion it was reported that a number of people want an Education System for all students. That is they don't want separate programs for students, they want one system for all children. At the same time they also want a highly personalised program for students. My question is can people have it both ways?
Is it possible to have one system of education while catering to individual needs? Are the two ideas mutually exclusive?
I am not sure but it is an interesting process to watch.

LMS

There is a lot of writing out there about the problems with an LMS. Until recently however I had never really considered any of this. I have been working with Moodle for my job for the last little while and these ideas seem to be at the centre of my attention.
I guess the concern is that an LMS by nature is not open enough, there isn't enough sharing going on with the outside world. The term walled garden gets thrown about quite a bit. It is interesting that tools like wikis and forum chats are used in LMS systems and yet they are totally isolated to one group of students. The whole idea of these tools is to learn through collaboration. I appreciate that not everyone wants to share ideas with the public at large it just is a strange thing. The two ideas seem to be at odds.
Another concern is the institutional control over an LMS. In this world the people who created a course would have ownership of that course and be the ones to decide how to share it. But I also realize that institutions are essentially out there to turn a profit. They want to have some kind of control. If every course follows that cookie cutter pattern the institution knows what its product is. There is a clear way (at least on a surface level) to measure if a course is doing what it is supposed to do. Knowledge has become something which is owned not shared and it makes sense for an institution to want to be the owner. It was a sad day for me when I realized that a course or curriculum you design for an institution is not yours but the institution's. I don't really know though how to solve this problem or if there is a solution.
Obviously control is necessary for an institution. They need it for all kinds of reasons including public accountability. But also a certain amount of freedom is necessary for new and fresh ideas and learning to take place. There must be some kind of happy medium.
I guess it is that same old problem of measurement. It would be lovely if we didn't have to measure.