Connecting the Digital Dots: Literacy of the 21st Century
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Author(s):Barbara R. Jones-Kavalier and Suzanne L. Flannigan (Camosun College)
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Literacy today depends on understanding the multiple media that make up our high-tech reality and developing the skills to use them effectively. Prior to the 21st century, literate defined a person’s ability to read and write, separating the educated from the uneducated. With the advent of a new millennium and the rapidity with which technology has changed society, the concept of literacy has assumed new meanings. Experts in the field suggest that the current generation of teenagers—sometimes referred to as the E-Generation—possesses digital competencies to effectively navigate the multidimensional and fast-paced digital environment. For generations of adults who grew up in a world of books, traveling through cyberspace seems as treacherous and intimidating as speaking a new language. In fact, Prensky1 recognized such non-IT-literate individuals as burdened with an accent—non-native speakers of a language, struggling to survive in a strange new world.
Literacy Then and Now
Perhaps literacy, and numeracy for that matter, have never really been optional for fully functioning members of society. In our 21st century society—accelerated, media-saturated, and automated—a new literacy is required, one more broadly defined than the ability to read and write.
Was it always so? History provides examples of societies trying to build connectivity into their communications infrastructures two centuries ago.2 Using the technologies of their time, people sought methods by which they might communicate faster, easier, and better. Today, we still seek better communication methods, only now we have myriad more choices, along with new tools and strategies and greater knowledge of effective communication.
Digital and visual literacies are the next wave of communication specialization. Most people will have technologies at their fingertips not only to communicate but to create, to manipulate, to design, to self-actualize. Children learn these skills as part of their lives, like language, which they learn without realizing they are learning it.3 Adults who did not grow up with technology continue to adapt from iteration to iteration. The senior population approaches the new literacy like a foreign language that is complex and perhaps of questionable use.
The New Literacy and Education
Our research suggests that the lack of education related to literacy is problematic, and the situation is exacerbated in the field of education. A common scenario today is a classroom filled with digitally literate students being led by linear-thinking, technologically stymied instructors. Although funds may be plentiful to purchase new equipment, wire classrooms, and order current software, few educational organizations have developed comprehensive technology plans that specify technical learning objectives or ensure successful integration of technology to enhance students’ digital and visual literacy. We have found a common void in professional development for faculty—training needed to gain the requisite computer skills to integrate technology into the curriculum effectively. Too often success occurs in pockets within the institution, where individually motivated faculty embrace advances in technology, mastering—on their own time—the skills needed to merge the digital world with academia.
Taking precedence over systematic planning is the trial-and-error approach to using technology in the classroom, specifically for nontechnical courses such as English or fine arts. Educational institutions have given priority to computer-based courses. An institutional modus operandi seems to justify technology funding for some disciplines over others. To approach the use of technology differently, to enhance teaching and learning across all departments, requires change. This change will be slow in coming, however, without vision combined with practical, recognizable goals and incentives that encourage people to embrace new digital and visual literacy skills individually and collectively.
Our Digitally Savvy Students
Our students are natives of cyberspace—they are digitally savvy. No longer does it suffice for a teacher to retype overheads into PowerPoint and have students take notes. No longer is it enough for a teacher to talk about another country and point to a given city while holding up a map. These days, new media literacy technical skills catapult traditional learning methods into orbit—traditional chalkboards and overheads with pens do not occupy the same realm as current capabilities. As an example, now teachers can do a PowerPoint presentation with streaming video, instant Internet access, and real-time audio-video interaction, and they can do it with relative speed and ease.
The greatest challenge is moving beyond the glitz and pizzazz of the flashy technology to teach true literacy in this new milieu. Using the same skills used for centuries—analysis, synthesis, and evaluation—we must look at digital literacy as another realm within which to apply elements of critical thinking.
Connecting the Digital Dots
As we researched current articles, books, reports, and papers related to digital and visual literacy, it became evident that many definitions apply, and the skills needed for digital and visual literacy are still being identified. However, common findings aid in furthering our understanding and awareness of what it means to be literate in the 21st century. Our world today is about connecting the digital dots. The challenge is in dealing with the complexity—the dots are multidimensional, of varying sizes and colors, continuously changing, and linked to other, as yet unimagined dots. Nonetheless, to successfully connect the dots at any level in cyberspace means we must be literate, both digitally and visually. According to a recent report from the Workforce Commission’s National Alliance of Business, “The current and future health of America’s 21st century economy depends directly on how broadly and deeply Americans reach a new level of literacy—‘21st Century Literacy.’”4
Defining Digital and Visual Literacy
Although a multitude of definitions exist related to 21st century literacy, our study focused primarily on digital and visual literacy—terms that often interact, overlap, or share common meanings. Digital literacy represents a person’s ability to perform tasks effectively in a digital environment, with “digital” meaning information represented in numeric form and primarily for use by a computer. Literacy includes the ability to read and interpret media (text, sound, images), to reproduce data and images through digital manipulation, and to evaluate and apply new knowledge gained from digital environments. According to Gilster,5 the most critical of these is the ability to make educated judgments about what we find online.
Visual literacy, referred to at times as visual competencies, emerges from seeing and integrating sensory experiences. Focused on sorting and interpreting—sometimes simultaneously—visible actions and symbols, a visually literate person can communicate information in a variety of forms and appreciate the masterworks of visual communication.6 Visually literate individuals have a sense of design—the imaginative ability to create, amend, and reproduce images, digital or not, in a mutable way. Their imaginations seek to reshape the world in which we live, at times creating new realities. According to Bamford,7 “Manipulating images serve[s] to re-code culture.”
Weaved throughout the definitions of each term are a host of other subclassifications including information literacy, lateral literacy, and reproduction literacy. Specifically, each term defines skills inherent in a digitally or visually literate individual. The variations in terminology, including redundancies, represent the newness of this phenomenon. The lack of extensive or at least longitudinal research related to digital literacy and, most importantly, to its impact on the learner, also helps explain such variations and redundancies. Nonetheless, a common understanding has emerged—a leitmotif that characterizes a unique environment. Literacy, in any form, advances a person’s ability to effectively and creatively use and communicate information.
The New Literacy Environment
Competency begins with understanding. Each medium represents a unique environment, presenting the view of our world from varying perspectives. Communications theorist Marshall McLuhan coined the idiom “the medium is the message,”8 which seems prophetic in the high-tech reality within which we live. The idea that the world we shape in turn shapes us is a constant. Newspapers, television, and computers—all human inventions—help formulate our beliefs, perspectives, and even competencies. And from each medium we create new realities. Cultural theorist Jean Baudrillard used the term “hyperreality” to describe the simulation of something that never really existed.9 An example is a magazine photo of a model, the picture having been touched up or computer-enhanced—the creation of a new reality. Hollywood’s ultimate depiction of hyperreality was The Matrix, a movie about a world that does not really exist or exists only in our minds.
Ironically, while some see the profusion of realities as threatening to us, to our children, and even to democracy, the new media is nothing if not simply another way of viewing our world, of interacting with one another, of opening ourselves to learning in realms of possibility we never conceived of before. In our development as higher-order thinkers, multiple realities are far less important to our survival than our ability to understand what we see, to interpret what we experience, to analyze what we are exposed to, and to evaluate what we conclude against criteria that support critical thinking. In the end, it seems far better to have the skills and competencies to comprehend and discriminate within a common language than to be left out, unable to understand.
Endnotes
1. M. Prensky, (2001). “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” On the Horizon, Vol. 9, No. 5, 2001, pp. 1–6.
2. A. D. Chandler and J. W. Cortada, Eds., A Nation Transformed by Information: How Information Has Shaped the United States From Colonial Times to the Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
3. N. Andersen, “New Media and New Media Literacy: The Horizon Has Become the Landscape—New Media Are Here,” report produced by Cable in the Classroom, 2002, pp. 30–35.
4. 21st Century Workforce Commission, A Nation of Opportunity: Building America’s 21st Century Workforce (Washington, D.C.: National Alliance of Business, 2000), p. 4.
5. P. Gilster, A Primer on Digital Literacy (Mississauga, Ontario: John Wiley & Sons, 1997).
6. B. A. Chauvin, “Visual or Media Literacy?” Journal of Visual Literacy, Vol. 23, No. 2, Autumn 2003, pp. 119–129.
7. A. Bamford, “The Visual Literacy White Paper,” a report commissioned for Adobe Systems Pty Ltd., Australia, 2003, p. 7.
8. M. McLuhan and Q. Fiore, The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects (Corte Madera, Calif.: Gingko Press, 1967).
9. J. Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1981).
Barbara R. Jones-Kavalier (bkavalier@tacomacc.edu) is Associate Vice President, Student Services, at Tacoma Community College in Tacoma, Washington. Suzanne L. Flannigan (flannigan@camosun.bc.ca) is on the faculty in the School of Business at Camosun College in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Article: Educational Blogging
Educational Blogging
Stephen Downes
EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 39, no. 5 (September/October 2004): 14–26.
© 2004 Stephen Downes
Stephen Downes (http://www.downes.ca) is a Senior Researcher with the E-Learning Research Group, National Research Council Canada, Moncton, New Brunswick. Comments on this article can be sent to the author at.
"I think it's the most beautiful tool of the world and it allows us the most magic thing..."
—Florence Dassylva-Simard, fifth-grade student
The bell rings, and the halls of Institut St-Joseph in Quebec City echo the clatter of the fifth- and sixth-graders. Some take their chairs in the more traditional classroom on the lower floor. Others attend to their projects in the large, open activity room upstairs, pausing perhaps to study one of the chess games hanging on the wall before meeting in groups to plan the current project. A third group steps up a half flight of stairs into the small narrow room at the front of the building, one wall lined with pictures and plastercine models of imagined aliens, the other with a bank of Apple computers.
This last group of students, eight or so at a time, fire up their browsers and log into their cyberportfolios, a publication space that Principal Mario Asselin calls a "virtual extension of the classroom."1 This virtual space is composed of three sets of weblogs, or blogs: a classroom Web space, where announcements are displayed and work of common interested is posted; a public, personal communication zone, where students post the results of their work or reflection; and a private personal space, reserved for students� thoughts and teacher guidance.
Dominic Ouellet-Tremblay, a fifth-grade student at St-Joseph, writes: "The blogs give us a chance to communicate between us and motivate us to write more. When we publish on our blog, people from the entire world can respond by using the comments link. This way, they can ask questions or simply tell us what they like. We can then know if people like what we write and this indicate[s to] us what to do better. By reading these comments, we can know our weaknesses and our talents. Blogging is an opportunity to exchange our point of view with the rest of the world not just people in our immediate environment."2
The students at St-Joseph are reflective of a trend that is sweeping the world of online learning: the use of weblogs to support learning. And even though the world of fifth grade may seem remote to educators in the college and university system, these students, when they enter postsecondary education, may have had more experience writing online for an audience than writing with a pen and paper for a teacher. Such students will bring with them a new set of skills and attitudes.
Writes Asselin in his own blog, Mario tout de go: "The school administration�s objective with this weblog initiative was to offer students and teachers a support tool to promote reflective analysis and the emergence of a learning community that goes beyond the school walls."3 The blogs fit the bill perfectly. "I see more than 2,000 posts and nearly 3,000 comments," says Asselin. "Because of that, I am able to name what they do and see where it comes from. I can also figure out the directions they are taking and how they do it."4
Institut St-Joseph is an unassuming, yellow-brick school on a tree-lined road in the west side of Quebec City. The students inside may be early adopters, but they are far from alone in their use of blogs. The phenomenon known as blogging, or weblogging, is sweeping the Internet. A February 2004 report published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project noted that at least 3 million Americans have created blogs, with similar numbers being seen worldwide.5 And schools have not been immune from this trend. While nobody can say for sure just how many students are blogging, inside the classroom or out, it seems clear that their numbers are equally impressive.
In his day job, Will Richardson is the supervisor of instructional technology at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, New Jersey. But online, Richardson is known as one of the leading proponents of blogging in education and the maintainer of the Weblogg-Ed Web site. "More and more teachers and schools are starting to experiment with the technology as a way to communicate with students and parents," he writes. Blogs are used to "archive and publish student work, learn with far-flung collaborators, and �manage� the knowledge that members of the school community create."6
And the number of educational bloggers is growing daily. The Educational Bloggers Network, sponsored by the Bay Area Writing Project and Weblogger.com, is a community of some 120 teachers and educators involved in blogging. The following announcement on the site, by San Diego State University�s Bernie Dodge, is typical: "It�s that time of semester again. Tonight I introduced blogging to my class of pre-service English and foreign language teachers." The result: twenty-eight new student blogs.7 This same pattern is being repeated in schools and universities across the United States and around the world.
In my own case, blogging evolved from three major directions. First, the blog that began as Stephen�s Web (http://www.downes.ca) and that eventually became OLDaily originated as a better means for me to store bookmarks. Second, the blog that became NewsTrolls originated as a series of posts by Pasty Drone. Called Media Rant News Trolls, these were posted on the old Hotwired Threads. When eight of us, including Pasty and myself decided to leave the site in 1998, we adopted Pasty�s format and name. And third, when I created The Brandon Pages site, about the city of Brandon, I created a blogging tool to announce new links and events.
Today, the weblog is frequently characterized (and criticized) as (only) a set of personal comments and observations. A look at the history of weblogging shows that this isn�t the case. As Rebecca Blood observes: "The original weblogs were link-driven sites. Each was a mixture in unique proportions of links, commentary, and personal thoughts and essays." Bookmarks, rants and raves, news, events: all were fodder for the weblogger. Weblogs (so named in 1997 by Jorn Barger in his Robot Wisdom Web site) began to be recognized as such in 1999 when Jesse James Garrett, the editor of infosift, began compiling a list of "other sites like his." Garrett sent this list to CamWorld�s Cameron Barrett, who published it on his site. Soon after, Brigitte Eaton compiled a list of every weblog she knew about, creating the Eatonweb Portal.8 There is no doubt that these early lists were incomplete; weblogging was springing up around the Web more quickly than anyone realized.
Many writers assert that blogs came into their own only after the events of September 11, 2001. As Charles Cooper writes, "If you were scouring the Internet for news and context during those first terrible hours, you could have done a lot worse than eavesdropping on the free-wheeling mini-universe of Web logs chockablock with first-hand info and spirited commentary about what was going on. . . . For my money, some of the best stuff was being served up in this most unlikely venue."9
I myself spent the two days following 9-11 updating NewsTrolls. Although we had covered and commented on the tech boom, world events, and a presidential election, the events of September 11 brought home to me the immediacy of blogging. We ran ongoing coverage, submitted via SMS to my e-mail, as one of our own made her way from the dust and debris of New York's financial district to her home on the west side. Blogging not only allowed us access to the event; it made us part of the event. And with that, the form had indeed finally come into its own.
Barger's original definition of a weblog reads as follows: "A weblog (sometimes called a blog or a newspage or a filter) is a webpage where a weblogger (sometimes called a blogger, or a pre-surfer) 'logs' all the other webpages she finds interesting. The format is normally to add the newest entry at the top of the page, so that repeat visitors can catch up by simply reading down the page until they reach a link they saw on their last visit."10
The personal journal, also widely popular in the late 1990s, actually developed independently of weblogs. Personal journals, or online diaries, were described by Simon Firth as "direct, personal, honest, almost painful to read and yet compelling too," but by the time Firth's article in Salon was written in July 1998, personal journals were on the verge of extinction. "Many of the biggest journal 'fans' began online journals themselves, and soon everyone ended up mostly writing about each other. Some of them got famous, others got resentful."11
The confusion between these two distinct forms is evident in the observations of commentators such as Catherine Seipp. "In general, 'blog' used to mean a personal online diary, typically concerned with boyfriend problems or techie news," she writes. "But after September 11, a slew of new or refocused media junkie/political sites reshaped the entire Internet media landscape. Blog now refers to a Web journal that comments on the news—often by criticizing the media and usually in rudely clever tones—with links to stories that back up the commentary with evidence."12
But this definition—which tries to characterize the blog by what it contains—seems to miss the point. Commenting on Seipp's statement, Meg Hourihan takes a different approach: "Whether you're a warblogger who works by day as a professional journalist or you're a teenage high school student worried about your final exams, you do the same thing: you use your blog to link to your friends and rivals and comment on what they're doing. Blog posts are short, informal, sometimes controversial, and sometimes deeply personal, no matter what topic they approach."13 The definitions of blogging offered by bloggers, as opposed to those offered by external commentators, follow this theme. Blogging is something defined by format and process, not by content.
A blog, therefore, is and has always been more than the online equivalent of a personal journal. Though consisting of regular (and often dated) updates, the blog adds to the form of the diary by incorporating the best features of hypertext: the capacity to link to new and useful resources. But a blog is also characterized by its reflection of a personal style, and this style may be reflected in either the writing or the selection of links passed along to readers. Blogs are, in their purest form, the core of what has come to be called personal publishing.
In the hands of teachers and students, blogs become something more again. The Web is by now a familiar piece of the educational landscape, and for those sites where personal publishing or chronologically ordered content would be useful, blogs have stepped to the fore. Crooked Timber's Henry Farrell identifies five major uses for blogs in education.14
First, teachers use blogs to replace the standard class Web page. Instructors post class times and rules, assignment notifications, suggested readings, and exercises. Aside from the ordering of material by date, students would find nothing unusual in this use of the blog. The instructor, however, finds that the use of blogging software makes this previously odious chore much simpler.
Second, and often accompanying the first, instructors begin to link to Internet items that relate to their course. Mesa Community College's Rick Effland, for example, maintains a blog to pass along links and comments about topics in archaeology.15 Though Mesa's archaeology Web pages have been around since 1995, blogging allows Effland to write what are in essence short essays directed specifically toward his students. Effland's entries are not mere annotations of interesting links. They effectively model his approach and interest in archaeology for his students.
