Thanks to the participants in this thread in the CCK09 Moodle forum for bringing up the concept of The Singularity. I had not really given this much thought before, but it would appear that there may be something to the idea that we are approaching a somewhat critical mass in terms of our knowledge creation and accumulation and perhaps a singularity is the natural evolution of that.

I do find Dolores’ statement in her response to be very insightful.  “….the singularity is in us, not on the network or the tools” she writes.  I find this to be a very interesting comment, but I am not sure what it means to me just yet.  I am also aware of the dangers of group-think, as Catherine brought to our attention in this post (she had many other thoughts on techno-communism in CCK08).

Hopefully I will be able to write more on this subject after some further research and reflection.

Well, another round of CCK begins with the ‘09 version.  In the ‘08 version, in which I participated, I learned some new language, e.g. MOOC and Trolls

I also blogged frequently here, and had some comments on the principles of connectivism at that time.  I don’t know if I have changed my views much since then, perhaps I will be a little kinder in my cynicism due to the passage of time.  I am looking forward to actively participating…..I haven’t been blogging a lot this year and it might be time to let loose again.

Is there a link between Chaos theory and Narrative tradition?

“An affordance is the product of the interaction between the learner and the environment. Each interaction potentially alters the knowledge and the identity of the learner, as well as the micro-ecology of the environment (paraphrasing Gibson)”.  (from  http://learning-affordances.wikispaces.com/Affordances)

Are these interactions ‘deterministic’? Are the affordances deterministic?  Do we relive the stories of human experience? Is it an accident that we resonate with narrative, as told to and by us? Are we determined by our narratives? Do our narratives determine us?

Thoughts and questions for today….

Well, that has been a long break from blogging, and a welcome one at that!

On my long commute home this evening I was reflecting on connectivism, and the CCK08 course, and the word ‘Determinism’ came to mind.  I am not sure why this occurred, but will assume that there is some relevance to this revelation, and propose here to examine further.

In CCK08, a number of  ‘isms and other fine concepts were bandied about., to wit:  eliminative materialism, behaviourism, collectivism, etc.  I don’t recall too many of them. I do recall some mention of free will, but can’t remember in what context it was being discussed. Was it regarding networks, with the absence of free will being noted therein?  Help if you can.

So, determinism.  What could this have to do with connectivism?

 the behavior of chaotic systems appears to be random. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

 

I shall have to reflect more on this….

Well, final week for CCK08, final paper, and final map. I don’t know if I made all the assignments or not but it doesn’t really matter as I am not a credit pupil.  Revelations within:

This final? post was inspired by a discussion in the moodle forum at:
http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/moodle/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=1181&parent=7426

Here is my mindmap of connections.

When the forums started to empty, around mid-course, and  their demise accelerated after Stephen’s forced subscription, I found myself left with few souls with whom to kibbitz in the forums.  So I made some up, based on some of my favourite people.  I think Old Socs was first, then I Kant, L Tsu around the same time, followed up later by Jon Lenin.  None of this was planned, just evolved (emerged, I guess) and was no doubt accelerated by the amount of good fun I had in doing so, and my sense of humour.

It has been busy, keeping up contributions from each.  I have tried to assume the role of each, to some extent:  Old Socs the questioner, L Tsu the mystic statement maker, I Kant the logician, Jon Lenin the social philosopher/entertainer, while not being overly concerned if they strayed off script.

I think there are some things to be learned through this effort of mine, within this connectivist course.  Perhaps there is a use for the avatar. I much enjoyed playing in the playground, and engaging with those that would engage.

Short for a final paper, but the avatars will have things to add, below, later, and I include this entire gathering within the requisite word count…

A few thoughts/writing on this matter from another course….. 

 Hi xxxx

I know elsewhere you have commented that Dewey (1916) was writing in a different era, and his thoughts may have been for a different generation that this one), but I think that his observations help to answer the question(s) you have posed:

“And where children are engaged in doing things and in discussing what arises in the course of their doing, it is found, even with comparatively indifferent modes of instruction, that children’s inquiries are spontaneous and numerous, and the proposals of solution advanced, varied, and ingenious” (Dewey, 1916, ch. 12).

