#1. Reeves ends by making the relevance – rigor distinction to be an individual choice, but they are 2 different things.

Rigor refers to the validity of one’s claims; how much do I believe the answers to the questions you are asking.  The type of rigor Reeves talks of is great for some types of questions, but there are many many other worthwhile questions and the validity of the methods we use to answer them are also different.  Every answer we need is not always answered best by a double blind random controlled trial.

Relevance refers to the resonance between the research and the contexts in which we want to use that knowledge.  Relevance comes from research that is part of a larger societal conversation.  The problem with a lack of research relevance is caused by a lack of a research conversation as to what the problems are and how best to address them.  Empirical evidence can’t replace sense-making conversations, but this is what positivist research attempts.

#2. If you look only at a narrow range of positivist research you can  see a relevance rigor distinction in this way.  As you control for confounding variables in a study, the more laboratory like it becomes,  the less it relates to settings where confounding variables are in play.  This is also the reason that much positivist research knowledge is of questionable use.  I think we need 2 things.  Many different types of research looking at a problem in different ways and we also need a collaborative and transformative conversation that brings different research and different ideas together and makes sense of them.  It is this sense-making that helps research resonate for many different people and makes this knowledge useable in differing contexts.  It is my hope that things like this MOOC can serve as the infrastructure for such a transformative conversation.  It is not that Reeves is wrong in specifics, but he is missing the transformative possibilities because of his narrow range of focus.

All of this reminds me of Richard Rorty’s early experiences in philosophy as he explains in the following:

An excerpt from: ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY AND TRANSFORMATIVE PHILOSOPHY;  RICHARD RORTY   November 10, 1999

When in 1950 I sat starry-eyed at Carnap’s feet, I actually believed that by the end of the twentieth century philosophers around the world would be bedecking their articles with quantifiers, talking the same ideally perspicuous language, trying to solve the same puzzles, adding bricks to the same edifice. But during my years at Princeton, watching the winds of doctrine veer about, and last yearns urgent new philosophical puzzles wither and die in the blast, I realized this scenario was unlikely to be played out in even a single university, much less on a global scale. Still, the realization that my Princeton colleagues no more agreed about when a brick had been added to the edifice of knowledge than about what counted as an important philosophical problem did not diminish my growing conviction the best of the analytic philosophers have done a lot for the transformation of the human self-image.

In various books and articles I have tried to tell a story about how the linguistic turn in philosophy both made it possible for the heirs of Kant to come to terms with Darwin and encouraged an anti-representationalist line of thought which chimes with Nietzsche’s perspectivalism and with Dewey’s pragmatism. This line of thought, running through the later Wittgenstein, as well as through the work of Sellars and Davidson, has given us a new way of thinking about the relation between language and reality. Thinking in this way may, at long last, do what the German idealists vainly hoped to do: it may persuade us to end discussion of tiresome pseudo-problems about the relation of subject and object, and of appearance to reality.

These analytic philosophers, I would argue, can help us get philosophy back on the Hegelian, historicist, romantic, path. This is the path that nineteenth-century neo-Kantians , Husserlian phenomenologists, and the founders of analytic philosophy all hoped to block off. The story I have tried to tell elsewhere about how analytic philosophy tried and failed to avoid taking this path culminates in the claim that human beings can, with the help of Wittgenstein, Sellars and Davidson on the one hand, and Heidegger, Foucault and Derrida on the other, get away from the old idea that there is something outside of human beings—something like the Will of God, or the Intrinsic Nature of Reality—which has authority over human beliefs and actions. It is a story about how certain intuitions we inherit from the Greeks can be undermined and replaced, rather than systematized. Whether or not one accepts or likes this story, it is a story of transformation, a story of the sort that Kierkegaard could acknowledge as having ethico-religious import (even though its import is radically atheistic).

My story, in short, is not about how to avoid analytic philosophy, but rather about why you need to study certain selected analytic philosophers in order fully to appreciate the transformative possibilities which the intellectual movements of the twentieth century have opened up for our descendants. The disciplinary matrix of analytic philosophy, despite the hollow defensive rhetoric with which it resounds, is one with which future intellectual historians will have to become familiar, just as they have had to become familiar with the disciplinary matrix of German idealism.

