Systems Theory and Connectivism ..is there a link?

As I listened to George Siemens and Stephen Downes discuss how they defined Connectivism, as a learning theory within their respective frames of reference, I started to consider how I would define it, what my frame of reference would be, even though some time and a lot of other things have occurred since my dissertation research I would say it would have to be systems theory. For those of you who are not familiar with systems theory it is: an interdisciplinary theory about the nature of complex systems in nature, society, and science. More specifically, it is a framework by which one can investigate and/or describe any group of objects that work in concert to produce some result. (retrieve from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory, 9/18/09) In essence, it is based upon the notion that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts...it got me to thinking about how connectivism which is defined as: the thesis that knowledge is distributed across a network of connections, and therefore that learning consists of the ability to construct and traverse those network, by Stepen Downes in his blog; Half an Hour. (retrieved 9/18/09) Further definitions of connectivism include the following; "a learning theory for the digital age," has been developed by George Siemens and Stephen Downes based on their analysis of the limitations of behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism to explain the effect technology has had on how we live, how we communicate, and how we learn...(retrieved from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectivism_(learning_theory. )

Systems learning theory includes Senge's five disciplines which are: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision and team learning.

Personal Mastery: Organizations learn only through individuals who learn. Individual learning does not guarantee organizational learning. But without it no organizational learning occurs....People with a high level of personal mastery live in a continual learning mode. They never ‘arrive’. (Senge, 1990)


Mental Models: Deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures and images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action... turning the mirror inward; learning to unearth our internal pictures of the world, to bring them to the surface and hold them rigorously to scrutiny. (Senge, 1990) Includes self-reflection, sharing with others, "mashing up," and knowledge creation


Building a shared vision: a shared vision is "something that inspires people and gets them to pull together for cooperative action. People really get energized by what their group is trying to accomplish...." (retrieved from http://www.healthyworkclimate.com/htm/Vision/sharedvisiondef.htm, 9/19/09)


Team learning: the process of aligning and developing the capacities of a team to credit the results as its members design---allows for rapid growth among team members or rapid learning---the use of technology allows for unique opportunities for teams to come together and practice the concepts of the five disciplines.


Systems theory is merely the frame of reference in which I place connectivism to better understand how the concept can be applied to learning. I can apply the discipline of personal mastery to connectivisim because it makes sense that in order for the individual to contribute to their network he or she first has to be an active learner, open to external opportunities to learn and continuously learn. From this putting aside any biases or barriers in order to better learn from others is necessary in accepting the critical elements associated with being open to the ideas of others in one's network. In this way one builds a "connections," develops a connectivism learning mindset, and contributes to team learning.

Connectivism cck09

ast night was my first class for Connectivism facilitated by Stephen Downes and George Siemens. Along with about 50 other students on Elluminate I was quite excited and honored to be included in this "ground breaking" opportunity to participate n an open education/course-ware class. Even though this class is open we still have certain expectations and requirements that we have been asked to meet in order to enhance our learning experience, one of them is that we blog or conduct some other collaborative initiative in order to achieve the outcomes of the course. Actually that is the easy part for me! I have the following sites with blogs: cathyandersonblog.com, www.cathyanderson.com and I am on Twitter as cathlanderson.

To be honest I had forgotten that this class was starting this month until I checked my email yesterday notifying students about the evening's Elluminate session. What delighted me a great deal was that very morning I had been spending some time researching different collaboration tool available via Web 2.0 and what had initiated that was the fact that I had been reading the 2008 Horizons report the night before. I am intrigued by the rise in Collaboration tools via the web in addition to the variety of other tools I have been researching, when I have a chance to "squeeze" that into my day. In addition to researching these tools I have also been testing another tool, Evernote in order to keep and organize my findings.

Connectivism is a new learning theory coined by George Siemens. According to Stephen Downes' blog Connectivism is; the thesis that knowledge is distributed across a network of connections, and therefore that learning consists of the ability to construct and traverse those networks....shares with some other theories a core proposition, that knowledge is not acquired, as though it were a thing. Hence people see a relation between connectivism and constructivism or active learning (to name a couple). Given this I see a real connection between my research on collaborative web tools and the focus of this course. Further linking my search for collaborative web tools I jotted down the definition of collective intelligence, which I see linked to connectivism as wel, from Wikipedial it is...Collective intelligence is a shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration and competition of many individuals. Collective intelligence appears in a wide variety of forms of consensus decision making in bacteria, animals, humans, and computer networks. I like the fact that this definition also notes the "competition" that sometimes needs to occur as this does not denote "group think," or the "hive mind" type of thinking that is defined as inWikipedia .." a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. Individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking are lost in the pursuit of group cohesiveness, as are the advantages of reasonable balance in choice and thought that might normally be obtained by making decisions as a group.

The Horizon 2008 report notes that "the way we work, collaborate and communicate is evolving as boundaries become more fluid and globalization increases. Further driving these changes is the portability of tools that we can use to access content and the Internet which will facilitate and enhance our ability to collaborate and work together. Other notes that I made on the report that are integrated with the course are:

The renewed emphasis on collaborative learning is pushing the education community to develop new forms of interaction and assessment


The "academy" is faced with a need to provide formal instruction in information, visual and technological literacy as well as in how to crate meaningful content with today's tools

The growing use of Web 2.0 and Social Networking ---combined with collective intelligence and mass automation is gradually but inexorably changing the practice of scholarship



Doing this sort of research on the web is sometimes exciting, but more often than not overwhelming and the availability of these tools is no exception. Evaluating and separating the useful from the useless, as Barry Dahl would say, is the challenge. It is a time of great change in how we work together, access information (or how information comes to us), on the web, and the tools we use to access that information, and how we build knowledge. I can think of no better time to be an "addicted" researcher and have a passion for education and "trying" to follow these trends.