The above statement was made in the context of raising the observation that students have many questions outside of school, but little interest in the subject matters dealt with in school.  And the quote suggests that engagement leads to solutions that are creative, to summarize the descriptors at the end of it. 

The argument could thus be made that interest progresses to engagement which yields creativity. 

 I ->  E = C  (the limit of I, as I approaches E, is C.  Can calculus be used here?)

My suggestion would be that the creativity still exists in the learner/child/adult, but is exercised elsewhere, not in the educational forum, if writers such as Dewey (1916), Laverty (2006) and orators such as Sir Ken (2006) are right.

This is a well known common-lore item in some workplaces I have been in.  ‘Park your brain at the door” is sometimes the advice given to new employees, who are better off conforming that creating.

Thus my short answer to your question(s), albeit arrived at in a somewhat circuitous route, is ‘you get what you ask for’, and if you educate for answers, you get those (some of the time).  I also feel that if that is the primary focus of education, then creativity will be put on the sidelines, without much room for it, as you have suggested.

ref.

Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education. Retrieved February 23, 2008 from http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/Publications/dewey.html.

Laverty, M. (2006). Philosophy of education: Overcoming the theory-practice divide. International Journal in Philosophy of Education, 15(1). pp. 31-44. Retrived January 23, 2008 from Paideusis – International Journal in Philosophy of Education http://journals.sfu.ca/paideusis/index.php/paideusis/index

Robinson, K. (2006). Do schools kill creativity. TED Conference speaker. retrieved February 23, 2008 from http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/66

________________________________________________________________________________________

Thanks xxxx.  One of our classmates (I think it was xxxx) drew our attention to this video a couple of courses ago.  I had forgotten about it, and watching it now I see it in a different light.  At the 5:50 mark Sir Ken makes the statement: “If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original”.  This statement is made in the context of a discussion about how children are more willing to take a chance than adults, which to me parallels what xxxx was saying in another post about children being more willing that adults to ask for help, in part due to the fear of looking inadequate.  (Children have less fear than adults.  hmmm……)

Sir Ken asserts that we educate the creativity out of children as they become adults.  I’m not sure I agree with him, but my disagreement may be just a matter of degree or semantics.  I feel that education has a tendency to limit the opportunities for creativity to appear, thus my thought that the role of a facilitator should be the reverse given the importance I put on the creative function of human intelligence; in my metaphysics creativity is at the centre.  I don’t think creativity disappears through our current educational methods; it is just repressed and/or undervalued.  The discussion of educere and educare in the reference in my above post shows this distinction for me, and it does seem to parallel some of Sir Ken’s ideas.

I don’t feel that creativity is restricted to the arts, as Sir Ken seems to imply.  I think creativity is in every subject matter, and the role of a facilitator is to encourage it to be drawn out from the learners.  But maybe I just don’t understand him fully.

Great video, and thanks for bringing this back into the discussion.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

“The child of three who discovers what can be done with blocks….is really a discoverer, even though everyone else in the world knows it” (Dewey, 1916, ch.12).

I think that another starting point for my philosophy of (online) learning facilitation is in the root concepts in the word education. Bass and Good (2004) offer an explanation of these concepts, one which I feel is insightful in determining a philosophy. They explain the roots as including the latin verbs educare and educere, and distinguish between the two concepts. 

Educare means to train or to mold, and educere means to lead out.  The one view calls for “…rote memorization and becoming good workers.  The other requires questioning, thinking and creating” (Bass & Good, 2004, p.162).  The authors make the argument that a balance between these two extremes in continuum is required, but that at present educere is in short supply.

I like to work from an expanded view of the definition of educere.  I feel that not only should facilitation be employed to ‘lead out’ (from ignorance, as the term implies) the learner, but to ‘draw out’ the creative thinking power that I believe each individual possesses.  In this manner, my facilitative philosophy is more bottom-up that top-down, more learner-centric than teacher-centric.  The facilitative goal then is to effect the drawing out of the learners’ own skills, abilities and intelligences. 

A SWODLed strategy will help to achieve this goal.  

Ref.

Bass, R.V. & Good, J.W. (2004). Educare and educere: is a balance possible in the educational system?  The Educational Forum. 68(2) p.161-168.   retrieved February 22, 2008 from http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/2a/3b/02.pdf

Some random thoughts and quotes located and written a month ago, tossed out here for other minds to oggle, and to clear off my ‘unfinished manuscript’ pile.