Intellectual capital (IC) has been touted as important to knowledge intensive situations and organizations, but these authors find that traditional management approaches can be self-defeating to the appropriate functioning of IC.  Organizational ecology should nurture IC shifting from directing to enabling exploration that seeks innovation and discovery.  It is somewhat similar to a recent HBR podcast featuring Robert Kaplan suggesting that leaders cannot possible know everything including the right questions to ask about their business.  Instead leaders need to seek out, enable, listen to, and appropriate the analysis of junior partners around them if they desire the best in analysis and direction.

The solution is to change management structures where necessary.  Jon Husband, writing at the Management Innovation eXchange (MIX) makes this suggestion.

We need to revisit the fundamental principles of work design AND the basic rules used to configure hierarchical organizations in which the primary assumption is that knowledge is put to use in a vertical chain of decision-making.  I am not arguing that we need to replace hierarchy holus-bolus. Rather, I am suggesting that the capabilities of information systems combined with social computing capabilities and two decades of experience with team development and organizational development processes can permit centralization (read hierarchy) where and when necessary, and networked configurations where and when necessary … both centralization and decentralization.

1. How to justify practice from an evidence-based perspective
2. The importance of artists and artistic environments in building creative learning environments.

Patrick Dunn alerted me to an issue of The Journal of Business Strategy that explores artists and business innovation.  This is a comment I left on his blog in response to the opening article by Nessley (Arts-based learning at work: economic downturns, innovation upturns, and the eminent practicality of arts in business).

I don’t think the value of the arts can be expressed in a linear fashion as in Nissley’s examples. My belief is that many innovations do not come out of nowhere, but are expressions of a zeitgeist. That is, many different innovations in different parts of the culture share parts of an internal structure or nature. Artists are important for innovation because they live on the edge of this zeitgeist; constantly testing its forms and limits. This zeitgeist spreads across disciplines like a meme, sowing the seeds of innovation. The arts become important for business when business is exposed to this spread and can adopt portions for its own innovation. It’s the artistic environment that’s needed, exposure to the thinking of people on the edge. It should be part of the regular business environment because it may be the 100 iteration of a particular portion of the zeitgeist that finally lights the needed spark.

I think business innovators, entrepreneurs and artist are all cut from a similar mold and all can be valuable contributors to an edge environment. It is an edgy environment that is important, not a Picasso on the wall or the thousandth rendition of a Beethoven piece.

More on this after a bit more research.

For instance, Hagel Brown & Davison tell us to get ourselves connected into knowledge flows, but what does this mean.  What I think they mean is that we need to be in environments and networks that allow our thinking to sense and be open to the expressions of many other people.  It applies to digital networks as well as in our physical surroundings.  In fact, since we are not digital devices, our digital networks need to be integrated into our physical personal and cognitive spaces.  Instead of thinking only of knowledge flows, think of physical environs, their cognitive predispositions, their diversity, their intellectual richness and their digital connection to people in similar environs.

Metaphors actively shape our thinking.  I don’t think of connectivism as being opposed to the first mentioned perspectives with which I began this post, but I do think of connectivism as a new and important metaphorical perspective.  Connectivism should help these perspectives to be understood in new ways that are directly applicable to our daily practices.  In the end, it is like Wittgenstein suggested: the meaning of connectivism, or any other perspective on thinking and learning for that matter, is not to be found in a philosophical discussion.  Rather, it is found in the way that it relates to and helps us to better our everyday practices and the ways that we go about relating to each other.

Most human practices, like management or education, have a social interactive foundation.  (Managers manage and collaborate with people and educators guide their development.)  Consequently the insights of psychotherapy, the most studied of all interactive processes, are usually very relevant; as is this book.  Gelso’s premise is that a tripartite relational foundation underlies successful therapeutic change: (1)The working relationship (agreements instrumental to completing the task at hand), (2) transference ["a client's experience of the therapist that is shaped by the client's own psychological (and social historical based) structure"] and counter-transference (the effect of the therapist’s psychological and social historical based structure), and (3) the real relationship.  He defines the real relationships as:

(T)he personal relationship existing between two or more persons as reflected in the degree to which each is genuine with the other and perceives and experiences the other in ways that befit the other.  . . . In the strongest real relationships persons communicator genuinely with one another, and are willing to let themselves be known deeply, and perceive and experience the other realistically, to an important extent (p. 58).  . . . the theory is bidirectional and represents a two person psychology (p.60).

