Connectivism

Video: George Siemens discusses Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (link below):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5-Wk2cwb68

Connectivism is also an important learning theory during this minor. The theory was developed by George Siemens (video above). Learning is not about knowing things, but more about knowing how to discover and mak the right connections with your mind between bits of information and by doing so 'creating' new information.

Nowadays, people have access to everything at anytime. For instance, information be found anywhere, therefore it is not necessary to have all the knowledge in your brain.

Principles of connectivism (George Siemens handbook):

• learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions
• learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes of information sources
• learning may reside in non-human appliances
• capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
• nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning
• ability to see connections between fields, ideas and concepts is a core skill
• currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities
• decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosinig what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shiftinig reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision

ePadagogy and its way to Constructivism

History of ePadagogy

Father of modern education- Jan Amos Komenský: Wikepedia

“If, in each hour, a man could learn a single fragment of some branch of knowledge, a single rule of some mechanical art, a single pleasing story or proverb (the acquisition of which would require no effort), what a vast stock of learning he might lay by. Seneca is therefore right when he says: “Life is long, if we know how to use it.” It is consequently of importance that we understand the art of making the very best use of our lives.”

John Amos Comenius (Czech: Jan Amos Komenský) (March 28, 1592 – November 15, 1670) was a Czech teacher, scientist, educator, and writer. He was one of the earliest champions of universal education, a concept eventually set forth in his book Didactica Magna. Comenius became known as the teacher of nations. He is often considered the father of modern education. Modern education is basically known as today’s term public education. Public education is offered for children of the general public and supported by the government.

Comenius was very much involved into children education.

“Not the children of the rich or of the powerful only, but of all alike, boys and girls, both noble and ignoble, rich and poor, in all cities and towns, villages and hamlets, should be sent to school.”

He was actually the first one to publish a children encyclopedia with pictures in it which is called Orbis Pictus The World Illustrated. As a result the current form of education where students are tutored with a combination of words and pictures started.

Comenius most important work was finished in 1632 and is usually called in English, The Great Ditactic. It explains how people learn and how they should be taught through the university.

“The proper education of the young does not consist in stuffing their heads with a mass of words, sentences, and ideas dragged together out of various authors, but in opening up their understanding to the outer world, so that a living stream may flow from their own minds, just as leaves, flowers, and fruit spring from the bud on a tree.” http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/comenius.html

Innovative potential of Comenius’ educational Principles

1. To teach the same things in a different manner (using all senses) From action to simple representation and thence to reflection

2. Idea of spontaneous development instead of suggested by adult authority

3. Activity when the pupil rediscovers or reconstructs truth by means of external, or internal mental, action consisting in experiment or independent reasoning

Comenius ideas are still UP TO DATE!!

“UNESCO and the heritage of Comenius”by Mr Federico Mayor,Director-General of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco)

“Today more than ever we need the imaginative and visionary capacity of a Comenius. Of course, it is scarcely possible from our present vantage point – which has seen among other things the virtual eclipse of totalitarian ideology in Europe – to found a Utopia on a metaphysician’s dream of total knowledge anymore than it is to base it on the certainties of the technocrat. Today’s Utopia or Utopias must reflect a world we know to be one of variety and indeterminacy; it must reflect a society of movement and change – one too often unaware of the intolerable conditions in which a large part of humanity lives and one where a personal commitment to redress such social asymmetries is too often lacking (particularly among the most affluent); it must reflect the instability inherent in creative free will that daily reshapes our perceptions and modifies our convictions. This, and not the controlled dialectics of the philosopher, is the reality with which we must attune ourselves intellectually, morally and aesthetically if we are to reconcile ourselves with the Foundations of our own being in nature and the universe. Yet the spirit of Comenius, his uncompromising idealism, are more than ever necessary in the complex world in which we live in order to further the principles of justice, democracy, tolerance, understanding and peace so essential to human survival and development.”




Constructivism

Constructivism is learning theory and explains that human beings construct their knowledge based on experiences.

Jean Piaget was the first one to disagree on the common idea that a children’s play is aimless. He believed that the play is important for a students later educational development.

Constructivism can be seen as building blocks of knowledge and everytime one gains more knowledge, it adds to the already excisting knowledge blocks. this is an ongoing process which lasts a whole lifetime as one never stops learning.