 To reiterate the syllogism that supports connectivist materialism (CM):

a)  Neuroscience has made new discoveries about the brain and neural network connections

b) As it matures, Neuroscience will replace the theories of folk psychology

c) Ergo, connectivist materialism

hmmm.  Does this seem right?

What is dualism?  What is eliminative materialism?

‘Belief,’ ‘desire’ and other mental terms on this approach do not refer to anything; they are terms of ‘folk psychology,’ which, according to the eliminativist, is a false theory. Thus ‘belief’ and ‘desire’ are theoretical terms; it is just that the theory to which they belong is false and slated for replacement, in the fullness of time, by a mature cognitive science.

The token-token identity theory collapses into eliminativism
Eliminativism is false
—–
The token-token idenity theory is false

http://maverickphilosopher.powerblogs.com/posts/1143603037.shtml

EM is so patently absurd that I must ask myself: Is it a good use of my time to beat up a cripple or roll a drunk?

http://maverickphilosopher.powerblogs.com/posts/1143749696.shtml

The most obvious objection to eliminative materialism (EM) is that it denies obvious data, the very data without which there would be no philosophy of mind in the first place.

http://maverickphilosopher.powerblogs.com/posts/1143758604.shtml

http://maverickphilosopher.powerblogs.com/philosophy_of_mind/

George’s version of connectivism appears as a form of pseudo-constructivism. It is an application of constructivist principles pivoting on the expansion of technological access to a sharing of knowledge.

At the end of the day, it is a theory and description of applied social constructivism, where technology is merely the tool by which people construct knowledge and meaning.

I say: Hang on to this, but put it in its proper place:

Connectivism is Social Constructivism via the internet.

It has some use in this context. Context is a key. The Pipe is important, but content moreso.

And nodes are the most important piece in the puzzle.

To summarize the emergent propositions of Connectivism: 

(Connectivia Principia - CP)

(notes from http://blip.tv/file/1361785  the half-way point)

1. Downes and Siemens have differing views on knowledge, groups, networks

2. Connectivism (C) is not simply defined – depends on perspective (hmm…  like interpretivism?)

3.  The emphasis on networks is primary.

4.  All learning begins with a connection.  Intent (what – I thought network were non-intentional – may need to review the language used?) is to determine the attributes of these connections, e.g. power, control, organization, governing.

5. Knowledge is different today. Technology reveals something long dormant in knowledge. What something means is a function of how it is connected. Reducing knowledge to a function of connectedness, raising primacy of networks. Must understand what networks are, and how the connections affect meaning.

6. Deterministic unpredictability = chaos

7. system is more than the sum of its parts = complexity  which yields emergence

8.Trying to take natural science stuff (chaos, complexity, emergence) and put it into social science

9.  curriculum management does not provide control

10. large body of research supporting the connectivia principia (if you hijack stuff from, say science)

Take a straw, insert one end into your mouth, the other into your favourite beverage.  Then try to suck up the liquid, and blow bubbles in its container, at the same time.  Can you do it?

A connectivist position (Siemens, 2007) is that the mind is an ecology or network that we can’t really understand at this time.

“The hallmark of connectionism (like all behavioral theory) was that learning could be adequately explained without refering to any unobservable internal states.” (Thorndike)

I think George and Thorndike are saying the same thing, except that connectivists seem to deny their linkages to behaviourism.

Learning is the result of associations forming between stimuli and responses. (Thorndike)

Connectivism emphasizes the primacy of the connection (Siemens, 2008)

Not sure what to do with this yet:

Supervenient behaviourism: psychological facts supervene on physical behavioural dispositions: necessarily, if x and y differ with respect to types of mental states, then they differ with respect to types of behavioural dispositions (see SUPERVENIENCE). (Byrne, 1994)

 

Byrne (1994). http://web.mit.edu/abyrne/www/behaviourism.html

Seimens (2007). http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/wiki/Situating_Connectivism

Siemen (2008). http://docs.google.com/View?docid=anw8wkk6fjc_14gpbqc2dt

Thorndike. http://tip.psychology.org/thorn.html