This makes sense to me.  We have very nuanced relational capabilities and we need to seek collaborative relationships that maximize people’s potential, not seek simple command and control structures that have been shown to be inadequate.  This fits in with the ideas in the real relationship.

Gelso sees the strengthening of the real relationship as involving disclosure (he says relevance is more important than the amount of disclosure) and empathy.  The real relation is presented as critical, but it exist alongside the other two and does not necessarily subsume the other two.  To me this means that:

1. You need to agree on and clarify your purpose for working together.
2. You need to be careful regarding your own biases and what you project onto others.
3. But, success in working with others may depend on putting together a deeper dialogue and relationship.

This question was originally prompted by Peter Thiel (PayPal)  suggestion that people drop out of school and start companies.  George backgrounds his ideas by contrasting 2 thoughts:

The higher education model is antediluvian, it is no longer aligned with the information and knowledge ecology in which it exists (see Reinventing Knowledge and Reconstructing the University for more detail on this line of thinking). The fatal logic in education-abolisher’s, like Thiel, thinking is that a broken system is an unneeded system. Higher education needs to change. It needs to be more effective, more flexible, more cost-effective, more equitable (in terms of access), and aligned with the knowledge structures and spaces of today’s society. However, as Edgar Morin states (.pdf) the purpose of education is to prepare each individual for “the vital combat for lucidity”. Thiel’s model doesn’t achieve this. When we learn, we are not only fulfilling a responsibility to ourselves but to society and to the future. This learning need not be formal, but it needs to be broad, diverse, and non-utilitarian…i.e. not learning only to achieve a task or get a job but learning in order to increase our capacity for greater future options (or, for that matter, to become a better person).

I disagree with Morin, who’s first statement is:

The purpose of education is to transmit knowledge. . .

This puts us into Ann Sfard’s two metaphors of learning, the Acquisition and Participation Metaphors.  Sfard’s metaphoric analysis does not go sufficiently deep for this discussion.  The acquisition metaphor must assume that knowledge is stored in memory to be drawn upon and adapted to the context (transferred) when needed.  I have to research this more, but I don’t think cognitive psychology supports this aspect.  The acquisition metaphor still has some use, but this severely limits that use.

The  participation metaphor is based on Situated Learning Theory, which is based on Vygotsky’s idea of activity as the primary unit of analysis.  (Wittgenstein’s thoughts also support this view.)  Community participation is usually the location of that activity, but activity is the psychological and education unit to which attention should be paid.  Most of the criticisms Sfard makes of the participation metaphor do not hold up if you properly place activity at the center of that analysis.

Morin’s “combat for lucidity” happens in communicative actions.  Even in soliloquy, we posit an “Other” to which our active  is directed.  This is why my first response to George was to Quote Evans & Mackey in this comment to his blog post:

I would like to see universities organize around greater flexibility in learning communities so this (college vs. entrepreneurial activity) does not become an either or question. I noted Terry Evan and Julie Mackey’s article in IRRODL’s Special Issue on Connectivism

where they say:

(The) insular view of community, bounded by course curriculum and timelines, is problematic for professional learning and highlights a tension between the underlying philosophical stance and the pedagogies adopted by universities. A central tenet of sociocultural epistemologies is that learning is vitally situated within the context of its development and that “understanding and experience are in constant interaction” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 51). As Lave and Wenger (1991) describe in their theory of social practice, there is a “relational interdependency of agent and world, activity, meaning, cognition, learning, and knowing” (p. 1).

Higher Education needs to be re-structured so that it is imbedded to support our ongoing activities.  This fits with social-cultural, situated and connectivist perspectives, it fits with Hagel, Brown and Davison’s Pull metaphor of learning and it is not against Thiel’s idea at least from a learning theory perspective.  And ultimately, this question cannot be answered without referencing a theory about how we learn.  Why must you study than do instead of studying and doing as an integrated activity.

Again I am left with the impression that Higher Educations past is based on developing an educated class; creating a class distinction.  Morin’s lucidity was not practiced except in activity and that activity was valued by the educated class.  The value of education and lucidity of thought was the separation it created from the rest of the population, a difference that disappears as more and more of the population becomes educated.  If you want that distinction now you’ll need Harvard, Yale or Stanford, and maybe even not than.

How will Higher Education create value, how will it become worth it?