Third, blogs are used to organize in-class discussions. At the State University of New York at Buffalo, for example, Alexander Halavais added a blog to his media law class of about 180 students. Course credit was awarded for online discussion, with topics ranging from the First Amendment to libel to Irish law reform. As the course wound down with a discussion of nude bikers, Halavais questioned whether he would continue the blog the following year because of the workload, but students were enthusiastic in their comments.16
Mireille Guay, an instructor at St-Joseph, notes: "The conversation possible on the weblog is also an amazing tool to develop our community of learners. The students get to know each other better by visiting and reading blogs from other students. They discover, in a non-threatening way, their similarities and differences. The student who usually talks very loud in the classroom and the student who is very timid have the same writing space to voice their opinion. It puts students in a situation of equity."17
Fourth, some instructors are using blogs to organize class seminars and to provide summaries of readings. Used in this way, the blogs become "group blogs"—that is, individual blogs authored by a group of people. Farrell notes: "It becomes much easier for the professor and students to access the readings for a particular week—and if you make sure that people are organized about how they do it, the summaries will effectively file themselves."18
Finally, fifth, students may be asked to write their own blogs as part of their course grade. Educational Technologist Lane Dunlop wrote about one class at Cornell College: "Each day the students read a chunk of a book and post two paragraphs of their thoughts on the reading." In another class, French 304, students were given a similar exercise. Using a French-language blogging service called Monblogue, Molly, a business student, posted a few paragraphs every day.19
What makes blogs so attractive, in both the educational community and the Internet at large, is their ease of use. A blog owner can edit or update a new entry without worrying about page formats or HTML syntax. Sebastian Fiedler, a media pedagogy specialist at the University of Augsburg in Germany, has been monitoring the rise of blogs for a number of years. "Many lightweight, cost-efficient systems and tools have emerged in the personal Webpublishing realm," he writes. "These tools offer a new and powerful toolkit for the support of collaborative and individual learning that adheres to the patterns of contemporary information-intensive work and learning outside of formal educational settings."20
The blogging tool is, at its heart, a form with two fields: title and entry—and the title field is optional. Learning Media Consultant Jay Cross captures the concept with his Bloggar tool. "Blog software comes with a personal Website for those who don't already have one. The software captures your words in dated entries, maintaining a chronological archive of prior entries. In the spirit of sharing inherent to Net culture, the software and the personal Websites are usually free."21 What needs to be kept in mind here is that with respect to blogging tools, anything other than the entry field is a bell or whistle. Since the essence of the blog is found in individual, dated entries, the essence of the blogging tool is the entry field.
Blogging software breaks down into two major categories: hosting services and installed applications.
Hosting services. A hosting service is a Web site that will give you access to everything you need in order to create a blog. It will offer a form for you to input your entries, some tools that allow you to create a template for your blog, and access to some built-in accessories. Your blog is hosted on the hosting service (hence the name), and the URL will typically reflect the hosting service's URL. In a way, blogging hosting services are very similar to the services that allowed people to host their own Web sites (services such as GeoCities or Angelfire) or their own discussions (services such as Yahoo! Groups or ezboard).
The best-known (and one of the earliest) hosting service is Blogger (http://www.blogger.com), founded by Pyra Labs. When the company was bought by Google early in 2003, it reporting having about 1.1 million users.22 The Blogger interface is not much more complicated than Jay Cross's Bloggar: the large field at the top allows you to submit an entry, while instructions and some options are provided in the lower pane (after you post, the help disappears, and you can view and edit your previous posts).
Another major hosting service is LiveJournal (http://www.livejournal.com), a name that speaks to the side of blogging that began as an online diary. Far more so than any other service, LiveJournal attempts to foster a community of users, a strategy that used to be reflected in its terms of use: "LiveJournal relies on the community it creates to maintain an enjoyable journaling environment. In order to encourage healthy community growth, new free accounts must be sponsored by a present member of LiveJournal." LiveJournal reports more than 3 million accounts, with about half that in active status.
Other major blog hosting services include GrokSoup, Salon Blogs, and TypePad. Major international hosting services include FarsiBlogs, for Iranian writers, and BlogsCN, for Chinese contributors.
Installed Applications. A remotely installed application is a piece of software that you obtain from the provider and install on your own Web site. These systems are similar to Web-based applications such as ColdFusion or Hypermail. Because of this, the number of users is much lower, but those who do use them tend (arguably) to be more dedicated and more knowledgeable than those who use hosting services. Installed applications are also more suitable for institutional use, since access can be controlled.
Probably the best-known remotely installed application is Six Apart's Movable Type (http://www.moveabletype.org). As shown in the screenshot from the Learning Circuits blog back-end (figure 1), Movable Type offers numerous options for the blog author, including extended entries. Most school blogs use Movable Type. "We used this product because it is free for use by educational institutions such as schools," says the National Research Council's Todd Bingham, who with Sabastien Paquet has just completed work with Le Centre deApprentissage du Haut-Madawaska, an elementary school in northern New Brunswick, providing Weblogs to all its students and teachers. "In addition to its semi–open source nature, Movable Type is written in Perl and can be back-ended by a MySQL database system," Bingham adds. "Both of these products are also open-source in nature. This allows us to customize some of the features, rather than having to write something from the ground up. We were also able to set up an additional security system using this interface by using Linux's default security features. A private blog, viewable only by the teacher and a singular student, can be set up this way. This allows the student and teacher to have a private means of feedback, as opposed to the public blog open to the public."23
Figure 1
In mid-May 2004, however, Six Apart changed its pricing strategy for Movable Type, dramatically increasing costs for sites with multiple blogs. This prompted a storm of protest from a blogging community fearful of even greater licensing changes, as typified by Mark Pilgrim�s remarks: "Movable Type is a dead end. In the long run, the utility of all non-Free software approaches zero. All non-Free software is a dead end." And although Movable Type recanted, many bloggers moved to an open source blogging tool, WordPress (http://wordpress.org/).24
Another major installed application, and one of the earliest available, is UserLand's Radio (http://radio.userland.com). This is an updated version of more comprehensive site-management tools such as Frontier and Manila. Instead of running on a Web server, Radio runs on the user's desktop and displays through a Web browser; blog entries are then uploaded to a Web site. In addition, "Radio includes a powerful newsreader that allows you to subscribe to all of the sites you like. Radio will automatically go out onto the Web and find new updates to sites like the NYTimes, the BBC, and weblogs that you subscribe to every hour."25
UserLand's software was used to launch a high-profile blogging experiment, Weblogs at Harvard Law, which was created when UserLand's founder, Dave Winer, became a Berkman Fellow. Arising from a conference in November 2002 called "What Is Harvard's Digital Identity?" it was intended, at least in part, to establish "intellectual community" among "the University's disparate schools and centers."26 Launched in February 2003, it allows anyone with a harvard.edu e-mail address to create a weblog, and a hundred or so staff and students have done so, including Philip Greenspun, John Palfrey, and an anonymous blogger known only as "The Redhead."
Harvard's experience illustrates one of the pitfalls of hosting such free-ranging media. Though the university administration had intended not to interfere with blog content—sometimes a challenge, since staff and students can be openly critical—it was forced to step in when Derek Slater, a student, posted internal memos from Diebold Election Systems, an electronic voting-machine manufacturer, on his blog. The memos suggested that the machines faced numerous problems, and the company threatened legal action against Slater and Harvard University.27
Though the company retreated, the potential for conflict between a blog writer and an institution's administration remains. In addition to posting copyrighted or protected information, students can get into trouble for libelous content. For example, a Valley High School student in Nevada was reprimanded for writing, "Kill Alaina!" (a classmate he found irritating) and for making a vulgar comment about a teacher. In another case, a student at St. Martin High School in Mississippi was suspended for three days after using her blog to call a teacher "perverted."28
Despite the risks, teachers and students alike feel the benefits make blogging well worthwhile, if for no other reason than that blogs encourage students to write. As Rosalie Brochu, a student at St-Joseph, observes: "The impact of the blogs on my day to day life is that I write a lot more and a lot longer than the previous years. I also pay more attention when I write in my blog (especially my spelling) since I know anybody can read my posts."29
In one sense, asking why anyone would write a weblog is like asking why anyone would write at all. But more specifically, the question is why anyone would write a weblog as opposed to, say, a book or a journal article. George Siemens, an instructor at Red River College in Winnipeg and a longtime advocate of educational blogging, offers a comprehensive list of motivating factors. In particular, he notes, weblogs break down barriers. They allow ideas to be based on merit, rather than origin, and ideas that are of quality filter across the Internet, "viral-like across the blogosphere." Blogs allow readers to hear the day-to-day thoughts of presidential candidates, software company executives, and magazine writers, who all, in turn, hear opinions of people they would never otherwise hear.30
The students at Institut St-Joseph learned about the communicative power of blogs firsthand. "In the beginning, students anticipated the audience in a restricted circle," notes Principal Asselin. "According to the comments about their work, they realized that a lot of people could react and be part of the conversation. Each student received more than ten comments related to their posts. They had not fully realized that the entire world could read them."31 Imagine the young students� surprise when, some time after posting a review of a circus on their blog, someone from the circus read the review and wrote back!
But perhaps the most telling motivation for blogging was offered by Mark Pilgrim in his response to and elaboration on "The Weblog Manifesto": "Writers will write because they can�t not write. Repeat that over and over to yourself until you get it. Do you know someone like that? Someone who does what they do, not for money or glory or love or God or country, but simply because it�s who they are and you can�t imagine them being any other way?"32
Pilgrim's moving declaration should be read as a cautionary note. The warning is not about bosses who don't want employees to write weblogs (though that danger exists), but this: writing weblogs is not for everybody. In particular, if you feel no empathy, no twinge of recognition, on reading Pilgrim's words, then writing a weblog is probably not for you. This does not mean that you are not a part of the weblog world. It merely means that you participate in a different way.
And herein lies the dilemma for educators. What happens when a free-flowing medium such as blogging interacts with the more restrictive domains of the educational system? What happens when the necessary rules and boundaries of the system are imposed on students who are writing blogs, when grades are assigned in order to get students to write at all, and when posts are monitored to ensure that they don�t say the wrong things?
After returning from a writing teachers� conference with sessions on blogging, Richard Long, a professor at St. Louis Community College, explained the issue this way: "I'm not convinced, however, the presenters who claimed to be blogging are actually blogging. They�re using blogging software, their students use blogging software, but I'm not convinced that using the software is the same as blogging. For example, does posting writing prompts for students constitute blogging? Are students blogging when they use blogging software to write to those prompts?"33
After three years of experimentation with his Weblogg-Ed blog, Will Richardson also expressed his doubts: "By its very nature, assigned blogging in schools cannot be blogging. It�s contrived. No matter how much we want to spout off about the wonders of audience and readership, students who are asked to blog are blogging for an audience of one, the teacher." When the semester ends, "students drop blogging like wet cement." Richardson wants to teach students to write with passion, but he notes: "I can't let them do it passionately due to the inherent censorship that a high school served Weblog carries with it."34
It seems clear that although blogging can and does have a significant and worthwhile educational impact, this impact does not come automatically and does not come without risks. As many writers have noted, writing a weblog appears in the first instance to be a form of publishing, but as time goes by, blogging resembles more and more a conversation. And for a conversation to be successful, it must be given a purpose and it must remain, for the most part, unconstrained.
One of the criticisms of blogs, and especially student blogs is that the students write about nothing but trivia. Examples can be seen all over the Internet. And how many students, when facing the blogging screen, feel like "Matt," who writes: "Now each time I warily approach writing a blog entry, or start writing it, or actually write it, I end up thinking what is the point?—and, after all, what is?" When given their own resources to draw on, bloggers, especially young bloggers, can become frustrated and may eventually report having "committed the ultimate blogging sin of losing interest in myself."35
As Richardson says, blogging as a genre of writing may have "great value in terms of developing all sorts of critical thinking skills, writing skills and information literacy among other things. We teach exposition and research and some other types of analytical writing already, I know. Blogging, however, offers students a chance to a) reflect on what they are writing and thinking as they write and think it, b) carry on writing about a topic over a sustained period of time, maybe a lifetime, and c) engage readers and audience in a sustained conversation that then leads to further writing and thinking."36
Good conversations begin with listening. Ken Smith, an English teacher at Indiana University, explains: "Maybe some folks write flat, empty posts or bad diary posts because they don't know any other genres (they just aren't readers, in one sense) and because [they] aren't responding to anything (that is, they aren't reading anything right now)." It's like arriving late to a party: the first act must be to listen, before venturing forth with an opinion. Smith suggests, "Instead of assigning students to go write, we should assign them to go read and then link to what interests them and write about why it does and what it means."37
The jury is still out, but as Richardson suggests, "It's becoming more clear just what the importance of blogging might be." As Smith writes, "It is through quality linking . . . that one first comes in contact with the essential acts of blogging: close reading and interpretation. Blogging, at base, is writing down what you think when you read others. If you keep at it, others will eventually write down what they think when they read you, and you'll enter a new realm of blogging, a new realm of human connection."38
But it is more than merely assigning topics to blog about. As Jeremy Hiebert, a Web designer and graduate student in Canada, comments, "I've seen evidence of this in courses with required e-portfolio or reflective journal elements. . . . As soon as these activities are put into the context of school, focused on topics the students are unlikely to care about much, they automatically lose a level of authenticity and engagement. These disengaged students (non-writers and writers alike) won�t get the main benefits of true reflective learning no matter how good the instruction and tools are."39
Despite obvious appearances, blogging isn't really about writing at all; that's just the end point of the process, the outcome that occurs more or less naturally if everything else has been done right. Blogging is about, first, reading. But more important, it is about reading what is of interest to you: your culture, your community, your ideas. And it is about engaging with the content and with the authors of what you have read—reflecting, criticizing, questioning, reacting. If a student has nothing to blog about, it is not because he or she has nothing to write about or has a boring life. It is because the student has not yet stretched out to the larger world, has not yet learned to meaningfully engage in a community. For blogging in education to be a success, this first must be embraced and encouraged.
From time to time, we read about the potential of online learning to bring learning into life, to engender workplace learning or lifelong learning. When Jay Cross and others say that 90 percent of our learning is informal, this is the sort of thing they mean: that the lessons we might expect to find in the classroom work their way, through alternative means, into our day-to-day activities.
Blogging can and should reverse this flow. The process of reading online, engaging a community, and reflecting it online is a process of bringing life into learning. As Richardson comments, "This [the blogging process] just seems to me to be closer to the way we learn outside of school, and I don't see those things happening anywhere in traditional education." And he asks: "Could blogging be the needle that sews together what is now a lot of learning in isolation with no real connection among the disciplines? I mean ultimately, aren't we trying to teach our kids how to learn, and isn�t that [what] blogging is all about?"40
Notes
My thanks to the many educational bloggers who contributed to this article and without whom it could not have been completed: Will Richardson, Jeremy Hiebert, George Siemens, Todd Bingham, Rod Savoie, Mario Asselin, Mireille Guay, Dominic Ouellet-Tremblay, Florence Dassylva-Simard, Hugo De Larochelli�re, Jean-Philippe L. C�t�, and Rosalie Brochu, and to all the rest of my friends in the blogosphere—you know who you are.
1. Mario Asselin, "Weblogging at the Institut St-Joseph," Mario tout de go, September 1, 2003,.
2. Visit the Institut St-Joseph public spaces online ator .
3. Asselin, "Weblogging at the Institut St-Joseph."
4. Mario Asselin, e-mail to the author, March 25, 2004.
5. See Amanda Lenhart, John Horrigan, and Deborah Fallows, "Content Creation Online," Pew Internet & American Life Project, February 29, 2004,; and "Content Creation Online," Pew Internet & American Life Project press release, February 29, 2004, .
6. Will Richardson, "Blogging and RSS—The �What�s It?� and �How To� of Powerful New Web Tools for Educators," Information Today, January/February 2004,.
7. Bernie Dodge, "Birth of 28 New Bloggers," One-Trick CyberPony, January 20, 2004,, cited in the Educational Bloggers Network: .
8. This short history and the quotation come from Rebecca Blood, "Weblogs: A History and Perspective," Rebecca�s Pocket, September 7, 2000,.
9. Charles Cooper, "When Blogging Came of Age," CNET News.com, September 21, 2001,.
10. Jorn Barger, "Weblog Resources FAQ," Robot Wisdom, September 1999,.
11. Simon Firth, "Baring Your Soul to the Web," Salon, July 3, 1998,.
12. Catherine Seipp, "Online Uprising," American Journalism Review, June 2002,.
13. Meg Hourihan, "What We�re Doing When We Blog," O�Reilly Web Devcenter, June 13, 2002,.
14. Henry Farrell, "The Street Finds Its Own Use for Things," Crooked Timber, September 15, 2003,.
15. Rick Effland, "The Treasure Fleet of Zheng He," Rick Effland Blog, April 4, 2004,.
16. Alexander Halavais, "Media Law" course website, February 17, 2004,.
17. Mireille Guay, e-mail to the author, March 26, 2004.
18. Farrell, "The Street Finds Its Own Uses."
19. Lane Dunlop, comment, Crooked Timber, September 18, 2003,.
20. Sebastian Fiedler, symposium leader, "Introducing Disruptive Technologies for Learning: Personal Webpublishing and Weblogs," Ed-Media Meeting, June 24, 2004,.
21. Jay Cross, "Blogs," Learning Circuits, April 2002,.
22. Dan Gillmor, "Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time," SiliconValley.com, February 15, 2003,.
23. Todd Bingham, e-mail to the author, April 14, 2004. See also S�bastien Paquet, "Weblogs Enter New Brunswick School," Seb�s Open Research, April 16, 2004,.
