Reflection on Connectivism

In reading the material on connectivism and the work of Siemens (2004), I did found it slightly disconcerting to have my assumptions about knowledge and knowing challenged. I have been encouraged throughout my formal education to only seek and trust information provided by ‘experts’ and to avoid referring to any sources which offer unsolicited opinion not written or peer reviewed by academics.

However, when I look back at what I learned and what I have found useful in everyday life and my professional career, I can’t help but think that the truly valuable lessons were more about processes and methodologies than about content. Content knowledge and factual information can be found easily enough using a variety of media (e.g. web searches, print media, blogs etc.), but critical thinking and evaluation skills are what have allowed me to make sense of the vast array of informaiton available at the click of a button.

Although some content knowledge is invaluable, it seems that our assessment of students’ recall is designed more to facilitate easy marking than to assess true understanding. As an exercise in connectivism, it would be interesting to encourage learners to move the focus away from empirical knowledge (or finding ‘the’ right answer) to developing a network of information sources and evaluating the usefulness/application of each source.

References

Siemens, G. (2004). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm.