The Medium and the Message

Having done some interesting reading on connectivism, emergent curriculum and chaos/orderliness, I'm now trying to figure out how to move ideas into practice. Some very useful principles are starting to gel:

- the idea of "flow", in which students are so deeply engaged in their task that they don't learn consciously

- the idea of "nodes" and "bridges", which are taking shape in my mind as conceptual and activity clusters linked by known and/or comprehensible elements (referring back to Krashen's "comprehensible input plus 1" language learning theory).

- the necessity for "large" and "small" workspaces (big picture ruminations and small picture detail work)

- the systems approach concept that unifies the part and the whole ... reminds me of Pi, the golden rule

- the concept of "foraging" which would allow students to rummage through related information and materials at their own pace and in their own order, while still contributing to the larger task at hand.

- the need for a home base and a unifying task (ultimate goal) with occasional "resting spots" to regroup, assess and determine next steps.

HOWEVER ...

I'm trying to find a technology that allows me to do this. I want a website that works in a circular fashion like the Prezi presentation software (although that's been frustrating to work with), so that I can build "nodes" and "bridges" but allow students to roam through information clusters, apply their new learning and then move on to the next information cluster in their own way. It's so clear in my mind ... why can't I find the software to do it?!

Paper and pen are linear. Most learning management systems are linear. WebCT, Angel and Desire2Learn are all linear. MySpace has an interesting notion of being able to add on pieces, but they're still linear and chronological. It appears that Moodle is as close as I can get. But Moodle doesn't allow me to form bridges. Or even to allow bridges to form on their own by frequency of student use. I need to be able to create initial "paths" through the content, in the way that the Prezi presentation software does. I want random entry points. I want to be able to place "doors" on a large "canvas", almost in the way that a computer desktop allows multiple entry points into files and subfiles. I just want them to be linked by bridges.

It makes me think of Jane Jacobs and her discussions about city planning. It reminds me of parks where people's feet carve the most logical walkways into the grass regardless of there the cement has been poured. NOT straight lines, but curved paths that are the closest, most logical distance between two points.

Complex

complex

c.1652, "composed of parts," from Fr. complexe, from L. complexus "surrounding, encompassing," pp. of complecti "to encircle, embrace," from com- "with" + plectere "to weave, braid, twine." The adj. meaning "not easily analyzed" is first recorded 1715. Psychological sense of "connected group of repressed ideas" was established by C.G. Jung, 1907.

Aha! To encircle ... weave around ... not easily analyzed (rationally constructed and deconstructed) ... a connected group of "repressed" ideas. Funny that Jung was mentioned, as Jean just sent me such an interesting email after I told her that our process in getting this discussion up and running was as fascinating as the ideas that were arising out of it. I had noticed that the small group of people who had picked up the conversation about chaos and connectivism and learning were very much darting in and out of the conversation, like birds bringing ever juicier tidbits to a shared buffet table. New links, new videos, new options for creating an information repository we can all dip into when we want to. The dipping in and out reminded me of my own process as I started figuring out how I was going to tackle the online course I'm working on. More specifically, I said to Jean:

Funny how we go back and forth between content and structure to house it, eh? Plus we shift between individual chats and group chats, and somehow have a sense when the whole discussion is getting TOO divergent. We also seem to go "out from" and "in towards" our key topics of chaos/connectivism etc. This seems very much the route I took when first starting to design the online teacher training course I was doing.

Jean, a Jungian analyst, responded with the following:

Connectivity brings to mind the dynamic nature of Eros - the principle of psychic relatedness that makes us loving, creative and involved whether humanly, aesthetically or spiritually or – my favourite – all together!! Sometimes the connectivity is on the level of physical interdependence, and sometimes the connectivity is in the perception of what Gregory Bateson called “the pattern that connects”. Maybe this brings us back to the idea of resonances. Wild idea (as if these aren’t all a bit wild) – I wonder if empathy emerges from a sense of resonance, perception as gestalt, and a sense of the pattern that connects? This in turn links back (or is it weaves into?) the theme of holistic teaching/learning.