24. Mena Trott, "It�s About Time," Mena�s Corner, May 13, 2004, Six Apart Web site,; Mark Pilgrim, "Freedom 0," Dive Into Mark, May 14, 2004, ; Mena Trott, "Announcing Pricing and Licensing Changes to Movable Type," Six Log, June 15, 2004, Six Apart Web site, .
25. "Radio UserLand v8.0.8," PC World, July 6, 2004,.
26. Beth Potier, "Berkman Center Fellow Dave Winer Wants to Get Harvard Blogging," Harvard Gazette, April 17, 2003,.
27. John Harvard�s Journal, "Creating Community, On-line and Off," Harvard Magazine, vol. 106, no. 3 (January-February 2004),.
28. Lisa Kim Bach, "Internet Diaries: School Discipline Questioned," Las Vegas Review-Journal, November 10, 2003,; "Miss. School Suspends Student for Calling Teacher �Perverted� in Online Journal," Student Press Law Center, January 29, 2004, .
29. Mario Asselin, quoting the student, e-mail to the author, March 25, 2004.
30. George Siemens, "The Art of Blogging—Part 1," elearnspace, December 1, 2002,.
31. Mario Asselin, e-mail to the author, March 25, 2004.
32. Mark Pilgrim, "Write," Dive Into Mark, October 1, 2001 (no longer extant); "The Weblog Manifesto," Talking Moose, September 29, 2001,.
33. Richard Long, "Back from San Antonio," 2River, March 28, 2004,.
34. Will Richardson, "The Blogging in Schools Question," Weblogg-Ed, April 13, 2004,.
35. Matt, "Circle Limit II," Walky Talky, September 25, 2003,.
36. Will Richardson, "Metablognition," Weblogg-Ed, April 27, 2004,.
37. Ken Smith, "CCCC Waves and Ripples," Weblogs in Higher Education, March 30, 2004,.
38. Will Richardson, "Reading and Blogging," Weblogg-Ed, March 31, 2004,; Smith, "CCCC Waves and Ripples."
39. Jeremy Hiebert, e-mail to the author, April 22, 2004.
40. Will Richardson, e-mail to the author, April 27, 2004.
Reader Submitted Comments
Reference link error
Su-Tuan Lulee, Consultant
2/5/06 10:47 PM
In article, the author stated, "Major international hosting services include FarsiBlogs, for Iranian writers, and BlogsCN, for Chinese contributors". I supposed that "BlogsCN" should be "BlogCN" that refers to the website "http://www.blogcn.com/".
-- A student of Distance Education Program, University of Wisconsin, and a faithful reader of Mr. Stephen Dawn
test
Matt Pasiewicz, Content Program Manager, EDUCAUSE
4/18/06 9:52 AM
test
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
EDUCAUSE and EDUCAUSE Review are registered trademarks. Materials may be photocopied for noncommercial use without written permission provided appropriate credit is given to both EDUCAUSE Review and the author(s). Permission to republish must be sought in writing (contact editor@educause.edu). Statements of fact or opinion are made on the responsibility of the authors alone and do not imply an opinion on the part of the EDUCAUSE Board of Directors, staff, or members. For more information about copyright, see www.educause.edu/copyright.
Stephen Downes
EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 39, no. 5 (September/October 2004): 14–26.
© 2004 Stephen Downes
Stephen Downes (http://www.downes.ca) is a Senior Researcher with the E-Learning Research Group, National Research Council Canada, Moncton, New Brunswick. Comments on this article can be sent to the author at
"I think it's the most beautiful tool of the world and it allows us the most magic thing..."
—Florence Dassylva-Simard, fifth-grade student
The bell rings, and the halls of Institut St-Joseph in Quebec City echo the clatter of the fifth- and sixth-graders. Some take their chairs in the more traditional classroom on the lower floor. Others attend to their projects in the large, open activity room upstairs, pausing perhaps to study one of the chess games hanging on the wall before meeting in groups to plan the current project. A third group steps up a half flight of stairs into the small narrow room at the front of the building, one wall lined with pictures and plastercine models of imagined aliens, the other with a bank of Apple computers.
This last group of students, eight or so at a time, fire up their browsers and log into their cyberportfolios, a publication space that Principal Mario Asselin calls a "virtual extension of the classroom."1 This virtual space is composed of three sets of weblogs, or blogs: a classroom Web space, where announcements are displayed and work of common interested is posted; a public, personal communication zone, where students post the results of their work or reflection; and a private personal space, reserved for students� thoughts and teacher guidance.
Dominic Ouellet-Tremblay, a fifth-grade student at St-Joseph, writes: "The blogs give us a chance to communicate between us and motivate us to write more. When we publish on our blog, people from the entire world can respond by using the comments link. This way, they can ask questions or simply tell us what they like. We can then know if people like what we write and this indicate[s to] us what to do better. By reading these comments, we can know our weaknesses and our talents. Blogging is an opportunity to exchange our point of view with the rest of the world not just people in our immediate environment."2
The students at St-Joseph are reflective of a trend that is sweeping the world of online learning: the use of weblogs to support learning. And even though the world of fifth grade may seem remote to educators in the college and university system, these students, when they enter postsecondary education, may have had more experience writing online for an audience than writing with a pen and paper for a teacher. Such students will bring with them a new set of skills and attitudes.
Writes Asselin in his own blog, Mario tout de go: "The school administration�s objective with this weblog initiative was to offer students and teachers a support tool to promote reflective analysis and the emergence of a learning community that goes beyond the school walls."3 The blogs fit the bill perfectly. "I see more than 2,000 posts and nearly 3,000 comments," says Asselin. "Because of that, I am able to name what they do and see where it comes from. I can also figure out the directions they are taking and how they do it."4
Institut St-Joseph is an unassuming, yellow-brick school on a tree-lined road in the west side of Quebec City. The students inside may be early adopters, but they are far from alone in their use of blogs. The phenomenon known as blogging, or weblogging, is sweeping the Internet. A February 2004 report published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project noted that at least 3 million Americans have created blogs, with similar numbers being seen worldwide.5 And schools have not been immune from this trend. While nobody can say for sure just how many students are blogging, inside the classroom or out, it seems clear that their numbers are equally impressive.
In his day job, Will Richardson is the supervisor of instructional technology at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in Flemington, New Jersey. But online, Richardson is known as one of the leading proponents of blogging in education and the maintainer of the Weblogg-Ed Web site. "More and more teachers and schools are starting to experiment with the technology as a way to communicate with students and parents," he writes. Blogs are used to "archive and publish student work, learn with far-flung collaborators, and �manage� the knowledge that members of the school community create."6
And the number of educational bloggers is growing daily. The Educational Bloggers Network, sponsored by the Bay Area Writing Project and Weblogger.com, is a community of some 120 teachers and educators involved in blogging. The following announcement on the site, by San Diego State University�s Bernie Dodge, is typical: "It�s that time of semester again. Tonight I introduced blogging to my class of pre-service English and foreign language teachers." The result: twenty-eight new student blogs.7 This same pattern is being repeated in schools and universities across the United States and around the world.
In my own case, blogging evolved from three major directions. First, the blog that began as Stephen�s Web (http://www.downes.ca) and that eventually became OLDaily originated as a better means for me to store bookmarks. Second, the blog that became NewsTrolls originated as a series of posts by Pasty Drone. Called Media Rant News Trolls, these were posted on the old Hotwired Threads. When eight of us, including Pasty and myself decided to leave the site in 1998, we adopted Pasty�s format and name. And third, when I created The Brandon Pages site, about the city of Brandon, I created a blogging tool to announce new links and events.
Today, the weblog is frequently characterized (and criticized) as (only) a set of personal comments and observations. A look at the history of weblogging shows that this isn�t the case. As Rebecca Blood observes: "The original weblogs were link-driven sites. Each was a mixture in unique proportions of links, commentary, and personal thoughts and essays." Bookmarks, rants and raves, news, events: all were fodder for the weblogger. Weblogs (so named in 1997 by Jorn Barger in his Robot Wisdom Web site) began to be recognized as such in 1999 when Jesse James Garrett, the editor of infosift, began compiling a list of "other sites like his." Garrett sent this list to CamWorld�s Cameron Barrett, who published it on his site. Soon after, Brigitte Eaton compiled a list of every weblog she knew about, creating the Eatonweb Portal.8 There is no doubt that these early lists were incomplete; weblogging was springing up around the Web more quickly than anyone realized.
Many writers assert that blogs came into their own only after the events of September 11, 2001. As Charles Cooper writes, "If you were scouring the Internet for news and context during those first terrible hours, you could have done a lot worse than eavesdropping on the free-wheeling mini-universe of Web logs chockablock with first-hand info and spirited commentary about what was going on. . . . For my money, some of the best stuff was being served up in this most unlikely venue."9
I myself spent the two days following 9-11 updating NewsTrolls. Although we had covered and commented on the tech boom, world events, and a presidential election, the events of September 11 brought home to me the immediacy of blogging. We ran ongoing coverage, submitted via SMS to my e-mail, as one of our own made her way from the dust and debris of New York's financial district to her home on the west side. Blogging not only allowed us access to the event; it made us part of the event. And with that, the form had indeed finally come into its own.
Barger's original definition of a weblog reads as follows: "A weblog (sometimes called a blog or a newspage or a filter) is a webpage where a weblogger (sometimes called a blogger, or a pre-surfer) 'logs' all the other webpages she finds interesting. The format is normally to add the newest entry at the top of the page, so that repeat visitors can catch up by simply reading down the page until they reach a link they saw on their last visit."10
The personal journal, also widely popular in the late 1990s, actually developed independently of weblogs. Personal journals, or online diaries, were described by Simon Firth as "direct, personal, honest, almost painful to read and yet compelling too," but by the time Firth's article in Salon was written in July 1998, personal journals were on the verge of extinction. "Many of the biggest journal 'fans' began online journals themselves, and soon everyone ended up mostly writing about each other. Some of them got famous, others got resentful."11
The confusion between these two distinct forms is evident in the observations of commentators such as Catherine Seipp. "In general, 'blog' used to mean a personal online diary, typically concerned with boyfriend problems or techie news," she writes. "But after September 11, a slew of new or refocused media junkie/political sites reshaped the entire Internet media landscape. Blog now refers to a Web journal that comments on the news—often by criticizing the media and usually in rudely clever tones—with links to stories that back up the commentary with evidence."12
But this definition—which tries to characterize the blog by what it contains—seems to miss the point. Commenting on Seipp's statement, Meg Hourihan takes a different approach: "Whether you're a warblogger who works by day as a professional journalist or you're a teenage high school student worried about your final exams, you do the same thing: you use your blog to link to your friends and rivals and comment on what they're doing. Blog posts are short, informal, sometimes controversial, and sometimes deeply personal, no matter what topic they approach."13 The definitions of blogging offered by bloggers, as opposed to those offered by external commentators, follow this theme. Blogging is something defined by format and process, not by content.
A blog, therefore, is and has always been more than the online equivalent of a personal journal. Though consisting of regular (and often dated) updates, the blog adds to the form of the diary by incorporating the best features of hypertext: the capacity to link to new and useful resources. But a blog is also characterized by its reflection of a personal style, and this style may be reflected in either the writing or the selection of links passed along to readers. Blogs are, in their purest form, the core of what has come to be called personal publishing.
In the hands of teachers and students, blogs become something more again. The Web is by now a familiar piece of the educational landscape, and for those sites where personal publishing or chronologically ordered content would be useful, blogs have stepped to the fore. Crooked Timber's Henry Farrell identifies five major uses for blogs in education.14
First, teachers use blogs to replace the standard class Web page. Instructors post class times and rules, assignment notifications, suggested readings, and exercises. Aside from the ordering of material by date, students would find nothing unusual in this use of the blog. The instructor, however, finds that the use of blogging software makes this previously odious chore much simpler.
Second, and often accompanying the first, instructors begin to link to Internet items that relate to their course. Mesa Community College's Rick Effland, for example, maintains a blog to pass along links and comments about topics in archaeology.15 Though Mesa's archaeology Web pages have been around since 1995, blogging allows Effland to write what are in essence short essays directed specifically toward his students. Effland's entries are not mere annotations of interesting links. They effectively model his approach and interest in archaeology for his students.
Third, blogs are used to organize in-class discussions. At the State University of New York at Buffalo, for example, Alexander Halavais added a blog to his media law class of about 180 students. Course credit was awarded for online discussion, with topics ranging from the First Amendment to libel to Irish law reform. As the course wound down with a discussion of nude bikers, Halavais questioned whether he would continue the blog the following year because of the workload, but students were enthusiastic in their comments.16
Mireille Guay, an instructor at St-Joseph, notes: "The conversation possible on the weblog is also an amazing tool to develop our community of learners. The students get to know each other better by visiting and reading blogs from other students. They discover, in a non-threatening way, their similarities and differences. The student who usually talks very loud in the classroom and the student who is very timid have the same writing space to voice their opinion. It puts students in a situation of equity."17
Fourth, some instructors are using blogs to organize class seminars and to provide summaries of readings. Used in this way, the blogs become "group blogs"—that is, individual blogs authored by a group of people. Farrell notes: "It becomes much easier for the professor and students to access the readings for a particular week—and if you make sure that people are organized about how they do it, the summaries will effectively file themselves."18
Finally, fifth, students may be asked to write their own blogs as part of their course grade. Educational Technologist Lane Dunlop wrote about one class at Cornell College: "Each day the students read a chunk of a book and post two paragraphs of their thoughts on the reading." In another class, French 304, students were given a similar exercise. Using a French-language blogging service called Monblogue, Molly, a business student, posted a few paragraphs every day.19
What makes blogs so attractive, in both the educational community and the Internet at large, is their ease of use. A blog owner can edit or update a new entry without worrying about page formats or HTML syntax. Sebastian Fiedler, a media pedagogy specialist at the University of Augsburg in Germany, has been monitoring the rise of blogs for a number of years. "Many lightweight, cost-efficient systems and tools have emerged in the personal Webpublishing realm," he writes. "These tools offer a new and powerful toolkit for the support of collaborative and individual learning that adheres to the patterns of contemporary information-intensive work and learning outside of formal educational settings."20
The blogging tool is, at its heart, a form with two fields: title and entry—and the title field is optional. Learning Media Consultant Jay Cross captures the concept with his Bloggar tool. "Blog software comes with a personal Website for those who don't already have one. The software captures your words in dated entries, maintaining a chronological archive of prior entries. In the spirit of sharing inherent to Net culture, the software and the personal Websites are usually free."21 What needs to be kept in mind here is that with respect to blogging tools, anything other than the entry field is a bell or whistle. Since the essence of the blog is found in individual, dated entries, the essence of the blogging tool is the entry field.
Blogging software breaks down into two major categories: hosting services and installed applications.
Hosting services. A hosting service is a Web site that will give you access to everything you need in order to create a blog. It will offer a form for you to input your entries, some tools that allow you to create a template for your blog, and access to some built-in accessories. Your blog is hosted on the hosting service (hence the name), and the URL will typically reflect the hosting service's URL. In a way, blogging hosting services are very similar to the services that allowed people to host their own Web sites (services such as GeoCities or Angelfire) or their own discussions (services such as Yahoo! Groups or ezboard).
The best-known (and one of the earliest) hosting service is Blogger (http://www.blogger.com), founded by Pyra Labs. When the company was bought by Google early in 2003, it reporting having about 1.1 million users.22 The Blogger interface is not much more complicated than Jay Cross's Bloggar: the large field at the top allows you to submit an entry, while instructions and some options are provided in the lower pane (after you post, the help disappears, and you can view and edit your previous posts).
Another major hosting service is LiveJournal (http://www.livejournal.com), a name that speaks to the side of blogging that began as an online diary. Far more so than any other service, LiveJournal attempts to foster a community of users, a strategy that used to be reflected in its terms of use: "LiveJournal relies on the community it creates to maintain an enjoyable journaling environment. In order to encourage healthy community growth, new free accounts must be sponsored by a present member of LiveJournal." LiveJournal reports more than 3 million accounts, with about half that in active status.
Other major blog hosting services include GrokSoup, Salon Blogs, and TypePad. Major international hosting services include FarsiBlogs, for Iranian writers, and BlogsCN, for Chinese contributors.
Installed Applications. A remotely installed application is a piece of software that you obtain from the provider and install on your own Web site. These systems are similar to Web-based applications such as ColdFusion or Hypermail. Because of this, the number of users is much lower, but those who do use them tend (arguably) to be more dedicated and more knowledgeable than those who use hosting services. Installed applications are also more suitable for institutional use, since access can be controlled.
Probably the best-known remotely installed application is Six Apart's Movable Type (http://www.moveabletype.org). As shown in the screenshot from the Learning Circuits blog back-end (figure 1), Movable Type offers numerous options for the blog author, including extended entries. Most school blogs use Movable Type. "We used this product because it is free for use by educational institutions such as schools," says the National Research Council's Todd Bingham, who with Sabastien Paquet has just completed work with Le Centre deApprentissage du Haut-Madawaska, an elementary school in northern New Brunswick, providing Weblogs to all its students and teachers. "In addition to its semi–open source nature, Movable Type is written in Perl and can be back-ended by a MySQL database system," Bingham adds. "Both of these products are also open-source in nature. This allows us to customize some of the features, rather than having to write something from the ground up. We were also able to set up an additional security system using this interface by using Linux's default security features. A private blog, viewable only by the teacher and a singular student, can be set up this way. This allows the student and teacher to have a private means of feedback, as opposed to the public blog open to the public."23
Figure 1
In mid-May 2004, however, Six Apart changed its pricing strategy for Movable Type, dramatically increasing costs for sites with multiple blogs. This prompted a storm of protest from a blogging community fearful of even greater licensing changes, as typified by Mark Pilgrim�s remarks: "Movable Type is a dead end. In the long run, the utility of all non-Free software approaches zero. All non-Free software is a dead end." And although Movable Type recanted, many bloggers moved to an open source blogging tool, WordPress (http://wordpress.org/).24
Another major installed application, and one of the earliest available, is UserLand's Radio (http://radio.userland.com). This is an updated version of more comprehensive site-management tools such as Frontier and Manila. Instead of running on a Web server, Radio runs on the user's desktop and displays through a Web browser; blog entries are then uploaded to a Web site. In addition, "Radio includes a powerful newsreader that allows you to subscribe to all of the sites you like. Radio will automatically go out onto the Web and find new updates to sites like the NYTimes, the BBC, and weblogs that you subscribe to every hour."25
UserLand's software was used to launch a high-profile blogging experiment, Weblogs at Harvard Law, which was created when UserLand's founder, Dave Winer, became a Berkman Fellow. Arising from a conference in November 2002 called "What Is Harvard's Digital Identity?" it was intended, at least in part, to establish "intellectual community" among "the University's disparate schools and centers."26 Launched in February 2003, it allows anyone with a harvard.edu e-mail address to create a weblog, and a hundred or so staff and students have done so, including Philip Greenspun, John Palfrey, and an anonymous blogger known only as "The Redhead."