To answer this question, it is time to move to another metaphor.  From the idea of education creating a difference of thought to a difference of action.

Three Generations of Distance Education Pedagogy by Terry Anderson and Jon Dron

Interconnecting Networks of Practice for Professional Learning by Terry Evans & Julie Mackey

I see these 2 articles as related.  First, Terry A. & Jon have a great insight, that the design of distance education has been driven by technological development, but I don’t think they takes it far enough.  There is substantial infrastructure and 19th Century technology dedicated to higher education, but the technological infrastructure of distance education has pretty much been just bolted on to that traditional infrastructure.  The changing needs of learning cannot be met with the infrastructure of the past.  Many of the limitations of connectivism that Terry A & Jon presents are rooted in the fact that connectivist networks are not yet well developed.  Many of the participants in those courses do not interact outside of the course, making it necessary to re-create an interactive network for each implimentation.  Imagine if the entire university infrastructure had to be re-created for each course.

Terry E & Julie discuss a similar problem in the way that Higher education is organized by pointing out the philosophical contradiction between social cultural / situated learning beliefs.

A problem with institutional perspectives of socially constructed learning is that the zone of interaction is usually confined to the online course community.  . . . This insular view of community, bounded by course curriculum and timelines, is problematic for professional learning and highlights a tension between the underlying philosophical stance and the pedagogies adopted by universities. A central tenet of sociocultural epistemologies is that learning is vitally situated within the context of its development and that “understanding and experience are in constant interaction” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 51). As Lave and Wenger (1991) describe in their theory of social practice, there is a “relational interdependency of agent and world, activity, meaning, cognition, learning, and knowing” (p. 1).

The biggest challenge in redefine the integration of working and learning is to change the traditionally idea that learning and working are separate activities.  Learning happens in the university and is separated from work activities.  That is no longer the case today.  Another problem is the growing gap between the knowledge services higher education offers and the knowledge needs of professional practices.  Hagle, Brown & Davison (The Power of Pull) state that the pace of change is outpacing our knowledge infrastructure.  Their advocacy of pull learning models could be implemented by professional communities supported by higher education and online services in a connectionist pedagogy, but traditional practices in higher education seem hard to break.  All of these issues can be related to the 19th Century infrastructure of the university as compared to today’s changing learning needs.

So what would make more sense.  The basic technology and web infrastructure are already available and waiting to be appropriated by professional dialogic communities of practice and inquiry.  The infrastructure we lack is the organization of professional communities that would be a natural home for professional learning.  I do believe that this also entails dovetailing the organization of universities and professional organizations with new digital infrastructure.  The university could act as a gateway to and an enabler of this community, but currently higher education remains separated from professional practice.  Students could be ligament peripheral participants in this community.  Knowledge development could be accelerated through cooperative interaction that is supported by advanced communication and mash-up applications.  One technological need is advanced filtering tools that will coordinate network activity and keep everyone in the flow of knowledge at their chosen and appropriate level.  Long-standing core participant will act as peer reviewers and validators of activity, except they will act in a dialogic fashion rather than current monologic practices.

Of course, this is all sometime in the future.  Here’s a great article about self-reinforcing powers in business management and there are just as a many barriers in higher education.  So, until that day finally dawns  -  May you live long and prosper!

The Challenges to Connectivist Learning on Open Online Networks: Learning Experiences during a Massive Open Online Course by Rita Kop

Referencing Sfard (1998) (I favorite article of mine), Rita points out that Connectivism is inline with the theories that expect learning to accrue through participation.  She points to the PLENK course (Personal Learning Environments and Network Knowledge) and to the struggle that some learners have with developing the participation skills to support their PLE.  Inline with the participatory idea, enabling Legitimate Peripheral Participation could solve these problems, but first we need to strengthen ongoing online learning communities.

I find it interesting that the largest block of leaders were 55 years of age and older.  Learning goals may have a significant impact on participation and it may be interesting to investigate individual participation goals further.