Open Education Resources

by Cathy in Education, Education Technology, Free Education, Open Courseware, Open Education Resources, Semantic Web, Web 2.0

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Overview of the Open e-Learning Content Observatory Services program (OLCOS) and Open Education Resources

The OLCOS state aim “at building an (online) information and observation centre for promoting the concept, production and usage of open educational resources, in particular, open digital educational content (ODEC) in Europe.” According to the report on the OLCOS, Open Educational Resources, Open Eduction Roadmap, published in January 2007 the purpose is to “carry out a set of activities that aim at fostering a set of activities that aim at fostering the creation, sharing and re-use of Open Education Resources—(OER). The following overview will define the terminology associated with OER and OLCOS, identify the range of sites that provide open education resources, the development of WEB 2.0, Web 3.0 and the benefits and challenges associated with OER. This report addresses the need ‘to foster open practices of teaching and learning that are informed by a competency based educational framework.”

OER is defined as access to open content, including meta-data that is provided free of charge for educational institutions, content services, and the end users such as teachers, students and lifelong learners. It is intended that the content is liberally licensed for re-use in educational activities, favorable free from restriction to modify, combine and re purpose the content, consequently that the content should ideally be designed for re-use in the open content standards. The development of Web2.0 complimented OER very well. OER is based upon the collaboration of teams in reviewing and ensuring the quality of resources. Given that Web 2.0 is various defined in this article by O’Reilly as fundamentally user driven, collaborative, user designer, interactive, and dynamic. Further definitions of Web 2.0 can be found in Wikipedia, expanded by the advent of personal learning environments which is defined as: systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning. This includes providing support for learners to set their own learning goals,manage their learning; managing both content and process,communicate with others in the process of learning, and thereby achieve their learning goals. Guides such as this Web2practice maybe helpful in further defining the role of Web2.0 in teaching and learning. “Web2Practice is a site which provides guides to emergent technologies and innovative practice,” retrieved from the website.
OER provide benefits to the following stakeholders: Instructors, learners or students, and employers
Personal Learning Environments are further defined here by Graham Atwell as recognizing that learning is ongoing and seeks to provide tools to support that learning. It also recognizes the role of the individual in organising his or her own learning. Moreover, the pressures for a PLE are based on the idea that learning will take place in different contexts and situations and will not be provided by a single learning provider. Linked to this is an increasing recognition of the importance
of informal learning.

Open education resources and learning object repositories provide access to resources which a learner can use for creating his/her own personal learning environment in order to achieve certain learning outcomes. OER may include free and open textbook sites, learning object repositories, documentary and video sites, document sites, etc. A list of some of these is as follows;

Open Education Resources:

iBerry is a non-profit making, private website providing information and resources for learners, educators, researchers and anyone else with an interest in Higher Education.

Learning object repository:

Merlot: a leading edge, user-centered, search-able collection of peer reviewed and selected higher education, online learning materials, catalogued by registered members and a set of faculty development support services. MERLOT’s vision is to be a premiere online community where faculty, staff, and students from around the world share their learning materials and pedagogy.

New Media Consortium maintains this directory of learning object repositories on the web.

Online books and textbooks:

FlatWorldKnowledge: Our peer-reviewed books are written by experts, professionally developed and supported by supplements. There the similarity to traditional books ends. Our books are free online in multiple formats (softcover, audio, self-print versions) and open-source so you can modify them to fit your course.

OpenTextbook: Open Text Book is a registry of textbooks (and related materials) which are open — that is free for anyone to use, reuse and redistribute. It is run by the Open Knowledge Foundation

Video:

Top Documentary Films: TDF offers full watchable documentaries and information on documentaries by quoting reviews from trusted sources. In case you decide to buy your favorite documentary film, or you want to get some more information on some of the docs (documentaries) there is a store available for that. Documentaries are classified in categories and you can easily find what you are looking for.

The Internet archive: The archive maintains a moving images library of free movies, films, and videos. This librayr contains thousands of digital movies uplaoded by Archive users which range fromclassic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. Many of these videos are available for free download.

Snag films: is committed to finding the world‘s most compelling documentaries, whether from established heavyweights or first-time filmmakers, and making them available to the wide audience these titles deserve. SnagFilms.com is a website where you can watch full-length documentary films for free, but we’re also a platform that lets you “snag” a film and put it anywhere on the web. With a library of over 850 films, and rapidly growing, you’re bound to find films that resonate with your interests. We make it easy for you to find a film that shines a light on a cause you care about. You can then open a virtual movie theater on any web site, so any one can watch your favorite SnagFilms for free.

Virtual reality:

Virtual body: Just found this one today!

The Forbidden City: Beyond Space and Time is a partnership between the Palace Museum and IBM. The goal of the project is to provide the means for a world-wide audience to celebrate and explore aspects of Chinese culture and history

Second Life sites such as: Frank Lloyd Wright Museum, Sci-lands, Goethe Institute, Caledon, The Tut exhibit, and business maintained sites

Semantic Web Initiatives such as

Folksemantics

Aardvark

Twine

Olnet.org To search out the evidence for use and reuse of open educational resources…..stated purpose from the website; the aim of OLnet is to tackle gathering evidence and methods about how we can research and understand ways to learn in a more open world, particularly linked to Open Educational Resources (OER) but also looking at other influences. We want to gather evidence together but also spot the ideas that people see emerging from the opportunities.