Harvard's experience illustrates one of the pitfalls of hosting such free-ranging media. Though the university administration had intended not to interfere with blog content—sometimes a challenge, since staff and students can be openly critical—it was forced to step in when Derek Slater, a student, posted internal memos from Diebold Election Systems, an electronic voting-machine manufacturer, on his blog. The memos suggested that the machines faced numerous problems, and the company threatened legal action against Slater and Harvard University.27
Though the company retreated, the potential for conflict between a blog writer and an institution's administration remains. In addition to posting copyrighted or protected information, students can get into trouble for libelous content. For example, a Valley High School student in Nevada was reprimanded for writing, "Kill Alaina!" (a classmate he found irritating) and for making a vulgar comment about a teacher. In another case, a student at St. Martin High School in Mississippi was suspended for three days after using her blog to call a teacher "perverted."28
Despite the risks, teachers and students alike feel the benefits make blogging well worthwhile, if for no other reason than that blogs encourage students to write. As Rosalie Brochu, a student at St-Joseph, observes: "The impact of the blogs on my day to day life is that I write a lot more and a lot longer than the previous years. I also pay more attention when I write in my blog (especially my spelling) since I know anybody can read my posts."29
In one sense, asking why anyone would write a weblog is like asking why anyone would write at all. But more specifically, the question is why anyone would write a weblog as opposed to, say, a book or a journal article. George Siemens, an instructor at Red River College in Winnipeg and a longtime advocate of educational blogging, offers a comprehensive list of motivating factors. In particular, he notes, weblogs break down barriers. They allow ideas to be based on merit, rather than origin, and ideas that are of quality filter across the Internet, "viral-like across the blogosphere." Blogs allow readers to hear the day-to-day thoughts of presidential candidates, software company executives, and magazine writers, who all, in turn, hear opinions of people they would never otherwise hear.30
The students at Institut St-Joseph learned about the communicative power of blogs firsthand. "In the beginning, students anticipated the audience in a restricted circle," notes Principal Asselin. "According to the comments about their work, they realized that a lot of people could react and be part of the conversation. Each student received more than ten comments related to their posts. They had not fully realized that the entire world could read them."31 Imagine the young students� surprise when, some time after posting a review of a circus on their blog, someone from the circus read the review and wrote back!
But perhaps the most telling motivation for blogging was offered by Mark Pilgrim in his response to and elaboration on "The Weblog Manifesto": "Writers will write because they can�t not write. Repeat that over and over to yourself until you get it. Do you know someone like that? Someone who does what they do, not for money or glory or love or God or country, but simply because it�s who they are and you can�t imagine them being any other way?"32
Pilgrim's moving declaration should be read as a cautionary note. The warning is not about bosses who don't want employees to write weblogs (though that danger exists), but this: writing weblogs is not for everybody. In particular, if you feel no empathy, no twinge of recognition, on reading Pilgrim's words, then writing a weblog is probably not for you. This does not mean that you are not a part of the weblog world. It merely means that you participate in a different way.
And herein lies the dilemma for educators. What happens when a free-flowing medium such as blogging interacts with the more restrictive domains of the educational system? What happens when the necessary rules and boundaries of the system are imposed on students who are writing blogs, when grades are assigned in order to get students to write at all, and when posts are monitored to ensure that they don�t say the wrong things?
After returning from a writing teachers� conference with sessions on blogging, Richard Long, a professor at St. Louis Community College, explained the issue this way: "I'm not convinced, however, the presenters who claimed to be blogging are actually blogging. They�re using blogging software, their students use blogging software, but I'm not convinced that using the software is the same as blogging. For example, does posting writing prompts for students constitute blogging? Are students blogging when they use blogging software to write to those prompts?"33
After three years of experimentation with his Weblogg-Ed blog, Will Richardson also expressed his doubts: "By its very nature, assigned blogging in schools cannot be blogging. It�s contrived. No matter how much we want to spout off about the wonders of audience and readership, students who are asked to blog are blogging for an audience of one, the teacher." When the semester ends, "students drop blogging like wet cement." Richardson wants to teach students to write with passion, but he notes: "I can't let them do it passionately due to the inherent censorship that a high school served Weblog carries with it."34
It seems clear that although blogging can and does have a significant and worthwhile educational impact, this impact does not come automatically and does not come without risks. As many writers have noted, writing a weblog appears in the first instance to be a form of publishing, but as time goes by, blogging resembles more and more a conversation. And for a conversation to be successful, it must be given a purpose and it must remain, for the most part, unconstrained.
One of the criticisms of blogs, and especially student blogs is that the students write about nothing but trivia. Examples can be seen all over the Internet. And how many students, when facing the blogging screen, feel like "Matt," who writes: "Now each time I warily approach writing a blog entry, or start writing it, or actually write it, I end up thinking what is the point?—and, after all, what is?" When given their own resources to draw on, bloggers, especially young bloggers, can become frustrated and may eventually report having "committed the ultimate blogging sin of losing interest in myself."35
As Richardson says, blogging as a genre of writing may have "great value in terms of developing all sorts of critical thinking skills, writing skills and information literacy among other things. We teach exposition and research and some other types of analytical writing already, I know. Blogging, however, offers students a chance to a) reflect on what they are writing and thinking as they write and think it, b) carry on writing about a topic over a sustained period of time, maybe a lifetime, and c) engage readers and audience in a sustained conversation that then leads to further writing and thinking."36
Good conversations begin with listening. Ken Smith, an English teacher at Indiana University, explains: "Maybe some folks write flat, empty posts or bad diary posts because they don't know any other genres (they just aren't readers, in one sense) and because [they] aren't responding to anything (that is, they aren't reading anything right now)." It's like arriving late to a party: the first act must be to listen, before venturing forth with an opinion. Smith suggests, "Instead of assigning students to go write, we should assign them to go read and then link to what interests them and write about why it does and what it means."37
The jury is still out, but as Richardson suggests, "It's becoming more clear just what the importance of blogging might be." As Smith writes, "It is through quality linking . . . that one first comes in contact with the essential acts of blogging: close reading and interpretation. Blogging, at base, is writing down what you think when you read others. If you keep at it, others will eventually write down what they think when they read you, and you'll enter a new realm of blogging, a new realm of human connection."38
But it is more than merely assigning topics to blog about. As Jeremy Hiebert, a Web designer and graduate student in Canada, comments, "I've seen evidence of this in courses with required e-portfolio or reflective journal elements. . . . As soon as these activities are put into the context of school, focused on topics the students are unlikely to care about much, they automatically lose a level of authenticity and engagement. These disengaged students (non-writers and writers alike) won�t get the main benefits of true reflective learning no matter how good the instruction and tools are."39
Despite obvious appearances, blogging isn't really about writing at all; that's just the end point of the process, the outcome that occurs more or less naturally if everything else has been done right. Blogging is about, first, reading. But more important, it is about reading what is of interest to you: your culture, your community, your ideas. And it is about engaging with the content and with the authors of what you have read—reflecting, criticizing, questioning, reacting. If a student has nothing to blog about, it is not because he or she has nothing to write about or has a boring life. It is because the student has not yet stretched out to the larger world, has not yet learned to meaningfully engage in a community. For blogging in education to be a success, this first must be embraced and encouraged.
From time to time, we read about the potential of online learning to bring learning into life, to engender workplace learning or lifelong learning. When Jay Cross and others say that 90 percent of our learning is informal, this is the sort of thing they mean: that the lessons we might expect to find in the classroom work their way, through alternative means, into our day-to-day activities.
Blogging can and should reverse this flow. The process of reading online, engaging a community, and reflecting it online is a process of bringing life into learning. As Richardson comments, "This [the blogging process] just seems to me to be closer to the way we learn outside of school, and I don't see those things happening anywhere in traditional education." And he asks: "Could blogging be the needle that sews together what is now a lot of learning in isolation with no real connection among the disciplines? I mean ultimately, aren't we trying to teach our kids how to learn, and isn�t that [what] blogging is all about?"40
Notes
My thanks to the many educational bloggers who contributed to this article and without whom it could not have been completed: Will Richardson, Jeremy Hiebert, George Siemens, Todd Bingham, Rod Savoie, Mario Asselin, Mireille Guay, Dominic Ouellet-Tremblay, Florence Dassylva-Simard, Hugo De Larochelli�re, Jean-Philippe L. C�t�, and Rosalie Brochu, and to all the rest of my friends in the blogosphere—you know who you are.
1. Mario Asselin, "Weblogging at the Institut St-Joseph," Mario tout de go, September 1, 2003,
2. Visit the Institut St-Joseph public spaces online at
3. Asselin, "Weblogging at the Institut St-Joseph."
4. Mario Asselin, e-mail to the author, March 25, 2004.
5. See Amanda Lenhart, John Horrigan, and Deborah Fallows, "Content Creation Online," Pew Internet & American Life Project, February 29, 2004,
6. Will Richardson, "Blogging and RSS—The �What�s It?� and �How To� of Powerful New Web Tools for Educators," Information Today, January/February 2004,
7. Bernie Dodge, "Birth of 28 New Bloggers," One-Trick CyberPony, January 20, 2004,
8. This short history and the quotation come from Rebecca Blood, "Weblogs: A History and Perspective," Rebecca�s Pocket, September 7, 2000,
9. Charles Cooper, "When Blogging Came of Age," CNET News.com, September 21, 2001,
10. Jorn Barger, "Weblog Resources FAQ," Robot Wisdom, September 1999,
11. Simon Firth, "Baring Your Soul to the Web," Salon, July 3, 1998,
12. Catherine Seipp, "Online Uprising," American Journalism Review, June 2002,
13. Meg Hourihan, "What We�re Doing When We Blog," O�Reilly Web Devcenter, June 13, 2002,
14. Henry Farrell, "The Street Finds Its Own Use for Things," Crooked Timber, September 15, 2003,
15. Rick Effland, "The Treasure Fleet of Zheng He," Rick Effland Blog, April 4, 2004,
16. Alexander Halavais, "Media Law" course website, February 17, 2004,
17. Mireille Guay, e-mail to the author, March 26, 2004.
18. Farrell, "The Street Finds Its Own Uses."
19. Lane Dunlop, comment, Crooked Timber, September 18, 2003,
20. Sebastian Fiedler, symposium leader, "Introducing Disruptive Technologies for Learning: Personal Webpublishing and Weblogs," Ed-Media Meeting, June 24, 2004,
21. Jay Cross, "Blogs," Learning Circuits, April 2002,
22. Dan Gillmor, "Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time," SiliconValley.com, February 15, 2003,
23. Todd Bingham, e-mail to the author, April 14, 2004. See also S�bastien Paquet, "Weblogs Enter New Brunswick School," Seb�s Open Research, April 16, 2004,
24. Mena Trott, "It�s About Time," Mena�s Corner, May 13, 2004, Six Apart Web site,
25. "Radio UserLand v8.0.8," PC World, July 6, 2004,
26. Beth Potier, "Berkman Center Fellow Dave Winer Wants to Get Harvard Blogging," Harvard Gazette, April 17, 2003,
27. John Harvard�s Journal, "Creating Community, On-line and Off," Harvard Magazine, vol. 106, no. 3 (January-February 2004),
28. Lisa Kim Bach, "Internet Diaries: School Discipline Questioned," Las Vegas Review-Journal, November 10, 2003,
29. Mario Asselin, quoting the student, e-mail to the author, March 25, 2004.
30. George Siemens, "The Art of Blogging—Part 1," elearnspace, December 1, 2002,
31. Mario Asselin, e-mail to the author, March 25, 2004.
32. Mark Pilgrim, "Write," Dive Into Mark, October 1, 2001 (no longer extant); "The Weblog Manifesto," Talking Moose, September 29, 2001,
33. Richard Long, "Back from San Antonio," 2River, March 28, 2004,
34. Will Richardson, "The Blogging in Schools Question," Weblogg-Ed, April 13, 2004,
35. Matt, "Circle Limit II," Walky Talky, September 25, 2003,
36. Will Richardson, "Metablognition," Weblogg-Ed, April 27, 2004,
37. Ken Smith, "CCCC Waves and Ripples," Weblogs in Higher Education, March 30, 2004,
38. Will Richardson, "Reading and Blogging," Weblogg-Ed, March 31, 2004,
39. Jeremy Hiebert, e-mail to the author, April 22, 2004.
40. Will Richardson, e-mail to the author, April 27, 2004.
Reader Submitted Comments
Reference link error
Su-Tuan Lulee, Consultant
2/5/06 10:47 PM
In article, the author stated, "Major international hosting services include FarsiBlogs, for Iranian writers, and BlogsCN, for Chinese contributors". I supposed that "BlogsCN" should be "BlogCN" that refers to the website "http://www.blogcn.com/".
-- A student of Distance Education Program, University of Wisconsin, and a faithful reader of Mr. Stephen Dawn
test
Matt Pasiewicz, Content Program Manager, EDUCAUSE
4/18/06 9:52 AM
test
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Monday, September 17, 2007
Siemens: Connectivism
Connectivism:
Learning Theory or Pastime for the Self-Amused?
November 12, 2006 George Siemens
A printable, MS Word file of this article is available here: Connectivism: Learning Theory or Past Time for the Self-Amused?
Background
It is always an honor to have one's work reviewed - even (or perhaps, especially) when it is critical in nature. Ideas, concepts, and theories are sharpened, or dulled, in the space of dialogue and scrutiny.
I recently had the pleasure of reading a critique by Pln Verhagen (2006), Professor, Educational Design, University of Twente, of my 2004 article, "Connectivism: A Learning Theory for a Digital Age." My appreciation exists on two levels: (a) Verhagen's time in reflecting on and reacting to the article, and (b) the provision of an opportunity to further dialogue about connectivism's relation to the process of learning, development of technology, societal trends, and pedagogy and curriculum. Though this final element is particularly dry, and in today�s age seems to acquire a diminishing audience, we are weary of pedagogy and curriculum before we have fully managed to effect needed change.
As I read the review, I was immediately struck by the illustration it provided of why connectivism (or pick any view of network-based learning) is so important. The review represents the limiting factors of traditional; views of learning�or, extended slightly, the very structures and spaces we use to define our schools, organizations, and society.
In the original 2004 article I stated: "The pipe is more important than the content within the pipe. Our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today. A real challenge for any learning theory is to actuate known knowledge at the point of application" (Conclusion section, � 1). I find Verhagen's (2006) critique falls at precisely this point.
The core of what I wrote in the initial article is still valid: that learning is a network phenomenon, influenced (aided) by socialization and technology. Two years is a lifetime in the educational technology space. Two years ago, web 2.0 was just at the beginning of the hype cycle. Blogs, wikis, and RSS�now prominent terms at most educational conferences were still the sandbox of learning technology geeks. Podcasting was not yet prominent. YouTube didn't exist. Google had not released its suite of web-based tools. Google Earth was not yet on the desktops of children and executives alike each thrilled to view their house, school, or business in satellite images. Learning Management Systems still held the starting point of most elearning initiatives. Moodle was not yet prominent, and the term PLEs (personal learning environments) did not exist. In two years, our small space of educational technology evolved�perhaps exploded is a more accurate term.
Against this backdrop, I am unsure why Verhagen (2006) opted to complete a review on an article's content when the ensuing conversation (particularly among so called edu-bloggers) since the article (Siemens, 2004) was published says much to create a context of understanding connectivism. Understanding context is the key. Much has happened since the article was first written, which in no way devalues connectivism as a concept - rather it validates it. The theory of connectivism is no less immune to change than the underlying trends it proposes to address.
I am curious as to the approach Verhagen (2006) utilized in reviewing the article. I sense it primarily consisted of reading the article and providing a reaction based on his experience in the learning technology space. Did he search online? Did he view or listen to presentations posted on elearnspace? Did he encounter Stephen Downes� (2005) article on Connective Knowledge? I did not receive any email or skype requests to dialogue�an opportunity I rarely resist. Diverse perspectives, current knowledge, opportunities for dialogue, and use of technology are important ways of 'coming to know' in today's world.
The error made in the review is precisely the reason why we need to explore connectivism as a learning theory: static, context-less, content-centric approaches to knowing and understanding are fraught with likelihood of misunderstanding. To write a review of the American political system of 2004, and treat it as if it were today's reality, fails to acknowledge the process to which all content is subject. This is the danger of product iconization as offered, or explored by prominent theories of learning, thus failing to acknowledge - explicitly - that ongoing changes obsolesce current knowledge.
Hubert Dreyfus (2002), in his audio lectures exploring Heidegger's Being and Time, questions whether a hammer is actually a hammer in absence of nails. Context shapes the nature of knowledge and learning, requiring that we consider contextual factors when engaging in debate, dialogue, or critique. To assess a concept, in absence of the context of occurrence (why a conversation happened in the first place, as well as how it has since evolved), is to largely ignore the process aspect of learning and focus instead only on the product aspect.
