Information Overload

In the last two days I have heard about so many new online tools that I am realizing with all the blogs and feeds at our disposal, we might be able to read, listen and write more than ever before, but information isn’t knowledge. And the task of creating it into knowledge still remains the same.

For instance, just because information flow has increased, human physiology hasn’t. The chunking rule of 7 + 2 still applies. 

After reading all the moodle and blog posts I am now convinced that Connectivism is a new learning theory that needs proper definition. People are focusing too much on the larger concept of building “personal knowledge” rather than the task of building “professional knowledge”.

Personal knowledge can be completely controlled by each individual—to access whichever resources they want—an open-ended learning experience. Professional learning/growth, alternately, is a close-ended, goal-oriented task and the purpose of the CCK08 course is to understand better how we can use social networks to enhance and assist professional learning.

For instance, social networks help:

-Reduce the burden of memory storage

-Allow the creation of PLE’s (increasing learner comfort)

-Increase technical skills (online tools are now freely available)

-Convenient and informal Blended Learning modules

After Week 1 let’s set clearer objectives for this course. But for right now, it is great fun to hear the various opinions and learn about the plethora of tools people are using to feel “connected”!

Does connectivism add something not covered by existing theories of learning?

Does connectivism add something not covered by existing theories of learning?

Yes! A bit…

The goal of learning through the years has not changed. People learn to grow. If we did not want to grow, we would not learn. But how we choose to learn evolves, based on the resources available to us.

Learning through socialization—whether driven by a network, or whether provided within a pagan community that sits around a banyan tree chatting—is still the most effective learning resource.

The progression or differences I see in all the 4 main learning theories—Behaviorism > Cognitivism > Constructivism > Connectivism, is one of transparency. I don’t think any theory is that new from the other, but rather builds on the previous theory, or provides are more transparent view of learning–something that the older theory danced around but could not quite pin down. 

While I don’t think it tells us anything new as a standalone theory, it does tell us something new by comparison. That now socializing, sharing information and learning have moved from control to chaos. And this to me is very important from the view point of reaching the millennial learner in an environment on chaos.

CCK08

Shalini Gogia

Turnaround

It started as a gentle spray

Of silver raindrops

That landed on a rose

It ended as a torrential downpour

That crashed her petals

Into the earth below

Romance and death

Expression and fear

Desire and disgust

Nowhere, yet near

And nowhere again…

The Beginning has now become the End!

Responsibility

Don’t use your responsibility towards others as an escape from your responsibility to yourself.  A person has to be spiritually selfish and materially generous. Then you can take care of your truest desires, and help others achieve theirs.