Socializing Open Learning

George Siemens

Barcelona

November 30, 2009

Tempus vs. Hora

The irrelevance of structured learning

As conceived today

Private Universe

Sensemaking, not learning

What is sensemaking?

What is open learning?

What is social?

Not like ether (Latour)

Fluid – forming and reforming

A different way to see the world (& learning)

The primacy of connections

Connections, not networks

A network is an expression of connectedness – a pattern

History through the eyes of connectedness

Plato – we receive him (almost) whole…we create an object of what was a process

“To produce means to combine materials forces within our reach…to produce other things…means to combine these materials and forces differently”

Central Nervous System for the Earth

http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/2009/oct-dec/cense.html

The connections we permit

The connections we control

Research

Exploration of validity of connections

“Origination in scientific theorizing…is at bottom a linking”

W. Bryan Arthur

Under what types of conditions does a “course” work well?

More is different

Change does not scale

Structure of the internet is anti-pre-packaging

Curriculum creation and delivery as functions of connections

A course is a terrible sub-assembly unit of information transfer

How do educators control and influence connection forming in

learning?

Why open, social learning?

Responsive to needs of individual

Adaptive

Fluid, varied, contextual

Course: connections formed for

learners

Distributed cognition

Network as cognitive agent

Connection-creation systems in complex, abundant information

environments

Socially-driven networks

Technologically-enabled

https://tekri.athabascau.ca/

www.elearnspace.org (weekly newsletter)

http://twitter.com/gsiemens