EduCamp Colombia: Social Networked Learning for Teacher Training by Diego Ernesto Leal Fonseca

Diego presents a case study that describes a successful workshop whose implementation was modeled after the concepts of a Personal Learning Environment, the Unconference, over the shoulder learning in software.  These are 3 concepts that I hope to study in more detail.  The article mentioned many practical aspects of organizing an event

The EduCamps have served as a testing ground for the exploration of ideas concerning the design of learning environments. The results suggest the experience has an important impact on the perception of attendees about technology and its possibilities as a learning tool, but there are questions that remain open.  . . . It is clear that the workshops have the potential to be a trigger for the development of a community of practice around the social software platforms explored, which helps participants to sustain and enhance the connections they create during the workshop. However, this potential currently remains unrealized.

Once again the question of how you can foster the development of professional ongoing online communities of learning remains an important question.

Frameworks for understanding the nature of interactions, networking, and community in a social networking site for academic practice by Grainne Conole, Rebecca Galley & Juliette Culver

Grainna, Rebecca & Juliette describe the application of a social networking site named Cloudworks.  The site has been used for workshops, courses, as a discussion space, to facilitate reading circles, for open reviews, to aggregate resources, to explore practice design, and to find expert consultations.  They were able to analyze site usage through 4 frameworks: Communities of Inquiry, Communities of Practice, Activity theory and Actor-network Theory.  What I would really like to are case studies where professional oriented learning communities move onto these types of platforms and how to strengthen and develop the potential of these communities through social applications.

I do dislike the way some people localize their skills (i.e. like saying I’m a right brained person) All activities use the whole brain; left and right. People who say they are “right brained” can also excel at many “left brained” activities and vice versa.

That participant responded saying:

Howard, what evidence do you have about the whole brain functioning? Can you please provide the scientific evidence or the anecdotal if there is such evidence?

And I am glad to respond which also forces me to elucidate and extend the grounding of my thoughts and you are right to ask for substantiation.  I will begin such an attempt here and welcome the opportunity to continue the conversation beyond this response.

Brain Systems, not Modules, as the  Basis for Complex Socially Relevant Behavior

#1 Studying of the localization of brain function is an important basis for neuropsychology, cognitive neuroscience, and many fmri studies.  Studying psychology in everyday function, however,  implies a different perspective; studying the brain as a system.  First, this is a different metaphoric take on the brain as stated by Churchland in this Scientific America article.

University of California, San Diego, philosopher of the mind Patricia S. Churchland . . . (states) “There are areas of specialization, yes, and networks maybe, but these are not always dedicated to a particular task.” Instead of mental module metaphors, let us use neural networks”.

Kevin N Ochsner and Matthew D Lieberman similarly state that the study of the human functioning requires the interdisciplinary study of brain systems (The Emergence of Social Cognitive Neuroscience, (2001). American Psychologist, 56 (#9), 717-734.)  They advocate for combining bottom-up studies (neuroscience) with top-down approaches (social cognitive).

As the field develops, one can expect a shift in the kinds of studies being conducted.  When little is known about the neural systems involved in a given form of behavior or cognition, initial studies may serve more to identify brain correlates for those phenomena than to test theories about how and why the phenomena occur.  . . . Ultimately, it will be important to move beyond brain-behavior correlations, but this can only happen when researchers in the field have built a baseline of knowledge about the brain systems underlying specific types of social or emotional processing (p.725).

(C)ognitive neuroscientists have historically used minimalist methodologies to study a few basic abilities with  little concern for the personal and situational conditions that elicit and influence them (bottom-up). . . . social psychology has historically been interested in a broad range of complex and socially relevant phenomena (top-down). . . In recent years, there has been increasing appreciation that top-down and bottom-up approaches cannot be researched independently because they are intimately linked to one another (p. 727-728).

The Effects of Pop-Psychology

# 2 Neuropsychological concepts and brain localization theories have entered mainstream pop-psychology, but these are complex topics and pop-psychology often miss-understands and miss-appropriates these concepts when they are used.  In example, someone recently told me that they aren’t right-brained types. What they mean is that they are effectively ceding what I view as a pan-human ability to be creative.  (This, in someways, is similar to Carol Dwick’s growth verses fixed intelligence argument.)  Neuropsychological tests may provide insight in clinical situations, but I believe the application of these insights to everyday activity should be my made with great care and under clinical supervision.  Similarly, fMRI studies provide great insight about the brain, but it is beyond scientific validity to apply many of these insights to complex social behavior.

