( Authors Notes: Learning the Connectivist Way is a three part series describing my journey to self directed learning and connectivism.)

• Part I – Narrates how a learning context led me to take control of my own learning.
• Part II – Explains what Connectivism is, its salient features and why I gravitate towards it.
• Part III- My Personal Learning Networks (PLN) and the technologies I use to support it.

Learning and teaching is still mainly “behaviorists – cognitivist”  but social constructivism and connectivism creeped in with the coming of  lifelong and self-directed learning paradigms. I narrated events that led to taking control of my learning in the first part of this series. 

Let’s sort connectivism now.

What is Connectivism?

Learning and knowledge in connectivism is defined as:

“…processes that occur within nebulous environments of shifting core elements—not entirely under the control of the individual. Learning (defined as knowledge patterns on which we can act) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organisation or a database), is focused on connecting specialised information sets. The connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing”

Siemens 2006b

Connectivists believe that knowledge is distributed “across a network of connections”. The ability to construct and traverse those networks are what constitute learning in connectivism” (Downes, 2007).

The ability to aggregate, co-create, store and retrieve information in these networks is a measure of learning in connectivism. Anderson (2008), said connectivism helps people understand that “learning is about making connections with ideas, facts, people, and communities.”

Salient Features of Connectivism
Many salient features of connectivism fits my way I of learning.  Connectivism acknowledges that new information is continually being acquired” and “decisions (to learn) are based on rapidly altering foundations “(Siemens, 2007). In medicine and orthopedic surgery assumptions are outdated by the time you mastered a “prescribed learning”. To stay abreast with the developments in my field, it’s becoming clear that my ability to find ways of knowing is more important than what I currently know. The faster and more efficient I could build relevant network, the better is my learning.

Connectivism also transcends the physical as well as transactional distance a characteristic shared by other learning theories or paradigm. Connectivism shares with constructivism the idea that learning isn’t acquired but disagrees with it that learning can be constructed either from a teacher or the learner environment (Downes, 2007). The act of making connections is learning itself in a connectivist paradigm. Interactivity is more important than constructing or acquiring knowledge.

Criticism Against Connectivism
Wade (2014) argues that connectivism is more like an instructional theory, specifying an instruction in a given learning context. He cited Morrison, Ross, Kemp, and Kalman (2011), definition of learning theories as “descriptive and generic while instructional theories are “ prescriptive and situation specific”. Verhagen (in Veletsianos, 2010), said that “…connectivism is more a theory of curriculum (specifying what the goal of education should be and the way students should learn in that curriculum) than a theory of learning”. Wade furthered went further to state that connectivism is an “attractive theory for practitioners wishing to change their practice, to take advantages of the affordances of digital media and open publishing”.

My learning experience and context led me to believe connectivism paradigm of learning rather than a theory. What learning I gained interacting with those networks and nodes are still “taught” behaviourally and cognitively. The frequent hops between networks, also negates the existence of a teacher or a mentor (Kop and Hill, 2008) . Such educational set up is still non existent in the medical field. Although there are areas in medicine where self directed learning augments formal, synchronous face to face instructions, research still points to cognitive and behaviorist learning as the most effective and replicable.

As I mentioned in the introduction, I went back to my home town to practice. Rapid developments in ICT was felt even in my far away home town. Telecommunication got better with broadband and fiber optic technology as well as smartphones. Computer became more sophisticated and internet is expanding. There were advances in the field of medicine and orthopedics that are going mainstream. Data became connected and distributed at the same time.

My access to these medical information and advances is still limited to face to face conferences, which are really expensive and time consuming for me. Subscription to journals are very expensive and buying books every 3 years isn’t a sustainable endeavour anymore. I have to find an alternative learning strategy, one that suits my context for learning. I built a personal learning network based on connectivism.

I began exploring social networks for learning in 2007. I stalked discussion forums, aggregated news, curated feeds and blogged on many topics including medicine and orthopedics. I joined learning networks- colleagues, social media practitioners, and technology enthusiast to facilitate my learning.  I  help build one if there is none.  This is my Personal Learning Network..

Next-Part III- My Personal Learning Networks (PLN) and the technologies I use to support it.

I’d love to read your thoughts on these, feel free to comment below.

1. What is your learning paradigm? 
2. Do you implement a learning strategy in today’s fast moving knowledge economy?

References:

1. Aguilar, R. (ND). What is #HealthXPh? [Weblog post] Retrieved from http://healthxph.net/about/what-is-healthxph
2. Anderson, T. (2008). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson (Ed.), Theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed.) (pp. 45-74). Alberta, Canada: Athabasca University.
3. Downes, S. (2007, February 3). What connectivism is [Weblog post]. Retrieved from http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2007/02/what-connectivism-is.html
4. Downes, S. (2010, May 6). Connectivist Learning and Teaching [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://www.slideshare.net/Downes/connectivist-learning-and-teaching
5. Kop, R., & Hill, A. (2008). Connectivism: Learning theory of the future or vestige of the past? International review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3), 1-13.
6. Lynch, M. (2017, August 5) What Is A Personal Learning Network? [ Web log post] Retrieved from https://www.thetechedvocate.org/personal-learning-network/
7. Morrison, G., Ross, S., Kemp, J., and Kalman, H. (2011). Designing effective instruction. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
8. Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism – A learning theory for the digital age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 2(1), 3–10.
9. Siemens, G. (2006b). Knowing knowledge. LuLu.com Electronic book..
10. Wade, M. C. (2010,December 14). A Personal Philosophy [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://cybergogue.blogspot.com/2010/12/personal-philosophy.html