57 Comments

Comment by Dallas McPheeters on July 8, 2009 at 5:15pm

Delete Comment Thank you gentlemen, for the super clarifications. Enjoyed Dave’s article; thanks, George, for the link.

Guess we’re still trying to bridge the objective, fixed, Newtonian laws with the contrary, subjective, Quantum mechanics. One explanation of reality is objective, knowable, measurable, and predictable. The other is subjective and obscure. The two worlds mutually indwell each other yet operate by contrary laws. Nevertheless they verifiably exist.

I agree the mental frameworks we construct while learning are subjective and contextual. However, ‘what’ we are observing may be objective and the fact that no individual can perceive the whole without the input of the many, may serve to keep us humble and united. Thanks for the posts.

Comment by George Siemens on July 8, 2009 at 3:04pm

@Dallas – Dave is too humble to admit it, but he wrote an article on Rhizomatic Education that you might find interesting.

I would take it a bit beyond what both you and Dave suggest: Knowledge is an emergent property of the manner in which we connect information.

What does this mean? Well, I have knowledge – a state of personal possession, there is no such thing as knowledge in a magazine or paper – based on how I’ve connected information. For example, when I place value on “social justice” and connect it as part of my conceptual framework and way of looking at the world, this new node influences and shapes what already exists. In a paper in 2004, I suggested that learning networks (I used the term connectivism) site at an intersection of chaos, complexity, self-organization, and network theory. Complex systems exhibit patterns based on the various ways in which its elements interact. And, when we add a learner, we amplify complexity. Knowledge connected (not constructed) will be influenced by the existing knowledge of the learner, her emotional state, experiences during the day, etc.

A person of liberal political orientation will assign value to different sources of information and draw different connections from someone with a conservative political orientation. The “what” (information) is connected (or not) based on the “who” (person) and “how” (medium and accessibility) and a myriad of other factors. We have, I think, much to learn from coming to a better understanding if complex systems.

Comment by dave cormier on July 8, 2009 at 2:50pm

@dallas McPheeters I would go further and say that knowledge is something that we create, contextually, while we are engaging with the different streams of information and knowledge that are flowing. I think we’ve struggled, since the creation of writing, to reify knowledge in a way that only makes it confusing. In storing it, we changed it. Now that it gets to remain more fluid, it’s returning to something that is more situational and less objective.

Comment by Dallas McPheeters on July 8, 2009 at 2:40pm

Delete Comment I appreciate Pip Mules’ comment where she notes: “I am interested in the way that incorporating social media into our lives and teaching will change the way we perceive knowledge, and therefore how we will assess knowledge.”

It seems we used to consider knowledge a thing we could possess. It may be however, with the exponential doubling of the knowledge base that we now view knowledge as something we “access” rather than “possess.” Therefore, the most prepared would be those who command the greatest access on a superficial level, and who have the skill to ‘mine’ what they need, on a more intrinsic level.