Using Neuroscience for Rhetorical Purposes

# 3 I have read a couple of books that claim they are based on brain research, my latest read is Charles Jacob’s Management Rewired.  I generally like many of the ideas in this books (though most of the hard scholarly work remains to be done), but my regard is based on educational theory, not neuroscience.  When these type of books refer to neuroscience, I see them stretching beyond valid interpretations of the underlying science and their reference of neuroscience seems to be used mostly for rhetorical purposes.  To illustrate through another example, the general population’s belief in science is less skeptical than most scientists.  Hence, many newspaper articles will use the rhetorical device “studies show” to lend the authority of science to their views rather than allowing their views to stand on their own merit or by presenting actual scholarly work to support their position.  Similarly, I find that neuroscience is often similarly used rhetorically, to lend authority inappropriately.

Instead of Neuroscience, Look to Cognitive Mediation and Vygotsky’s Higher Mental Functions

Traditional psychology speaks to many of these issues.  For myself, I find that mind maps, graphic organizers and visual design processes help me to get ideas out into visual space and overcome cognitive limitations in my short-term memory.  This quote by D.A. Norman (1994) states it well. (Things that Make Us Smart)

Without external aids, memory, thought, and reasoning are all constrained.  But human intelligence is highly flexible and adaptive, superb at inventing procedures and objects that overcome its own limitations.  The real power come from devising external aids that enhance cognitive abilities (p.24).

Vygotsky called these aids mediators and their use, examples of higher mental functioning.  Vygotsky was interested in human functions which exist on a different level from natural or biological ones.  It is my belief that the complete neurological correlates of human functioning and thinking will not be found because human functioning is located in cultural settings.  ”Individual consciousness is built from the outside through relations with others”. (From Alex Kozulin’s introduction to Vygotsky’s (1934) Thought and Language).

Existing educational and psychological theory is adequate for improving human functioning and should serve as the basis of support until Social Cognitive Neuroscience development can be extended to functional activity.

Emergent Learning and Learning Ecologies in Web 2.0 by Roy Williams, Regina Karousou & Jenny Mackness

Roy et al state that the information age is being overtaken by the interactive age in that simple data transfer is now accompanied by interaction, collaboration and emergent learning.  There are questions that that these changes foreground: what structure and constraints support learning ecologies that can support this type of learning, how is the resulting knowledge validated and can prescriptive and emergent learning co-exist together.    There currently are institutions and frameworks that support web learning ecologies like Open Source and Creative Common Licensing, and cloud-based applications, but more pluralistic learning ecologies are needed.  These questions will continue to be at the forefront of building validity for Connectivist practices.

Connectivism: Its Place in Theory-informed Research and Innovation in Technology-Enabled Learning by Frances Bell

Frances states that Connectivism is not a sufficient stand-alone theory to guide a wide range of technology enabled learning projects, though he does acknowledge that we need new models for learning.  I would agree, but I don’t expect any theory to capture every perspective.  Instead I would look to include the ideas of other theories to expand upon and extend the ideas of Connectivism.  My personal belief is that many academic research projects that look into practices are based on rather narrow (and therefore weak) theoretical structures.  Strong structures are only developed by inter-relating multiple theories that address different levels and understandings of practice.  Many of these articles in this issue do just this type of theoretical development.

Note – Bell contrast blog supported Connectivism with Peer Review supports Actor_Network theory.  While this is basically correct, what it points to is the inadequate and slow moving nature of peer review, which is ill-suited to a fast moving interconnected world.  Peer review is more suited to the interests of the publishing industry and the academic hierarchy than it is in supporting knowledge building in connected world of practice.  Validation of knowledge is important, but new practices are needed beyond traditional peer review and publishing practices.

Proposing an Integrated Research Framework for Connectivism: Utilizing Theoretical Synergies by Bopelo Boitshwarelo

Bopelo moves on to connects other theories in a “functional synergistic relationship” with Connectivism.  Specifically he considers Design-based Research, Activity Theory and Communities of Practice (Situated Cognition).  Not only can these theories extend our understanding in Connectivism, but they also provide methodological examples for how to approach research.  He details a Connectivist informed case study, but I think that this study (based in the WebCT) might not be the best environment for evaluating Connectivism as most implementations of learning management systems are not recognized as the most innovative environments for collaborative web learning.