Your talking about going “out from” and “in towards” reminded me of a little video I saw in a university course I took about 15 years ago on Science and Creativity. Lovely course, lovely professor, Luigi Bianchi – unruly white hair, tobacco stained fingers – an astronomer who was erotically charged with the sense of the patterns that connect. I couldn’t help but have a little crush on him… Anyway, the film was called Powers of 10 (1998, Charles and Ray Eames) and the impression it made on me has lasted all these years (so has Luigi’s, apparently). The camera telescopes outward - “out from” - in stages of the power of ten and finally arrives at the limits of the observable universe. Then it zooms back (“in towards”) and the detail viewed progressively decreases in magnitude to eventually arrive at the proton in the nucleus of a carbon. Prompted by our connectivity conversations, I googled the film and watched it again. The screen is a bit small to reveal the full richness of the detail that had originally impressed me but some of the resonances in the patterns across differences in scale can still be perceived. Luigi had us look at the film with the sound turned off so our perceptions would not be disturbed by the narration – something I would recommend for a first viewing if you are interested and haven’t seen it before. I had forgotten this, however, and made the “mistake” of watching it this time with the moderator’s voice over. It was distracting but something new came to light. The moderator draws one’s attention to the fact that in moving through the various levels of magnification, one can observe an alternation between great activity and relative inactivity – a ribbon that continues all the way through. Aha! Here is another resonance - alternation between great activity and relative inactivity – that brings me back to the metaphor of feast and famine I used in describing – apologetically – my own communication rhythms. Could this pulse be part of the deep structure of CAS and connectivity generally?

So, what do I take from this all as I move towards understanding learning more? I am left with a strong impression of movement, of flux, of times of work and rest, of gentle and dynamic creative power. I take from it that, when excited (feeling erotic), we engage fully, and that we then bring and take in equal measure. That there are patterns we seek out (perhaps, just as Chomsky says, our brains are wired for language AND for patterns). That learning is a task of the spirit as much as a task of the brain.

And I want to know more about Gestalt.

Connectivism according to George Siemens

http://www.connectivism.ca/

So this is where it starts for me, a dive into the heart of what George Siemens (coiner of the term “connectivism”) might think about connectivism these days. I don’t think I’ll tarry here for long, because there have been such juicy discussions with my thinker-friends on Facebook that I want to return to those, but it’s good to get a first-hand glance at what George is chewing on at the moment, written in his blog on November 10, 2009.

It appears that in his latest blog he’s summarized a few “thumbs up/thumbs down” kinds of things comparing the old and the new worlds of learning, and so I’ll bring them into my own blog here to get the mental juices flowing. As an aside, it strikes me as interesting that he’s based very much in the world of technology, while connectivism seems to me to be so much about ecology.

First off, GS seems to say that “connect or perish” will be the motto for the future. Organizing our world according to content (like Google) is outdated, whereas organizing our world according to connections (like Facebook) is where it’s at. Similarly, the overwhelming abundance of information (overabundance?) makes any attempts to control information futile. Finally, “complicated” is bad but “complex” is good. Our mission then, should we as educators choose to accept it, is to find a way to manage abundance and complexity (which seems like a contradiction when it is clearly unmanageable).

We have been kidding ourselves, he seems to say. Old ideologies for learning are based on the following (incorrect) assumptions:

1. 1. The learning needed by someone can be defined

2. 2. Control is needed to achieve required learning
3. 3. Students at similar stages need similar learning

4. 4. Coherence and structure are needed for learning

In fact, GS quite overtly states that a “failure to overcome ideologies is due to an inability, to date, of educators to rethink the learning model.” Hmmm. I believe the gauntlet has been thrown.