Verhagen's (2006) criticisms are broadly centered on three areas:
1. Is connectivism a learning theory or a pedagogy?
2. The principles advocated by connectivism are present in other learning theories as well. [Not unique]
3. Can learning reside in non-human appliances?
I imagine these particular principles can be argued at length and may well reflect more of an individual's personal epistemology than a neutral discussion of learning and knowing. I have opted to broadly explore learning theories and connectivism in the balance of this paper, in order to highlight key distinctions and advance the argument of why we need a different theory of learning, and the accompanying factors influenced by learning: how we teach, how we design curriculum, the spaces and structures of learning, and the manner in which we foster and direct critical and creative thought in our redesign of education. In the process, I believe Verhagen's questions will be addressed.
My response begins with a brief exploration of our desire for externalization as expressed in language, symbols, emotions, and thought - laying a foundation of learning factors. After a quick overview of knowledge and learning, I review the principles of effective theories, change drivers, and why a new theory of learning is required.
'To 'know' something is to be organized in a certain way, to exhibit patterns of connectivity. To 'learn' is to acquire certain patterns" (Downes, 2005, Section O, 2).
The spirit, or zeitgeist, of an era influences the structures of society: churches and religious groups, school, and government. In contrast with the educational ideals of previous cultures, our current Western world is largely dominated by a spirit of productivity, utilitarianism, and return on investment (or other metrics to justify learning and training).
In today's environment, many educational structures exist with the primary intent of preparing individuals for the workforce. Much like previous societies aligned education with the higher ideals of their era, work and employment - as cornerstones of life - drive much of today's education. The religious-based [vs] views of education have largely given way to education based on science. As a whole, our structures of learning have become more utilitarian (Postman, 1995, p. 27).
As we will explore shortly in our desire to externalize our knowledge, our goals for learning are not simply utilitarian. We may engage in formal learning activities to increase our career prospects, but for many, the bulk of learning occurs as a desire to make sense, understand, develop personally, or (for the utopian) become contributors to making a better world. Our views of learning must account for our strong urge to make meaning.
Bowen (1972a p. xix) presents three broad challenges to education today: adequate rationale, support, and pedagogy. Educators are seeking to create a high-calling of learning that exceeds vocational needs. The absence of a clear pedagogy, or vision of how learning ought to be done, further complicates the potential for success. Postman (1995) noted: "There was a time when educators became famous for providing reasons for learning; now they become famous for inventing a method" (p. 26). Our educational model today is largely defined by the desire to achieve and produce in an economic system.
When compared with higher ideals of education from previous societies, this model appears shallow. Mayer (1960) listed numerous basic goals of education: health, command of processes, home membership, vocational efficiency, civic efficiency, worthy use of leisure, and ethical character (p. 12). The varied purposes of learning presented learning opportunities beyond simply work. Many of the nobler elements of learning, often found in the belief or faith domain, have yielded to the increased quest for efficiency and utilitarianism.
Postman (1995) stated, "the great narrative of science shares with the great religious narratives the idea that there is order to the universe" (p. 9). Education occurs within the prominent philosophical and societal notions of what it means "to be." In eras of religious focus, the development of morals provided the foundation of learning. In eras defined by exploration and knowledge growth, the prominent function of education was to pry open doors of hidden knowledge. The development of the industrial era shifted the educational focus to preparing individuals to function in work environments. Career preparation, not moral or intellectual development, became the primary focus of learning. The space of shifting ideals presents challenges for society as a whole: (a) the erosion of existing structures of knowing and need for knowing, and (b) the yet to emerge characteristics of the new space are unknown, or speculative at best (p. 23).
The current internet era is at a point of substantial change. The long-established fault lines of philosophical debate are being reshaped as our means of interpreting life, learning, and reality are moving into a new dimension - the virtual world. Dede (2005, p. 9) listed tremendous physical property values assigned to online virtual spaces, with GNP of virtual games exceeding the GNP of many countries, and virtual currency trading on par with real-world currency. The internet functions according to a different sequence of rules, guidelines, codes of conduct, and points of value than does the physical world. A necessary reorganization is underway, resulting in new metaphors of learning and existence as a whole.
The eyes through which we see learning, the boundaries in which we construct learning, have been shaped and created by the great debates from previous generations. The established notions of knowledge and learning appear inadequate in a world and space subject to substantially different pressures than earlier societies. The dichotomy of qualitative versus quantitative, religion versus science, and such have been formed through the debates of philosophers, scientists, and religious people. Educators today face challenges relating to: (a) defining what learning is, (b) defining the process of learning in a digital age, (c) aligning curriculum and teaching with learning and higher level development needs of society (the quest to become better people), and (d) reframing the discussion to lay the foundation for transformative education - one where technology is the enabler of new means of learning, thinking, and being.
Too many educators fail to understand how technology is changing society. While hype words of web 2.0, blogs, wikis, and podcasts are easy to ignore, the change agents driving these tools are not. We communicate differently than we did even ten years ago. We use different tools for learning; we experience knowledge in different formats and at a different pace. We are exposed to an overwhelming amount of information requiring continually greater levels of specialization in our organizations. It is here where knowledge growth exceeds our ability to cope, that new theories of knowledge and learning are needed. And it is in this space that a whole development model of learning must be created (i.e. learning beyond vocational skills, leading to the development of persons as active contributors to quality of life in society).
Instead of knowledge residing only in the mind of an individual, knowledge resides in a distributed manner across a network. Instead of approaching learning as schematic formation structures, learning is the act of recognizing patterns shaped by complex networks. The networked act of learning exists on two levels:
1. Internally as neural networks (where knowledge is distributed across our brain, not held in its entirety in one location)
2. Externally as networks we actively form (each node represents an element of specialization and the aggregate represent our ability to be aware of, learn, and adapt to the world around).
Intermediaries and Conduits for Learning and Communication
We are social beings. Through language, symbols, video, images, and other means, we seek to express our thoughts. Essentially, our need to derive and express meaning, gain and share knowledge, requires externalization. We externalize ourselves in order to know and be known. As we externalize, we distribute our knowledge across a network, perhaps with individuals seated around a conference, readers at a distance, or listeners to podcasts or viewers of a video clip. Most existing theories of learning assume the opposite, stating that internalization is the key function of learning (cognitivism assumes we process information internally, constructivism asserts that we assign meaning internally, though the process of deriving meaning may be a function of a social network, i.e. the social dimension assists in learning, rather than the social dimension being the aim of learning). The externalization of our knowledge is increasingly utilized as a means of coping with information overload. The growth and complexity of knowledge requires that our capacity for learning resides in the connections we form with people and information, often mediated or facilitated with technology.
Language and Learning
As with any technology, the printing press influenced the process and nature of learning. Prior to Gutenberg's invention, the written word required skill, special paper, and significant time to produce. Gutenberg opened the door for anyone to access (and own) books. Access to books was simply a conduit to the higher goal of learning and knowledge.
As a result of the increased access to codified ideas in the form of text, the learning process transitioned from the previous dialogue or vocal base (Socrates, Plato, religious leaders) to the emphasis of text. Textual representations of knowledge provide a false sense of certainty and ascribe static attributes typically not inherent in knowledge from oral traditions. When knowledge is communicated through dialogue, the progressive growth of understanding is tied to the process, not the artefact. Learning, when primarily text-based, ascribes knowledge as primary in physical objects.
The emphasis of object over process is strong within today's educational markets. Most courses and learning experiences are built around content: textbooks, videos, magazines, articles, or other learning objects. For centuries this model was effective. The content-central view of learning loses effectiveness in environments that are rapidly changing and adapting. Text in itself is a codification of knowledge at a point in time, a snapshot. In contrast, conversation is fluid and continual.
Language, as the corner stone of conversation and dialogue, is in itself transformative. Postman (1995) asserted that we use language to transform the world, but we are then in turn transformed by our invention (p. 87). A similar concept was expressed by Alex Kozulin in his forward to Vygotsky's (1986) Thought and Language: abstract categories and word meanings dominated situational experience and restructured it (p. xl). Language is a conduit, a medium through which individuals are able to create shared meanings or interpretations of concepts.
Deriving or assigning meaning as a cognitive process has historically been detailed in two regards: (a) images, as assigned to and shaped by words, is crucial in creating meaning (Bloor, 1983, p. 7); and (b) the symbol or image is rooted in the intent of the speaker, a conscious orientation, actively directed at its object. The symbol is meant a certain way, as its correct application is governed by an intention. (p. 8).
According to Wittgenstein (as cited in Bloor, 1983), the role of externalization is an attempt to replace internal, mental constructions (p. 10) with external and non-mental (p. 10) constructs. The intent of externalization is to eliminate the hidden power, or in Wittgenstein's terminology the occult character (p. 10) of an image, permitting greater clarity in discussions.
Wittgenstein (as cited in Bloor, 1983) explored the private and public nature of meaning, arriving at the view that the systematic pattern of usage (p. 19) was the primary expression of meaning. The patterns of usage are public, not private, and internal, as mental image or act theorists detailed.
The real source of life in a word or sentence is provided, not by the individual mind, but by society (Bloor, 1983, p. 20). In order to prove that there is an indissoluble link between the public world and the mental life of the individual, Wittgenstein attached the idea of what he called a private language (p. 54). To elaborate on these thoughts, Wittgenstein presented right and wrong as public standards, and their authority comes from their being collectively held. Per Bloor, Durkheim and Wittgenstein pursued a differing view of objectivity than is normally associated with learning. Their source of objectivity resides outside of the mind and in society as a whole (p. 58). The statement that there can be no private language assaults the notion of individual subjectivity (p. 60):
The point is that even introspective discourse is a public institution which depends on conventions and hence on training. We have no immediate self-knowledge and no resources for constructing any significant account of a realm of purely private objects and experiences. (p. 64)
Vygotsky (1986), like Wittgenstein, attached a certain element of externality to thought: �The meaning of a word represents such a close amalgam of thought and language that it is hard to tell whether it is a phenomenon of speech or a phenomenon of thought� (p. 212). Vygotsky then extrapolated the thought/word connection by asserting that thoughts do not come into existence unless expressed in words (p. 218).
Vygotsky (1986) stated his interest in language as a means to ensure complete understanding of a concept: Psychology, which aims at a study of complex holistic systems, must replace the method of analysis into elements with the method of analysis into units. We believe that such a unit can be found in the internal aspect of the word, in word meaning. (p. 5)
The interplay of language, symbols, ideas, cognition, meaning, and learning are not clearly defined. Pietroski (2004) stated the challenge:
If theories of meaning are theories of understanding, and these turn out [to] be theories of mental faculty that associates linguistic signals with meanings in constrained ways, then we should figure out (in light of the constraints) what this faculty associates signals with.
Extended, the concerns go beyond simply determining constraints. The challenge involves acquiring a common language of meaning relating to learning and knowledge, and exploring how supporting processes (cognition and emotions) are influenced by communication models (linguistics) and the conduits that deliver information and knowledge (technology), in relation to views of learning (truth, objectivity, subjectivity, epistemology).
Media, Symbols, and Technology
While not quite in alignment with Vygotsky's (1986) assertion that language gives birth to thought, Bandura (1986) stated, power of thought resides in the human capability to represent events and their interrelatedness in symbolic form (p. 455). Media, language, technology, and symbols are devices that enable humans the capacity to externalize the nebulous elements of private thought. The externalization of thought is an important concept to consider in light of traditional theories of learning largely emphasizing knowledge construction and cognition as primarily internal events (in the mind of individuals).
Education, as a process, has its origin in the earliest recordings of human activity. It is believed that foundational elements of communication or knowledge transmission had their origin in pictograms (Bowen, 1972a, p. 7) the attempt of people to express thought in physical form. Pictograms developed in complexity as determinatives were added to clarify ideas and eliminate ambiguity. Even in early recordings of thought and reasoning, the notion of ambiguity influenced activities of communicators. The potential that one concept may be represented, or be interpreted, in various ways is a foundational challenge that continues to drive attempts to communicate and share knowledge. Perspective and subjectivity, or at minimum interpretation, add complexity to dialogue-based processes, like learning.
The attempt to communicate also presented the continuing challenge of the imperfect nature of physical tools to express mental thought. Writing and visuals are conduits only partly able to properly reflect intended meanings and understanding held in the minds of individuals. Through symbols, we desire clarification. �The world of our experience must be enormously simplified and generalized before it is possible to make a symbolic inventory of all our experiences� (Sapir, as cited in Vygotsky, 1986).
Symbols and language have been key elements of the cycle of understanding for much of recorded history. More recently, media and technology have begun to play a central role in creating the constructs of understanding that house shared conceptions and experiences of individuals. McLuhan (1967) suggested, �societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication� (p. 8). The rapid growth of social-based technology tools creates an unprecedented opportunity for anyone with a computer and internet access to play the role of journalist, artist, producer, and publisher. If media truly does shape humanity, the changed nature of dialogue and information exposure created by the internet will have greater implications to our future than the nature of the content currently being explored. Much like tools shape potential tasks, the internet shapes opportunities for dialogue�outside of space and time�that were not available only a generation ago.
Cognition and Emotions
Wittgenstein�s rejection of meaning as internally-derived events opens the possibility that knowledge, learning, and other meaning-based activities are capable of being seen as �networked elements� (as cited in Bloor, 1983). Meaning that resides external to an individual�the aggregate, or at least reflection, of social processes�can be viewed as a node or element in learning and knowing structures. The importance of the shift from internal to external knowing is evident in the rise of the internet as a connected structure permitting the development of knowledge and learning, not simply data and information. The learning is the network.
Cognition is a function of the environment in which it occurs; that is it develops from social milieu (Vygotsky, 1986, p. 108). Cognition can be seen as an intricate series of interactions between external and internal elements. The environment strongly influences the nature of cognition. This element is particularly valuable in considering the design of physical and virtual spaces of learning.
While emotions have been criticized as subjective and, therefore, difficult to study or subject to reason (Lane & Nadel, 2000, p. 12), they play a central role in understanding learning and knowledge creation. Cognition, emotion, perception, and beliefs are knowledge creation and knowledge navigation enablers. Empirical processes have created significant knowledge growth and have elevated cognition above the softer aspects of emotion, perception, and belief (or faith). These latter elements, however, are strong contributors to the ongoing search for meaning, truth, and knowledge. Often, the soft elements are the entities that open doors of cognition. Intuition, while not as measurable and duplicable as empirical research, still plays a substantial role in fostering learning. Both cognition and beliefs are sources of knowledge. Reflection and metacognition (thinking about thinking) are often ignored in cognitive processes.
When we speak of improving our mind we are usually referring to the acquisition of information or knowledge, or to the type of thoughts own should have, and not to the actual functioning of the mind. We spend little time monitoring our own thinking and comparing it with a more sophisticated ideal. (Hueuer, 1999)
This admonition is particularly relevant in exploring assumptions about religion, education, learning, language, and teaching. Achieving a stage of knowing or conceptualizing, requires the formation of boundaries in our thinking, or defined beliefs, that enable subsequent decision making. Recognizing the hidden assumptions and deeper beliefs is important in moderating extrapolations that exceed the offerings of existing data or research (Occam�s razor).
Epistemology�What Does it Mean to Know?
Epistemology is concerned with the nature of knowledge and how we come to know things� (Driscoll, 2000, p. 12). While educators may question the practicality of exploring epistemology (preferring instead to focus on the act and process of instruction and learning in classrooms), perceptions of what it means to know and valid sources of knowledge greatly influence an educator�s approach to the learning process.
Major epistemological perspectives include:
1. Empiricism: the belief that knowledge is gained through senses,
2. Nativism: the belief that knowledge is innate or present in at birth,
3. Rationalism: the belief that knowledge is a function of reason. (Driscoll, 2000, p. 13)
These three structures of valid knowledge sources provide the basis for reflecting on what it means to learn or know. Educational theories and models built on these views of knowledge. Assumptions of what it means to know drives approaches to learning creation. This concept is explored in greater detail in the section on Learning Theories.
The concept of what qualifies for appropriate descriptions of knowledge is referenced in research theory, religion, and philosophy. As an expression for ways of being and knowing, qualitative and quantitative models are the most prominent. Table 1 indicates the main epistemological elements contained within each theory (Glesne, 1999, p.6, and Palys, 2003, p.15).
Table 1. Ways of Knowing
What is the Role of Theory
Researchers eek out small gains of knowledge from existing grand theories rather than explore new areas not covered by existing theories (Glaser & Straus, 1967, � 6). Theory serves a dual purpose of explaining phenomena (or more accurately, sense and meaning making) and of providing guidance for decision making or action. Sutton and Shaw suggested theory is about the connections among phenomena (p. 378). Theory provides a link between knowledge and implementation. Karl Weick chides specific solution-focused theory formations as inappropriate, as the intent of a theory is primarily a struggle with sensemaking (10).
Educational technology is replete with theories. Some adapted from previous models (behaviourism, cognitivism, constructivism), blended theories[1], emerging theories (connectivism), and related views of networked learning (Wikipedia, 2006). Blended and emerging theories counterbalance established theories in pursuing a theory in line with the nature of the society it purports to support. Tools change people. We adapt based on new affordances. To rely on a theory that ignores the networked nature of society, life, and learning is to largely miss the point of how fundamentally our world has changed.
Learning Theories
Three prominent learning theories seek to provide insight into the act of learning: behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism. Each of these theories has numerous subsets (social cognitivism, social constructivism). Gredler (2005) listed two separate theories: (a) interactionist, based on Gagne's learning conditions and Bandura's social-cognitive theory, and (b) developmental-interactionists, based on Piaget's cognitive development and Vygotsky's cultural-historical theories (p. 20). For the purposes of this paper, learning theories are cast as they link to the epistemological structures listed previously. The three dominant theories (behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism) are closely aligned with empiricism, nativism, and rationalism (see Table 2).
Table 2. Forms of Knowledge
Note: Table adapted from: Driscoll (2000, p.17).
Behaviourists are largely concerned with the outcome, or observable elements of learning. Behaviourists see learning as a black box (Driscoll, 2000, p. 35). Instead of focusing on the internal mental activities, behaviourists focus on observable behaviour (Gredler, 2005, p. 28). Behaviour is managed through a process of strengthening and weakening of responses. Key theorists in behaviourism include: Pavlov, Watson, Skinner, Thorndike (Gredler, p. 29, Driscoll, p. 19).
Cognitivists, to varying degrees, have posited a structured view of learning that includes the model of a computer (input, encoding, storage, outcome), a staged process of development, and schematic views of knowledge, with learning being the act of classifying or categorizing new knowledge and experiences. Cognitivists see learning as information processing. The computer is often used as a metaphor for learning (Driscoll, 2000, p. 75). Sensory input is managed in short-term memory and coded for retrieval in long-term memory. Situated cognition, the view that thought is a function of, or adaptation to, the environment in which the thinking (or learning) occurs (p. 154), and schema theory, the view that meaningful learning (p. 116) is a process of subsumption in an internal hierarchy of concepts, are extensions of basic cognitivism. Piaget and Vygotksy are sometimes classified as cognitivits (Gredler, 2005, pp. 264 & 304; Driscoll, pp. 183 & 219). Other cognitivists include Bruner, Gagne, and Ausubel.
Constructivism is a frustratingly vague concept. The Centre for Research on Networked Learning and Knowledge Building (n.d.) suggested, constructive theory of learning, generally, has not at all become more specific or articulated or gained any increased explanatory power or unification. There has not been any progressive problem shift after the 80s but a continuation of a very general and ideologically colored discussion. (2)
Constructivists hold learning to be a process of active construction on the part of the learner. Learning occurs as the learners attempt to make sense of their experiences (Driscoll, p. 376). The roots of constructivism can be found in the epistemological orientation of rationalism, where knowledge representations do not need to correspond with external reality (p. 377). Adherents to constructivism borrow heavily from theorists previously mentioned: Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner (Dabbagh, 2005; Driscoll, 2000).
Learning theories and theorist classifications are contradictory. For example, Driscoll (2000) listed Bruner as a pragmatist/cognitivist, while Dabbagh (2005) listed him as a constructivist. New entrants into this space quickly find a convoluted mix of psychology, philosophy, and theory pop-culture. Discerning theories with underlying assumptions of learning is challenging. Particularly confusing is the theory of constructivism, which researchers tend to treat as a banner under which to fly numerous aspects and new views. It has come to mean everything, anything, and nothing. While not as acerbic, Driscoll stated, there is no single constructivist theory of instruction. Rather, there are researchers in fields from science education to educational psychology and instructional technology who are articulating various aspects of constructivist theory (p. 375). Additionally, it may be unclear whether constructivism is actually a theory or a philosophy (p. 395).
Challenges to Existing Learning Theories
To qualify as a well-constructed theory, four elements must exist (Gredler, 2005, p. 12): (a) clear assumptions and beliefs about the object of the theory, (b) key terms are clearly defined, (c) development of principles from assumptions, and (d) explanation of underlying psychological dynamics of events related to learning.
Instead of modeling our knowledge structures as hierarchical or flat, confined belief spaces, the view of networks enables the existence of contrasting elements selected on the intent of a particular research or learning activities. If the silos of traditional knowledge classification schemes are more fluid, perhaps the individual elements of different theories can be adopted, as required, to solve more nuances of learning problems. When the theory does not require adoption in its fullest (i.e, interpretivism or positivism), the task of seeking knowledge becomes more salient.
Wittgenstein's assertion that there can be no private language (as cited in Bloor, 1983) and Vygotsky's (1989) notion that thought requires expression are misinterpreted to place emphasis on the external environment as a mirror or reflection required for knowledge to occur, or be transmitted. While the external environment is critical, both Vygotsky and Wittgenstein mistook the environment for the space in which thought gains life, when in reality, the external environment is an additional space for knowledge, thought, expression, and reflection. As an extension of humanity, the external is in itself a space in which we exist, rather than an environment in which our words find existence. When objects and other external entities are viewed as extension of humanity, the notion of learning as a network formation process becomes more palatable. If knowledge exists in external structures of similar nature, as it exists physically within our minds (distributed, neurologically), then it is possible to ascribe knowledge and learning attributes to the distributed nature of networks formed between people.
Additional support of the concept of knowledge (and learning) existing outside of the human mind is found in vision research. We suggest that the objects of thought, the very things upon which mental processes directly operate, are not always inside the brain. The cognitive processing that gives rise to mental experience may be something whose functioning cuts across the superficial physical boundaries between brain, body, and environment. (Spivey, Richardson, & Fitneva, 2004, p. 178)
The challenge of theory comparison and analysis rests in the point of focus. Much like any element in society, the aspect that the viewer is focused on determines the nature of the conclusion, as well as defines the capacity to see what exists. Integrated, holistic views of theories and the particular functions they serve is often lacking. Wittgenstein's rejection of meaning as internally-derived events (as cited in Bloor, 1983), opens the possibility that knowledge, learning, and other meaning-based activities are capable of being seen as networked elements. Meaning that resides external to an individual, the aggregate, or at least reflection, of social processes, can be viewed as a node or element in learning and knowing structures. The importance of the shift from internal to external knowing is evident in the rise of the internet as a connected structure, which permits the development of knowledge and learning, not simply data and information. The learning is the network.
One of the limiting features of much thought with regard to learning, understanding, and behaviour is the inclination to take a deliberate one-sided view of the concern. Human functioning (and the very act of cognition) is difficult to reduce to simple representations. A holistic view and model of cognition and learning is required, one which addresses emotions, thoughts, language, symbols, circumstances, morality, and environment.
Various theories present knowledge as an internal state of being in relation to knowledge as an internal or external object. Edwin Hutchins (2000) suggested that "It does not seem possible to account for the cognitive accomplishments of our species by reference to what is inside our heads alone. One must consider the cognitive roles of the social and material world. The distributed cognition perspective aspires to rebuild cognitive science from the outside in, beginning with the social and material setting of cognitive activity, so that culture, context, and history can be linked with the core concepts of cognition."
Hierarchies of knowledge have been created to demarcate elements commonly described as knowledge or information. Liebowitz (1999) cited the work of Tobin in structuring a four-tier hierarchy: data (+ relevance + purpose) = information (+ application) = knowledge (+ intuition + experience) = wisdom (p. 1-5). Wisdom is the upper echelon of most conceptions of thought and knowledge, but, as Burke (2000) noted, wisdom must be learned more or less painfully by each individual (p. 12). Other knowledge conceptions (Siemens, 2005) suggest the highest level in the hierarchy is meaning, the comprehension of nuances and implications of knowledge. Moving wisdom to the domain of the internal introduces similar challenges addressed by Wittgenstein (as cited in Bloor, 1983) and Vygotsky (1986), namely, how can something that is exclusively internal have life or meaning?
Change Drivers Requiring a New Theory
Problems emerge when new findings are pressed into immediate service, while the academic routines on which they depend remain unchanged (Baumeister, 2005, Academic Teaching section, 2)
Understanding of Learning
We are growing in our understanding of learning. Research in neuroscience, theories of social-based learning, and developments in learning psychology create new understanding of the act, and process, of learning. As Downes (2006) stated, Learning occurs in communities, where the practice of learning is the participation in the community. A learning activity is, in essence, a conversation undertaken between the learner and other members of the community. This conversation, in the web 2.0 era, consists not only of words but of images, video, multimedia and more. This conversation forms a rich tapestry of resources, dynamic and interconnected, created not only by experts but by all members of the community, including learners. (Network Pedagogy section, 6)
Pace of Knowledge Growth
Most individuals require little evidence to support the rapid growth of knowledge, they feel it in their daily lives. A University of California, Berkeley (2003) study on information growth found a 75% increase in two years. Information and knowledge are tightly linked; as information grows so does our knowledge.
Development of Technology (Ubiquity)
Technology is mobile, embedded, transparent, and ubiquitous. Continual access to technology requires different vetting processes for knowledge. Consider how television news differs from video created by an amateur at the scene of an accident. Higher levels of trust are generally assigned to formal news programs. However, as exemplified by the growth of online video sites like YouTube, the personable, first-hand account of amateur video has significant appeal.
The persistent advancement of technology adds complexity to how knowledge is organized, created, and managed. Business executives are constantly connected to their office. Technical workers have mobile access to detailed database to assist with onsite work. Farmers rely on advanced soil testing in determining seeding, and then utilize GPS when planting and harvesting. Few areas of life remain unaffected.
Expectations of Students (Net Generation)
When students enter educational spaces today, they do so with a different mindset from even a few years ago. Video games, mobile phones, instant messaging, and online social networking have been constant for many teenagers. Through the use of blogs and wikis at the secondary school level, these learners are entering higher education with expectations sure to be unmet.
In Educating the Net Generation, Diana and James Oblinger (2004) offered a detailed overview of today's learners: digitally literate, constantly connected, socially-driven, engaged, visually-driven, and a host of additional pronounced characteristics. Simply stated, today's learners are different.
The Great Complexification
Weinberger (2005) presented complexification as a defining aspect of knowledge today. We are now able, through an abundance of social tools, to produce and create content previously requiring a substantial investment. Broadcasting ideas in text, audio, and video
is a fairly simple process. As a result, any issue can be explored and dissected form numerous angles. Even simple viewpoints can be complexified through the multiple viewpoints of the masses.
While blogs, wikis, podcasts, and social bookmarking are receiving much attention, the real point of interest lies not in the tools themselves, but in what the growth of the tools represents and what the tools enable. Primary affordances include: (a) two-way flow, and (b) activities reflective of networked activities of individuals
Making sense of this complex conversation requires a shift to alternative models of management. It is at this stage that technology is beginning to play its greatest role; one that will continue to grow in prominence as knowledge grows in complexity. Learning, augmented by technology, permits the assimilation and expression of knowledge elements in a manner that enables understanding not possible without technology.
Emerging Philosophy of Knowledge, Learning, and Knowing
Philosophies of what it means to know are emerging in reaction to the developments in technology and society. Stephen Downes (2005) offers a view of knowledge beyond traditional classifications as listed in Table 1.
You probably grew up learning that there are two major types of knowledge: qualitative and quantitative. Distributed knowledge adds a third major category to this domain, knowledge that could be described as connective. A property of one entity must lead to or become a property of another entity in order for them to be considered connected; the knowledge that results from such connections is connective knowledge.
According to Downes (2005), connective knowledge networks possess four traits:
What About Technology?
While still in early stages of development, technology is permitting new ways of seeing information and the impact of interactions. As discussed earlier, rapid knowledge growth requires off-loading the internal act of cognition, sense and meaning making, and filtering to a network consisting of human and technology nodes. As a simple example, the popular tag feature of many sites (del.icio.us, digg.com, flickr), enable pattern recognition that captures the activities of thousands or millions of individuals. As knowledge complexifies, patterns not individual elements become of greatest importance in gaining understanding.
What Makes Connectivism a Theory?
Mergel (1998) cited Ertmer's and Newby's five definitive questions to distinguish learning theory (Distinguishing One Learning section, � 1):
How does learning occur?
What factors influence learning?
What is the role of memory?
How does transfer occur?
What types of learning are best explained by this theory? (2)
Table 3. Learning Theories
Controversy exists as to the primacy of memory in the learning process—especially when many technology tools are more effective at retrieval than we are. Memory is not as static as theorists present in views of learning. Memory involves a recalling and reconstruction. New experiences influence existing memory. Visiting childhood homes and play areas often reveals a dramatically different space than what was remembered. Memory is perhaps most prominent in cognitivism, where input, encoding, storage (in memory), and recall (from memory) are critical in the design process.
The concept of transfer is loaded, with educators and cognitive scientists questioning if knowledge can be transferred or simply created, constructed, or shared. It is important to note that most learning theories overlap. For clarification, it is important to briefly consider connectionism in contrast with connectivism. Connectionism is based in behaviourism (Thorndike, as cited in Kearsley, n.d.), where learning occurs as we form links between stimulus and response. Connectionism, in terms of neuro/cognitive science, is focused on neural networks—the manner in which we learn—contrasted with previous views of learning as information processing (Garson, 2002).
Connectivism shares some traits of the cognitive science view of connectionism—the view that learning is a process of network formation. Connectionism is only focused with learning that happens in our heads. Connectivism is focused on the process of forming and creating meaningful networks that may include technology-mediated learning, acknowledges learning that occurs when we dialogue with others, i.e., we collect knowledge in our friends (Stephenson, n.d.) and such. Connectivism is strongly focused on the linking to knowledge sources not simply trying to explain how knowledge is formed in our own heads.
The more rapidly knowledge develops the less likely it will be that we will possess all knowledge internally. The interplay of network, context, and other entities (many which are external) results in a new approach or conception of learning. The active creation of our own learning networks is the actual learning, as it allows us to continue to learn and benefit from our network compared to a course which has a set start and end date.
Conclusion
After decades of molding existing theories to changed environments, continual revisions, in the face of dramatic change in knowledge, society, and technology, form the foundation of a needed change in how we perceive learning. Our views of learning, as the basis of a new approach to designing and fostering learning, are most useful when they are in line with the changed environment.
For many, the debate of changed modes of learning does not require an explicit statement. They sense it in their work, how they communicate, and how they learn. These individuals are not focused on what, if anything, has changed theoretically. They are asking different questions than we are attempting to answer with dated theories.
Our obligation as educators requires a solid focus on emerging trends, while not succumbing to distracting fads. Our desire to connect,to externalize, is a vital component of the learning process. Instead of merely developing learners for careers, we have an obligation to create a learning ecology where learners are able to shape their own meaning. Where we fail to react to changes, learners will pursue alternatives. The creation of a sound theory of learning provides the basis of learning and societal functioning. Knowledge growth, emerging research (in neuroscience and artificial intelligence), new philosophies of knowing, and growing complexity requiring distributed knowing and sense making are no longer sufficiently attended to by the broad theories of learning prominent in past education. An alternative is needed. Whether connectivism plays this role is irrelevant. Of most importance is that educators are reflecting on how learning has changed and the accompanying implications to how we design the spaces and structures of learning today.
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Works Cited
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Theory construction as disciplined imagination. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 516-531. Retrieved November 12, 2006, from http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/craft_articles/weick_theory.html Weinberger, D. (2005, June 27). The new shape of knowledge. Retrieved September 1, 2006, from http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/mtarchive/004153.html Wikipedia (2006). Learning. Retrieved on March 24, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning Wikipedia. (2006). Networked learning. Retrieved November 12, 2006, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Networked_learning -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Centre for Research On Networked Learning and Knowledge Building at Helsinki University explores socio-cognitive research of learning � and the �socially distributed nature of human cognition� � in light of technology.
Learning Theory or Pastime for the Self-Amused?
November 12, 2006 George Siemens
A printable, MS Word file of this article is available here: Connectivism: Learning Theory or Past Time for the Self-Amused?
Background
It is always an honor to have one's work reviewed - even (or perhaps, especially) when it is critical in nature. Ideas, concepts, and theories are sharpened, or dulled, in the space of dialogue and scrutiny.
I recently had the pleasure of reading a critique by Pln Verhagen (2006), Professor, Educational Design, University of Twente, of my 2004 article, "Connectivism: A Learning Theory for a Digital Age." My appreciation exists on two levels: (a) Verhagen's time in reflecting on and reacting to the article, and (b) the provision of an opportunity to further dialogue about connectivism's relation to the process of learning, development of technology, societal trends, and pedagogy and curriculum. Though this final element is particularly dry, and in today�s age seems to acquire a diminishing audience, we are weary of pedagogy and curriculum before we have fully managed to effect needed change.
As I read the review, I was immediately struck by the illustration it provided of why connectivism (or pick any view of network-based learning) is so important. The review represents the limiting factors of traditional; views of learning�or, extended slightly, the very structures and spaces we use to define our schools, organizations, and society.
In the original 2004 article I stated: "The pipe is more important than the content within the pipe. Our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today. A real challenge for any learning theory is to actuate known knowledge at the point of application" (Conclusion section, � 1). I find Verhagen's (2006) critique falls at precisely this point.
The core of what I wrote in the initial article is still valid: that learning is a network phenomenon, influenced (aided) by socialization and technology. Two years is a lifetime in the educational technology space. Two years ago, web 2.0 was just at the beginning of the hype cycle. Blogs, wikis, and RSS�now prominent terms at most educational conferences were still the sandbox of learning technology geeks. Podcasting was not yet prominent. YouTube didn't exist. Google had not released its suite of web-based tools. Google Earth was not yet on the desktops of children and executives alike each thrilled to view their house, school, or business in satellite images. Learning Management Systems still held the starting point of most elearning initiatives. Moodle was not yet prominent, and the term PLEs (personal learning environments) did not exist. In two years, our small space of educational technology evolved�perhaps exploded is a more accurate term.
Against this backdrop, I am unsure why Verhagen (2006) opted to complete a review on an article's content when the ensuing conversation (particularly among so called edu-bloggers) since the article (Siemens, 2004) was published says much to create a context of understanding connectivism. Understanding context is the key. Much has happened since the article was first written, which in no way devalues connectivism as a concept - rather it validates it. The theory of connectivism is no less immune to change than the underlying trends it proposes to address.
I am curious as to the approach Verhagen (2006) utilized in reviewing the article. I sense it primarily consisted of reading the article and providing a reaction based on his experience in the learning technology space. Did he search online? Did he view or listen to presentations posted on elearnspace? Did he encounter Stephen Downes� (2005) article on Connective Knowledge? I did not receive any email or skype requests to dialogue�an opportunity I rarely resist. Diverse perspectives, current knowledge, opportunities for dialogue, and use of technology are important ways of 'coming to know' in today's world.