Dialogue and Connectivism: A New Approach to Understanding and Promoting Dialogue-rich Networked Learning by Andrew Ravenscroft

Andrew claim a social constructivist perspective, although I find his ideas include a broad understanding that includes a deep understanding of social cultural theory (Vygotsky), the dialogue theory (Bakhtin), and knowledge building (Beretier).

So this article argues for greater attention upon, and the pedagogical shaping of , the learning dialogue process within network learning spaces (and) . . .without a reworking of attested dialogue theory into more open and ambient pedagogies we will be less successful in converting mega-social interaction into mega-meaning making and learning.  . . .shouldn’t our endeavors still fully appreciate the role of language and dialogus as our oldest and arguably still most powerful semiotic System.

In my last post I mentioned Zhuge’s active dynamic nature of knowledge flows.  The root of these flows is also meaning-making or sense-making as discussed by theorist like Jerome Brunner.  In a quote of Bakhtin, Andrew points out that meaning, in the final analysis, is not a result of Hegalian logic, but rather comes from the clash of voices in dialogue.  I think this is compatible with Connectivism’s view of learning.

All theories are abstractions.  They hope to model concrete aspects of our world, but the abstract and the concrete never coincide.  This is the main point expressed by Jonah Lehler.  In the Wired Article The Mysterious Decline Effect, he says:

One of the philosophy papers that I kept on thinking about while writing the article was Nancy Cartwright’s essay “Do the Laws of Physics State the Facts?” Cartwright used numerous examples from modern physics to argue that there is often a basic trade-off between scientific “truth” and experimental validity, so that the laws that are the most true are also the most useless. “Despite their great explanatory power, these laws [such as gravity] do not describe reality,” Cartwright writes. “Instead, fundamental laws describe highly idealized objects in models.”  The problem, of course, is that experiments don’t test models. They test reality.

This is a pragmatist stance.  Connectivism is not true, but neither is any other theory.  It is a map of reality, but it is not reality.  When seeking pragmatic validity, our quest is to understand how it relates to other theories, as well as where and under what circumstances it can be considered useful.

#2 The Hermeneutic Relational Nature of Knowledge

My previous post discussed the hermeneutics circle, which seems that it might generally be consistent with the connectivist idea that we form new concepts by joining other concepts together in new ways.  A common place we see this is in the practices of designers using white spaces.  Ideas are placed on a wall or whiteboard and moved around in physical space in order to experiment combining these ideas in different and creative ways.  Similar practices are the increased use of mind maps, graphic organizers, and visualization in eduction.  It’s seems that these practices tap into visual cognition abilities, but I think it also implies how our functional cognition is organized.

I don’t think Connectivism’s description of these process is yet fully developed, but I do think it addresses these aspects of cognition better than previous theories.  As visualization practices increase, this aspect will become more important.

#3 The Dynamic Nature of Knowledge Flows

I am coming to believe that there is a sense in which peer interaction with other people helps us to construct useful knowledge.  The nature of how interaction helps us goes beyond general constructivist ideas to ideas that are better reflected in Connectivism.  This idea is also implied in The Pragmatic Web.

In contrast to the Syntactic Web and Semantic Web the Pragmatic Web is not only about form or meaning of information, but about social interaction which brings about e.g. understanding or commitments.

And also consider the Action Language Perspective on which the ideas surrounding the Pragmatic Web are based.

Language/Action Perspective (LAP) is based upon the notion as proposed by Terry Winograd that “expert behavior requires an exquisite sensitivity to context”

I’m thinking that knowledge is dynamic, not static, and that using knowledge entails appropriating it to the needs of oneself and one’s context.  When we tap into knowledge flows, we see knowledge at it’s most dynamic and we are also exposed to how others are appropriating that knowledge for their use.  Knowledge does not flow in a static form, but is constantly evolving.  Hai Zhuge speaks of this nature in scientific knowledge flows.

Scientists have developed many approaches to the static representation of knowledge, and to extracting, discovering, learning, and reasoning about it. However, knowledge is dynamic—it goes through human brains for knowing, invention, propagation, fusion, generalization, and problem solving.  . . .The knowledge flow network implicit in the citation network consists of knowledge flows between nodes that process knowledge, including reasoning, fusing, generalizing, inventing, and problem solving, by authors and co-authors. (Discovery of Knowledge Flow in Science, Communications of the ACM, May 2006/Vol. 49, No. 5)

Once again, connectivism may be better able to represent this aspect of knowing better than previous theories.