So what does he suggest? More from his blog …

Education has had enough theorizing (yes, I get the irony). Let’s throw in a dash of pragmatics and see where we end up. In fact, let’s start at the smallest element in the learning process: a connection. Instead of trying to squeeze curriculum into a myriad of epistemological views and adding a splash of psychology and sociology, I suggest we zero in on connections. Biologically, learning is as simple as the firing of neurons. At a conceptual level, learning involves the connecting/weighting/strengthening of links between concepts and ideas. At a social level, learning involves interacting with other individuals (and increasingly, technological agents). How are connections formed? What does a particular constellation of connections represent? How important is technology in enabling connections? What, if anything, is transferred during an interaction between two, three, or more learners? What would learning look like if we developed it from the world view of connections?

These are, indeed, the questions to which I want to find answers.

And so it all begins ...

THE IDEA

Chaos and order, complexity, emergence, connectivism … what is it about these concepts that intrigues me so much? And why do I believe that deepening my understanding of these concepts will have a powerful effect on my work as a curriculum developer and program planner? Maybe even on my understanding of what it takes to encourage/accelerate/support learning in myself or others?

It would be impossible now to retrace the steps of my enticement into the tangled web of these topics, but I do know that when I finally realized that I had arrived in the “web” I found other great topics that intrigued me: quantum physics and Buddhism, the magic of pi, the golden rule and its presence in musical harmonies, architecture and biology. Even Jane Jacobs’ ideas about city planning and economics ended up there. I read about anthills and electronic “flocks”, heard about the Butterfly Effect and wondered about string theory, listened to monks and checked out the “perfect” dimensions of the Parthenon. And somehow the interwoven nature of it all made some kind of intuitive sense to me. The delicate balance between delicious chaos and comforting patterns appealed to me. And certainly, my mind felt most awake when it was straining to catch a glimpse of the connection – connectedness – connectivity of it all.

At some point I began to wonder if this was how I learned. How other people learned. Not school learning, but the kind of learning that humans do when they’re left to their own devices and need to figure something out. When they explore and observe and try out things, falling down and getting up and trying again. It seemed to me that this kind of learning, the effort to have meaning emerge out of chaotic not-yet-knowns, was particularly rejuvenating and deeply relevant. It felt “true”, and I wanted to be part of it and wanted to help create it.

That in turn began to lead me to musings about programs and courses that I was developing in the world of adult education. Some of them were for language and literacy learners, but others were for teachers or program planners. Didn't they all deserve to be treated as if they could be in charge of their own learning? It began to occur to me that the way I worked while planning programs also needed to shift to reflect my views as much as the content and activities of my programs did. I needed to let go of outcomes more often, accept the rising and falling of group efforts, leave breathing room for erring and correcting, for finding and connecting. In short, I wanted to live and work what I believed.

Trying to gradually articulate - through praxis - what I believed about learning and program planning, I arrived again and again at the notion of “learner-centred”. But there I got stuck, because I could not reconcile the fact that I, as teacher or planner, was still deciding who was learner and who was teacher/planner. I still had control, and it seemed to me that to really be true to my beliefs, I needed to give up that control completely … or at least to a much greater degree. When I go about my life and experience those lovely moments of connection-making between previously-disconnected ideas that have been rumbling around in my head, I certainly didn’t have a teacher or program planner telling me what to do next to reach that juicy conclusion. So, what was making me think that I needed to provide that to others?

That remains an unresolved question for me. However, this much has become clear and will be explored in this blog: I think that understanding chaos and order, complexity, emergence, connectivism will lead me to some new understandings about learning and program planning. By understanding how things connect, and by developing faith in that interconnection, I will learn how to stop seeing myself as a “teacher” and planner of programs “for” people, and begin to move more firmly into the direction of … what? I’m not sure yet what that would be called. But I’ll find out. And I having a hunch I’ll be more “learning-centred” at the end of it.

THE PROCESS

I’m going to look up, read or re-read articles and websites and other sources of inspiration about the topics I’ve loved.

I’m going to create a repository of links to what I find on this blog, so that other educators who are interested in exploring this can dig around in it.

I’m going to open the blog to other people’s ideas.

I’m going to try to apply what I read to what I do.

I'm going to "muse on the butterfly" and watch where the musings take me and any other people along on the journey.

I welcome you to join me.