The error made in the review is precisely the reason why we need to explore connectivism as a learning theory: static, context-less, content-centric approaches to knowing and understanding are fraught with likelihood of misunderstanding. To write a review of the American political system of 2004, and treat it as if it were today's reality, fails to acknowledge the process to which all content is subject. This is the danger of product iconization as offered, or explored by prominent theories of learning, thus failing to acknowledge - explicitly - that ongoing changes obsolesce current knowledge.
Hubert Dreyfus (2002), in his audio lectures exploring Heidegger's Being and Time, questions whether a hammer is actually a hammer in absence of nails. Context shapes the nature of knowledge and learning, requiring that we consider contextual factors when engaging in debate, dialogue, or critique. To assess a concept, in absence of the context of occurrence (why a conversation happened in the first place, as well as how it has since evolved), is to largely ignore the process aspect of learning and focus instead only on the product aspect.
Verhagen's (2006) criticisms are broadly centered on three areas:
1. Is connectivism a learning theory or a pedagogy?
2. The principles advocated by connectivism are present in other learning theories as well. [Not unique]
3. Can learning reside in non-human appliances?
I imagine these particular principles can be argued at length and may well reflect more of an individual's personal epistemology than a neutral discussion of learning and knowing. I have opted to broadly explore learning theories and connectivism in the balance of this paper, in order to highlight key distinctions and advance the argument of why we need a different theory of learning, and the accompanying factors influenced by learning: how we teach, how we design curriculum, the spaces and structures of learning, and the manner in which we foster and direct critical and creative thought in our redesign of education. In the process, I believe Verhagen's questions will be addressed.
My response begins with a brief exploration of our desire for externalization as expressed in language, symbols, emotions, and thought - laying a foundation of learning factors. After a quick overview of knowledge and learning, I review the principles of effective theories, change drivers, and why a new theory of learning is required.
'To 'know' something is to be organized in a certain way, to exhibit patterns of connectivity. To 'learn' is to acquire certain patterns" (Downes, 2005, Section O, 2).
The spirit, or zeitgeist, of an era influences the structures of society: churches and religious groups, school, and government. In contrast with the educational ideals of previous cultures, our current Western world is largely dominated by a spirit of productivity, utilitarianism, and return on investment (or other metrics to justify learning and training).
In today's environment, many educational structures exist with the primary intent of preparing individuals for the workforce. Much like previous societies aligned education with the higher ideals of their era, work and employment - as cornerstones of life - drive much of today's education. The religious-based [vs] views of education have largely given way to education based on science. As a whole, our structures of learning have become more utilitarian (Postman, 1995, p. 27).
As we will explore shortly in our desire to externalize our knowledge, our goals for learning are not simply utilitarian. We may engage in formal learning activities to increase our career prospects, but for many, the bulk of learning occurs as a desire to make sense, understand, develop personally, or (for the utopian) become contributors to making a better world. Our views of learning must account for our strong urge to make meaning.
Bowen (1972a p. xix) presents three broad challenges to education today: adequate rationale, support, and pedagogy. Educators are seeking to create a high-calling of learning that exceeds vocational needs. The absence of a clear pedagogy, or vision of how learning ought to be done, further complicates the potential for success. Postman (1995) noted: "There was a time when educators became famous for providing reasons for learning; now they become famous for inventing a method" (p. 26). Our educational model today is largely defined by the desire to achieve and produce in an economic system.
When compared with higher ideals of education from previous societies, this model appears shallow. Mayer (1960) listed numerous basic goals of education: health, command of processes, home membership, vocational efficiency, civic efficiency, worthy use of leisure, and ethical character (p. 12). The varied purposes of learning presented learning opportunities beyond simply work. Many of the nobler elements of learning, often found in the belief or faith domain, have yielded to the increased quest for efficiency and utilitarianism.
Postman (1995) stated, "the great narrative of science shares with the great religious narratives the idea that there is order to the universe" (p. 9). Education occurs within the prominent philosophical and societal notions of what it means "to be." In eras of religious focus, the development of morals provided the foundation of learning. In eras defined by exploration and knowledge growth, the prominent function of education was to pry open doors of hidden knowledge. The development of the industrial era shifted the educational focus to preparing individuals to function in work environments. Career preparation, not moral or intellectual development, became the primary focus of learning. The space of shifting ideals presents challenges for society as a whole: (a) the erosion of existing structures of knowing and need for knowing, and (b) the yet to emerge characteristics of the new space are unknown, or speculative at best (p. 23).
The current internet era is at a point of substantial change. The long-established fault lines of philosophical debate are being reshaped as our means of interpreting life, learning, and reality are moving into a new dimension - the virtual world. Dede (2005, p. 9) listed tremendous physical property values assigned to online virtual spaces, with GNP of virtual games exceeding the GNP of many countries, and virtual currency trading on par with real-world currency. The internet functions according to a different sequence of rules, guidelines, codes of conduct, and points of value than does the physical world. A necessary reorganization is underway, resulting in new metaphors of learning and existence as a whole.
The eyes through which we see learning, the boundaries in which we construct learning, have been shaped and created by the great debates from previous generations. The established notions of knowledge and learning appear inadequate in a world and space subject to substantially different pressures than earlier societies. The dichotomy of qualitative versus quantitative, religion versus science, and such have been formed through the debates of philosophers, scientists, and religious people. Educators today face challenges relating to: (a) defining what learning is, (b) defining the process of learning in a digital age, (c) aligning curriculum and teaching with learning and higher level development needs of society (the quest to become better people), and (d) reframing the discussion to lay the foundation for transformative education - one where technology is the enabler of new means of learning, thinking, and being.
Too many educators fail to understand how technology is changing society. While hype words of web 2.0, blogs, wikis, and podcasts are easy to ignore, the change agents driving these tools are not. We communicate differently than we did even ten years ago. We use different tools for learning; we experience knowledge in different formats and at a different pace. We are exposed to an overwhelming amount of information requiring continually greater levels of specialization in our organizations. It is here where knowledge growth exceeds our ability to cope, that new theories of knowledge and learning are needed. And it is in this space that a whole development model of learning must be created (i.e. learning beyond vocational skills, leading to the development of persons as active contributors to quality of life in society).
Instead of knowledge residing only in the mind of an individual, knowledge resides in a distributed manner across a network. Instead of approaching learning as schematic formation structures, learning is the act of recognizing patterns shaped by complex networks. The networked act of learning exists on two levels:
1. Internally as neural networks (where knowledge is distributed across our brain, not held in its entirety in one location)
2. Externally as networks we actively form (each node represents an element of specialization and the aggregate represent our ability to be aware of, learn, and adapt to the world around).
Intermediaries and Conduits for Learning and Communication
We are social beings. Through language, symbols, video, images, and other means, we seek to express our thoughts. Essentially, our need to derive and express meaning, gain and share knowledge, requires externalization. We externalize ourselves in order to know and be known. As we externalize, we distribute our knowledge across a network, perhaps with individuals seated around a conference, readers at a distance, or listeners to podcasts or viewers of a video clip. Most existing theories of learning assume the opposite, stating that internalization is the key function of learning (cognitivism assumes we process information internally, constructivism asserts that we assign meaning internally, though the process of deriving meaning may be a function of a social network, i.e. the social dimension assists in learning, rather than the social dimension being the aim of learning). The externalization of our knowledge is increasingly utilized as a means of coping with information overload. The growth and complexity of knowledge requires that our capacity for learning resides in the connections we form with people and information, often mediated or facilitated with technology.
Language and Learning
As with any technology, the printing press influenced the process and nature of learning. Prior to Gutenberg's invention, the written word required skill, special paper, and significant time to produce. Gutenberg opened the door for anyone to access (and own) books. Access to books was simply a conduit to the higher goal of learning and knowledge.
As a result of the increased access to codified ideas in the form of text, the learning process transitioned from the previous dialogue or vocal base (Socrates, Plato, religious leaders) to the emphasis of text. Textual representations of knowledge provide a false sense of certainty and ascribe static attributes typically not inherent in knowledge from oral traditions. When knowledge is communicated through dialogue, the progressive growth of understanding is tied to the process, not the artefact. Learning, when primarily text-based, ascribes knowledge as primary in physical objects.
The emphasis of object over process is strong within today's educational markets. Most courses and learning experiences are built around content: textbooks, videos, magazines, articles, or other learning objects. For centuries this model was effective. The content-central view of learning loses effectiveness in environments that are rapidly changing and adapting. Text in itself is a codification of knowledge at a point in time, a snapshot. In contrast, conversation is fluid and continual.
Language, as the corner stone of conversation and dialogue, is in itself transformative. Postman (1995) asserted that we use language to transform the world, but we are then in turn transformed by our invention (p. 87). A similar concept was expressed by Alex Kozulin in his forward to Vygotsky's (1986) Thought and Language: abstract categories and word meanings dominated situational experience and restructured it (p. xl). Language is a conduit, a medium through which individuals are able to create shared meanings or interpretations of concepts.
Deriving or assigning meaning as a cognitive process has historically been detailed in two regards: (a) images, as assigned to and shaped by words, is crucial in creating meaning (Bloor, 1983, p. 7); and (b) the symbol or image is rooted in the intent of the speaker, a conscious orientation, actively directed at its object. The symbol is meant a certain way, as its correct application is governed by an intention. (p. 8).
According to Wittgenstein (as cited in Bloor, 1983), the role of externalization is an attempt to replace internal, mental constructions (p. 10) with external and non-mental (p. 10) constructs. The intent of externalization is to eliminate the hidden power, or in Wittgenstein's terminology the occult character (p. 10) of an image, permitting greater clarity in discussions.
Wittgenstein (as cited in Bloor, 1983) explored the private and public nature of meaning, arriving at the view that the systematic pattern of usage (p. 19) was the primary expression of meaning. The patterns of usage are public, not private, and internal, as mental image or act theorists detailed.
The real source of life in a word or sentence is provided, not by the individual mind, but by society (Bloor, 1983, p. 20). In order to prove that there is an indissoluble link between the public world and the mental life of the individual, Wittgenstein attached the idea of what he called a private language (p. 54). To elaborate on these thoughts, Wittgenstein presented right and wrong as public standards, and their authority comes from their being collectively held. Per Bloor, Durkheim and Wittgenstein pursued a differing view of objectivity than is normally associated with learning. Their source of objectivity resides outside of the mind and in society as a whole (p. 58). The statement that there can be no private language assaults the notion of individual subjectivity (p. 60):
The point is that even introspective discourse is a public institution which depends on conventions and hence on training. We have no immediate self-knowledge and no resources for constructing any significant account of a realm of purely private objects and experiences. (p. 64)
Vygotsky (1986), like Wittgenstein, attached a certain element of externality to thought: �The meaning of a word represents such a close amalgam of thought and language that it is hard to tell whether it is a phenomenon of speech or a phenomenon of thought� (p. 212). Vygotsky then extrapolated the thought/word connection by asserting that thoughts do not come into existence unless expressed in words (p. 218).
Vygotsky (1986) stated his interest in language as a means to ensure complete understanding of a concept: Psychology, which aims at a study of complex holistic systems, must replace the method of analysis into elements with the method of analysis into units. We believe that such a unit can be found in the internal aspect of the word, in word meaning. (p. 5)
The interplay of language, symbols, ideas, cognition, meaning, and learning are not clearly defined. Pietroski (2004) stated the challenge:
If theories of meaning are theories of understanding, and these turn out [to] be theories of mental faculty that associates linguistic signals with meanings in constrained ways, then we should figure out (in light of the constraints) what this faculty associates signals with.
Extended, the concerns go beyond simply determining constraints. The challenge involves acquiring a common language of meaning relating to learning and knowledge, and exploring how supporting processes (cognition and emotions) are influenced by communication models (linguistics) and the conduits that deliver information and knowledge (technology), in relation to views of learning (truth, objectivity, subjectivity, epistemology).
Media, Symbols, and Technology
While not quite in alignment with Vygotsky's (1986) assertion that language gives birth to thought, Bandura (1986) stated, power of thought resides in the human capability to represent events and their interrelatedness in symbolic form (p. 455). Media, language, technology, and symbols are devices that enable humans the capacity to externalize the nebulous elements of private thought. The externalization of thought is an important concept to consider in light of traditional theories of learning largely emphasizing knowledge construction and cognition as primarily internal events (in the mind of individuals).
Education, as a process, has its origin in the earliest recordings of human activity. It is believed that foundational elements of communication or knowledge transmission had their origin in pictograms (Bowen, 1972a, p. 7) the attempt of people to express thought in physical form. Pictograms developed in complexity as determinatives were added to clarify ideas and eliminate ambiguity. Even in early recordings of thought and reasoning, the notion of ambiguity influenced activities of communicators. The potential that one concept may be represented, or be interpreted, in various ways is a foundational challenge that continues to drive attempts to communicate and share knowledge. Perspective and subjectivity, or at minimum interpretation, add complexity to dialogue-based processes, like learning.
The attempt to communicate also presented the continuing challenge of the imperfect nature of physical tools to express mental thought. Writing and visuals are conduits only partly able to properly reflect intended meanings and understanding held in the minds of individuals. Through symbols, we desire clarification. �The world of our experience must be enormously simplified and generalized before it is possible to make a symbolic inventory of all our experiences� (Sapir, as cited in Vygotsky, 1986).
Symbols and language have been key elements of the cycle of understanding for much of recorded history. More recently, media and technology have begun to play a central role in creating the constructs of understanding that house shared conceptions and experiences of individuals. McLuhan (1967) suggested, �societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication� (p. 8). The rapid growth of social-based technology tools creates an unprecedented opportunity for anyone with a computer and internet access to play the role of journalist, artist, producer, and publisher. If media truly does shape humanity, the changed nature of dialogue and information exposure created by the internet will have greater implications to our future than the nature of the content currently being explored. Much like tools shape potential tasks, the internet shapes opportunities for dialogue�outside of space and time�that were not available only a generation ago.
Cognition and Emotions
Wittgenstein�s rejection of meaning as internally-derived events opens the possibility that knowledge, learning, and other meaning-based activities are capable of being seen as �networked elements� (as cited in Bloor, 1983). Meaning that resides external to an individual�the aggregate, or at least reflection, of social processes�can be viewed as a node or element in learning and knowing structures. The importance of the shift from internal to external knowing is evident in the rise of the internet as a connected structure permitting the development of knowledge and learning, not simply data and information. The learning is the network.
Cognition is a function of the environment in which it occurs; that is it develops from social milieu (Vygotsky, 1986, p. 108). Cognition can be seen as an intricate series of interactions between external and internal elements. The environment strongly influences the nature of cognition. This element is particularly valuable in considering the design of physical and virtual spaces of learning.
While emotions have been criticized as subjective and, therefore, difficult to study or subject to reason (Lane & Nadel, 2000, p. 12), they play a central role in understanding learning and knowledge creation. Cognition, emotion, perception, and beliefs are knowledge creation and knowledge navigation enablers. Empirical processes have created significant knowledge growth and have elevated cognition above the softer aspects of emotion, perception, and belief (or faith). These latter elements, however, are strong contributors to the ongoing search for meaning, truth, and knowledge. Often, the soft elements are the entities that open doors of cognition. Intuition, while not as measurable and duplicable as empirical research, still plays a substantial role in fostering learning. Both cognition and beliefs are sources of knowledge. Reflection and metacognition (thinking about thinking) are often ignored in cognitive processes.
When we speak of improving our mind we are usually referring to the acquisition of information or knowledge, or to the type of thoughts own should have, and not to the actual functioning of the mind. We spend little time monitoring our own thinking and comparing it with a more sophisticated ideal. (Hueuer, 1999)
This admonition is particularly relevant in exploring assumptions about religion, education, learning, language, and teaching. Achieving a stage of knowing or conceptualizing, requires the formation of boundaries in our thinking, or defined beliefs, that enable subsequent decision making. Recognizing the hidden assumptions and deeper beliefs is important in moderating extrapolations that exceed the offerings of existing data or research (Occam�s razor).
Epistemology�What Does it Mean to Know?
Epistemology is concerned with the nature of knowledge and how we come to know things� (Driscoll, 2000, p. 12). While educators may question the practicality of exploring epistemology (preferring instead to focus on the act and process of instruction and learning in classrooms), perceptions of what it means to know and valid sources of knowledge greatly influence an educator�s approach to the learning process.
Major epistemological perspectives include:
1. Empiricism: the belief that knowledge is gained through senses,
2. Nativism: the belief that knowledge is innate or present in at birth,
3. Rationalism: the belief that knowledge is a function of reason. (Driscoll, 2000, p. 13)
These three structures of valid knowledge sources provide the basis for reflecting on what it means to learn or know. Educational theories and models built on these views of knowledge. Assumptions of what it means to know drives approaches to learning creation. This concept is explored in greater detail in the section on Learning Theories.
The concept of what qualifies for appropriate descriptions of knowledge is referenced in research theory, religion, and philosophy. As an expression for ways of being and knowing, qualitative and quantitative models are the most prominent. Table 1 indicates the main epistemological elements contained within each theory (Glesne, 1999, p.6, and Palys, 2003, p.15).
Table 1. Ways of Knowing
Qualitative | Quantitative | |
Other terms | Interpretivist, phenomenological, inductive, constructionist, idealism | Positivism, realism, deductive, objectivism, realism |
Emphasis | Process, perceptions, meaning | Causes, effects, inputs |
Validity | Closeness to participants, personal involvement | Detached, objective, analytical |
Purpose of Research | Verstehen—behaviour in context, understanding, interpretation | Ability to predict, causal explanations |
What is the Role of Theory
Researchers eek out small gains of knowledge from existing grand theories rather than explore new areas not covered by existing theories (Glaser & Straus, 1967, � 6). Theory serves a dual purpose of explaining phenomena (or more accurately, sense and meaning making) and of providing guidance for decision making or action. Sutton and Shaw suggested theory is about the connections among phenomena (p. 378). Theory provides a link between knowledge and implementation. Karl Weick chides specific solution-focused theory formations as inappropriate, as the intent of a theory is primarily a struggle with sensemaking (10).
Educational technology is replete with theories. Some adapted from previous models (behaviourism, cognitivism, constructivism), blended theories[1], emerging theories (connectivism), and related views of networked learning (Wikipedia, 2006). Blended and emerging theories counterbalance established theories in pursuing a theory in line with the nature of the society it purports to support. Tools change people. We adapt based on new affordances. To rely on a theory that ignores the networked nature of society, life, and learning is to largely miss the point of how fundamentally our world has changed.
Learning Theories
Three prominent learning theories seek to provide insight into the act of learning: behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism. Each of these theories has numerous subsets (social cognitivism, social constructivism). Gredler (2005) listed two separate theories: (a) interactionist, based on Gagne's learning conditions and Bandura's social-cognitive theory, and (b) developmental-interactionists, based on Piaget's cognitive development and Vygotsky's cultural-historical theories (p. 20). For the purposes of this paper, learning theories are cast as they link to the epistemological structures listed previously. The three dominant theories (behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism) are closely aligned with empiricism, nativism, and rationalism (see Table 2).
Table 2. Forms of Knowledge
Objectivism | Pragmatism | Interpretivism | |
Epistemology | Empiricism | Nativism | Rationalism |
Source of knowledge | Experience | Reason and experience | Reason |
How do we acquire knowledge? | Objective, external, sensory experience | Knowledge is interpreted, reality exists, but mediated through symbols and signs | Reality is internal and (like knowledge) is constructed through thought |
Where does knowledge reside? | In the individual—but reflected through external, observable actions | In the individual | In the individual, in the context of environments |
Learning theorists | Skinner, Thorndike, Pavlov, Watson | Vygotsky, Bandura, Bruner, Ausubel, Gagne | Bandura, Piaget, Bruner, Dewey |
Learning theories | Behaviourism | Cognitivism/constructivism | Constructivism |
Note: Table adapted from: Driscoll (2000, p.17).
Behaviourists are largely concerned with the outcome, or observable elements of learning. Behaviourists see learning as a black box (Driscoll, 2000, p. 35). Instead of focusing on the internal mental activities, behaviourists focus on observable behaviour (Gredler, 2005, p. 28). Behaviour is managed through a process of strengthening and weakening of responses. Key theorists in behaviourism include: Pavlov, Watson, Skinner, Thorndike (Gredler, p. 29, Driscoll, p. 19).
Cognitivists, to varying degrees, have posited a structured view of learning that includes the model of a computer (input, encoding, storage, outcome), a staged process of development, and schematic views of knowledge, with learning being the act of classifying or categorizing new knowledge and experiences. Cognitivists see learning as information processing. The computer is often used as a metaphor for learning (Driscoll, 2000, p. 75). Sensory input is managed in short-term memory and coded for retrieval in long-term memory. Situated cognition, the view that thought is a function of, or adaptation to, the environment in which the thinking (or learning) occurs (p. 154), and schema theory, the view that meaningful learning (p. 116) is a process of subsumption in an internal hierarchy of concepts, are extensions of basic cognitivism. Piaget and Vygotksy are sometimes classified as cognitivits (Gredler, 2005, pp. 264 & 304; Driscoll, pp. 183 & 219). Other cognitivists include Bruner, Gagne, and Ausubel.
Constructivism is a frustratingly vague concept. The Centre for Research on Networked Learning and Knowledge Building (n.d.) suggested, constructive theory of learning, generally, has not at all become more specific or articulated or gained any increased explanatory power or unification. There has not been any progressive problem shift after the 80s but a continuation of a very general and ideologically colored discussion. (2)
Constructivists hold learning to be a process of active construction on the part of the learner. Learning occurs as the learners attempt to make sense of their experiences (Driscoll, p. 376). The roots of constructivism can be found in the epistemological orientation of rationalism, where knowledge representations do not need to correspond with external reality (p. 377). Adherents to constructivism borrow heavily from theorists previously mentioned: Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner (Dabbagh, 2005; Driscoll, 2000).
Learning theories and theorist classifications are contradictory. For example, Driscoll (2000) listed Bruner as a pragmatist/cognitivist, while Dabbagh (2005) listed him as a constructivist. New entrants into this space quickly find a convoluted mix of psychology, philosophy, and theory pop-culture. Discerning theories with underlying assumptions of learning is challenging. Particularly confusing is the theory of constructivism, which researchers tend to treat as a banner under which to fly numerous aspects and new views. It has come to mean everything, anything, and nothing. While not as acerbic, Driscoll stated, there is no single constructivist theory of instruction. Rather, there are researchers in fields from science education to educational psychology and instructional technology who are articulating various aspects of constructivist theory (p. 375). Additionally, it may be unclear whether constructivism is actually a theory or a philosophy (p. 395).
Challenges to Existing Learning Theories
To qualify as a well-constructed theory, four elements must exist (Gredler, 2005, p. 12): (a) clear assumptions and beliefs about the object of the theory, (b) key terms are clearly defined, (c) development of principles from assumptions, and (d) explanation of underlying psychological dynamics of events related to learning.
Instead of modeling our knowledge structures as hierarchical or flat, confined belief spaces, the view of networks enables the existence of contrasting elements selected on the intent of a particular research or learning activities. If the silos of traditional knowledge classification schemes are more fluid, perhaps the individual elements of different theories can be adopted, as required, to solve more nuances of learning problems. When the theory does not require adoption in its fullest (i.e, interpretivism or positivism), the task of seeking knowledge becomes more salient.
Wittgenstein's assertion that there can be no private language (as cited in Bloor, 1983) and Vygotsky's (1989) notion that thought requires expression are misinterpreted to place emphasis on the external environment as a mirror or reflection required for knowledge to occur, or be transmitted. While the external environment is critical, both Vygotsky and Wittgenstein mistook the environment for the space in which thought gains life, when in reality, the external environment is an additional space for knowledge, thought, expression, and reflection. As an extension of humanity, the external is in itself a space in which we exist, rather than an environment in which our words find existence. When objects and other external entities are viewed as extension of humanity, the notion of learning as a network formation process becomes more palatable. If knowledge exists in external structures of similar nature, as it exists physically within our minds (distributed, neurologically), then it is possible to ascribe knowledge and learning attributes to the distributed nature of networks formed between people.
Additional support of the concept of knowledge (and learning) existing outside of the human mind is found in vision research. We suggest that the objects of thought, the very things upon which mental processes directly operate, are not always inside the brain. The cognitive processing that gives rise to mental experience may be something whose functioning cuts across the superficial physical boundaries between brain, body, and environment. (Spivey, Richardson, & Fitneva, 2004, p. 178)
The challenge of theory comparison and analysis rests in the point of focus. Much like any element in society, the aspect that the viewer is focused on determines the nature of the conclusion, as well as defines the capacity to see what exists. Integrated, holistic views of theories and the particular functions they serve is often lacking. Wittgenstein's rejection of meaning as internally-derived events (as cited in Bloor, 1983), opens the possibility that knowledge, learning, and other meaning-based activities are capable of being seen as networked elements. Meaning that resides external to an individual, the aggregate, or at least reflection, of social processes, can be viewed as a node or element in learning and knowing structures. The importance of the shift from internal to external knowing is evident in the rise of the internet as a connected structure, which permits the development of knowledge and learning, not simply data and information. The learning is the network.
One of the limiting features of much thought with regard to learning, understanding, and behaviour is the inclination to take a deliberate one-sided view of the concern. Human functioning (and the very act of cognition) is difficult to reduce to simple representations. A holistic view and model of cognition and learning is required, one which addresses emotions, thoughts, language, symbols, circumstances, morality, and environment.
Various theories present knowledge as an internal state of being in relation to knowledge as an internal or external object. Edwin Hutchins (2000) suggested that "It does not seem possible to account for the cognitive accomplishments of our species by reference to what is inside our heads alone. One must consider the cognitive roles of the social and material world. The distributed cognition perspective aspires to rebuild cognitive science from the outside in, beginning with the social and material setting of cognitive activity, so that culture, context, and history can be linked with the core concepts of cognition."
Hierarchies of knowledge have been created to demarcate elements commonly described as knowledge or information. Liebowitz (1999) cited the work of Tobin in structuring a four-tier hierarchy: data (+ relevance + purpose) = information (+ application) = knowledge (+ intuition + experience) = wisdom (p. 1-5). Wisdom is the upper echelon of most conceptions of thought and knowledge, but, as Burke (2000) noted, wisdom must be learned more or less painfully by each individual (p. 12). Other knowledge conceptions (Siemens, 2005) suggest the highest level in the hierarchy is meaning, the comprehension of nuances and implications of knowledge. Moving wisdom to the domain of the internal introduces similar challenges addressed by Wittgenstein (as cited in Bloor, 1983) and Vygotsky (1986), namely, how can something that is exclusively internal have life or meaning?
Change Drivers Requiring a New Theory
Problems emerge when new findings are pressed into immediate service, while the academic routines on which they depend remain unchanged (Baumeister, 2005, Academic Teaching section, 2)
Understanding of Learning
We are growing in our understanding of learning. Research in neuroscience, theories of social-based learning, and developments in learning psychology create new understanding of the act, and process, of learning. As Downes (2006) stated, Learning occurs in communities, where the practice of learning is the participation in the community. A learning activity is, in essence, a conversation undertaken between the learner and other members of the community. This conversation, in the web 2.0 era, consists not only of words but of images, video, multimedia and more. This conversation forms a rich tapestry of resources, dynamic and interconnected, created not only by experts but by all members of the community, including learners. (Network Pedagogy section, 6)
Pace of Knowledge Growth
Most individuals require little evidence to support the rapid growth of knowledge, they feel it in their daily lives. A University of California, Berkeley (2003) study on information growth found a 75% increase in two years. Information and knowledge are tightly linked; as information grows so does our knowledge.
Development of Technology (Ubiquity)
Technology is mobile, embedded, transparent, and ubiquitous. Continual access to technology requires different vetting processes for knowledge. Consider how television news differs from video created by an amateur at the scene of an accident. Higher levels of trust are generally assigned to formal news programs. However, as exemplified by the growth of online video sites like YouTube, the personable, first-hand account of amateur video has significant appeal.
The persistent advancement of technology adds complexity to how knowledge is organized, created, and managed. Business executives are constantly connected to their office. Technical workers have mobile access to detailed database to assist with onsite work. Farmers rely on advanced soil testing in determining seeding, and then utilize GPS when planting and harvesting. Few areas of life remain unaffected.
Expectations of Students (Net Generation)
When students enter educational spaces today, they do so with a different mindset from even a few years ago. Video games, mobile phones, instant messaging, and online social networking have been constant for many teenagers. Through the use of blogs and wikis at the secondary school level, these learners are entering higher education with expectations sure to be unmet.
In Educating the Net Generation, Diana and James Oblinger (2004) offered a detailed overview of today's learners: digitally literate, constantly connected, socially-driven, engaged, visually-driven, and a host of additional pronounced characteristics. Simply stated, today's learners are different.
The Great Complexification
Weinberger (2005) presented complexification as a defining aspect of knowledge today. We are now able, through an abundance of social tools, to produce and create content previously requiring a substantial investment. Broadcasting ideas in text, audio, and video
is a fairly simple process. As a result, any issue can be explored and dissected form numerous angles. Even simple viewpoints can be complexified through the multiple viewpoints of the masses.
While blogs, wikis, podcasts, and social bookmarking are receiving much attention, the real point of interest lies not in the tools themselves, but in what the growth of the tools represents and what the tools enable. Primary affordances include: (a) two-way flow, and (b) activities reflective of networked activities of individuals
Making sense of this complex conversation requires a shift to alternative models of management. It is at this stage that technology is beginning to play its greatest role; one that will continue to grow in prominence as knowledge grows in complexity. Learning, augmented by technology, permits the assimilation and expression of knowledge elements in a manner that enables understanding not possible without technology.
Emerging Philosophy of Knowledge, Learning, and Knowing
Philosophies of what it means to know are emerging in reaction to the developments in technology and society. Stephen Downes (2005) offers a view of knowledge beyond traditional classifications as listed in Table 1.
You probably grew up learning that there are two major types of knowledge: qualitative and quantitative. Distributed knowledge adds a third major category to this domain, knowledge that could be described as connective. A property of one entity must lead to or become a property of another entity in order for them to be considered connected; the knowledge that results from such connections is connective knowledge.
According to Downes (2005), connective knowledge networks possess four traits:
Diversity | Is the widest possible spectrum of points of view revealed? |
Autonomy | Were the individual knowers contributing to the interaction of their own accord, according to their own knowledge, values and decisions, or were they acting at the behest of some external agency seeking to magnify a certain point of view through quantity rather than reason and reflection? |
Interactivity | Is the knowledge being produced the product of an interaction between the members, or is it a (mere) aggregation of the members’ perspectives? |
Openness | Is there a mechanism that allows a given perspective to be entered into the system, to be heard and interacted with by others? |
What About Technology?
While still in early stages of development, technology is permitting new ways of seeing information and the impact of interactions. As discussed earlier, rapid knowledge growth requires off-loading the internal act of cognition, sense and meaning making, and filtering to a network consisting of human and technology nodes. As a simple example, the popular tag feature of many sites (del.icio.us, digg.com, flickr), enable pattern recognition that captures the activities of thousands or millions of individuals. As knowledge complexifies, patterns not individual elements become of greatest importance in gaining understanding.
What Makes Connectivism a Theory?
Mergel (1998) cited Ertmer's and Newby's five definitive questions to distinguish learning theory (Distinguishing One Learning section, � 1):
How does learning occur?
What factors influence learning?
What is the role of memory?
How does transfer occur?
What types of learning are best explained by this theory? (2)
Table 3. Learning Theories
Property | Behaviourism | Cognitivism | Constructivism | Connectivism |
How does learning occur? | Black box—observable behaviour main focus | Structured, computational | Social, meaning created by each learner (personal) | Distributed within a network, social, technologically enhanced, recognizing and interpreting patterns |
Influencing factors | Nature of reward, punishment, stimuli | Existing schema, previous experiences | Engagement, participation, social, cultural | Diversity of network |
What is the role of memory? | Memory is the hardwiring of repeated experiences—where reward and punishment are most influential | Encoding, storage, retrieval | Prior knowledge remixed to current context | Adaptive patterns, representative of current state, existing in networks |
How does transfer occur? | Stimulus, response | Duplicating knowledge constructs of “knower” | Socialization | Connecting to (adding) nodes |
Types of learning best explained | Task-based learning | Reasoning, clear objectives, problem solving | Social, vague (“ill defined”) | Complex learning, rapid changing core, diverse knowledge sources |
Controversy exists as to the primacy of memory in the learning process—especially when many technology tools are more effective at retrieval than we are. Memory is not as static as theorists present in views of learning. Memory involves a recalling and reconstruction. New experiences influence existing memory. Visiting childhood homes and play areas often reveals a dramatically different space than what was remembered. Memory is perhaps most prominent in cognitivism, where input, encoding, storage (in memory), and recall (from memory) are critical in the design process.
The concept of transfer is loaded, with educators and cognitive scientists questioning if knowledge can be transferred or simply created, constructed, or shared. It is important to note that most learning theories overlap. For clarification, it is important to briefly consider connectionism in contrast with connectivism. Connectionism is based in behaviourism (Thorndike, as cited in Kearsley, n.d.), where learning occurs as we form links between stimulus and response. Connectionism, in terms of neuro/cognitive science, is focused on neural networks—the manner in which we learn—contrasted with previous views of learning as information processing (Garson, 2002).
Connectivism shares some traits of the cognitive science view of connectionism—the view that learning is a process of network formation. Connectionism is only focused with learning that happens in our heads. Connectivism is focused on the process of forming and creating meaningful networks that may include technology-mediated learning, acknowledges learning that occurs when we dialogue with others, i.e., we collect knowledge in our friends (Stephenson, n.d.) and such. Connectivism is strongly focused on the linking to knowledge sources not simply trying to explain how knowledge is formed in our own heads.
The more rapidly knowledge develops the less likely it will be that we will possess all knowledge internally. The interplay of network, context, and other entities (many which are external) results in a new approach or conception of learning. The active creation of our own learning networks is the actual learning, as it allows us to continue to learn and benefit from our network compared to a course which has a set start and end date.
Conclusion
After decades of molding existing theories to changed environments, continual revisions, in the face of dramatic change in knowledge, society, and technology, form the foundation of a needed change in how we perceive learning. Our views of learning, as the basis of a new approach to designing and fostering learning, are most useful when they are in line with the changed environment.
For many, the debate of changed modes of learning does not require an explicit statement. They sense it in their work, how they communicate, and how they learn. These individuals are not focused on what, if anything, has changed theoretically. They are asking different questions than we are attempting to answer with dated theories.
Our obligation as educators requires a solid focus on emerging trends, while not succumbing to distracting fads. Our desire to connect,to externalize, is a vital component of the learning process. Instead of merely developing learners for careers, we have an obligation to create a learning ecology where learners are able to shape their own meaning. Where we fail to react to changes, learners will pursue alternatives. The creation of a sound theory of learning provides the basis of learning and societal functioning. Knowledge growth, emerging research (in neuroscience and artificial intelligence), new philosophies of knowing, and growing complexity requiring distributed knowing and sense making are no longer sufficiently attended to by the broad theories of learning prominent in past education. An alternative is needed. Whether connectivism plays this role is irrelevant. Of most importance is that educators are reflecting on how learning has changed and the accompanying implications to how we design the spaces and structures of learning today.
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