Constructivism theory according to Wikipedia

Formalization of the theory of constructivism is generally attributed to Jean Piaget, who articulated mechanisms by which knowledge is internalized by learners. He suggested that through processes of accommodation and assimilation, individuals construct new knowledge from their experiences.

When individuals assimilate, they incorporate the new experience into an already existing framework without changing that framework. This may occur when individuals’ experiences are aligned with their internal representations of the world, but may also occur as a failure to change a faulty understanding; for example, they may not notice events, may misunderstand input from others, or may decide that an event is a fluke and is therefore unimportant as information about the world.

In contrast, when individuals’ experiences contradict their internal representations, they may change their perceptions of the experiences to fit their internal representations. According to the theory, accommodation is the process of reframing one’s mental representation of the external world to fit new experiences. Accommodation can be understood as the mechanism by which failure leads to learning: when we act on the expectation that the world operates in one way and it violates our expectations, we often fail, but by accommodating this new experience and reframing our model of the way the world works, we learn from the experience of failure, or others’ failure.

Does the theory of Jean Piaget mean that nobody’s knowledge is perfectly correct or objective because we might assimilate wrong information all the time or accommodate our knowledge into the wrong direction?

It is important to note that constructivism is not a particular pedagogy. In fact, constructivism is a theory describing how learning happens, regardless of whether learners are using their experiences to understand a lecture or following the instructions for building a model airplane. In both cases, the theory of constructivism suggests that learners construct knowledge out of their experiences. However, Constructivism is often associated with pedagogic approaches that promote active learning, or learning by doing.

Unfortunately this is not a common teaching method at the majority of High Schools and Universities since teachers still have the perception of talking = teaching. Therefore a lot of graduates wait for someone who tells them what to do.

VKB and the theory of constructivism intertwine perfectly. Visual Knowledge Building is based on the theory to combine the traditional learning with multimedia elements to achieve a proactive learning environment which is does not just rest on plain text and words but also on visual, audio and sensible elements. Considering that the student does not simply deal with spoken text but also has to use visual elements his or her educational horizon is widened. Besides through the multimedia approach of teaching an instructor is not always necessary and can be replaced by the students own activism to construct knowledge. In the end the provision of blended learning and the will to adapt the constructivism method is a good basis for an educational development.

Another learning theory is called Connectivism and finds some similarities to Constructivism. I will explain this in the next post.

Visual literacy

Everything in this course starts with visual literacy. I fact wihtout visual literacy, we would not have the ability to build knowledge visually.

Which means that visual literacy is the ability to interpretate, negotiate and make meaning from iniformation presented in the form of an image. Visual literacy is based on the idea that pictures can be 'read' and that the meaning of that image can be communicated through a process of reading.

There are eight morphological forms of visual grammar, these are:

• dots
• colors
• texture
• space
• forms
• values
• lines
• shaps

Blended learning

Blended learning is mostly used to define a situation where diffeferent delivery methods are combined together to deliver a particular course. These methods may include a mixture of real life classrooms, e-classrooms and self-paced learning.

Moreover, blended learning is when an instructor combines two methods to deliver instructions. However, this term most often applies to the use of technologoy on instruction. A good example of blennded learning would be to give a well-structured introductory lesson in the classroom, continueing then to provide follow-up materials online. Guidance is suggested early in the process, to be faded as learners gain expertise.

Concluding; blended is a combination of different learning methods (take a look at the circle diagram).

E-learning

E-learning has numerous definitions. Below is the definition that I found on Wikipedia. I have also posted my own definition of e-learning.

Defenition of E-learning (from Wikipedia)

E-learning is a term that encompasses all forms of Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) or very specific types of TEL such as online or web-based learnig. Nevertheless, the term does ont have a universally accepted definition and there are divides in the e-learning industry about whether a technology-enhanced system can be called e-learning if there is no set pedagogy some argue e-learning is: "pedagogy empowered by digital technology".

The term e-learning is ambigious to those outside the e-learning industry, and even within its diverse disciplines it has differet meanings to different people. For instance in companies, it often refers to the strategies that use the ecompany network to deliver training courses to employees and lately in most universities, e-learning is used to define a specific mode to attend a course or program of study where the students rarely or never meet face-to-face, nor access on-campus educational facilities, because they study online.

My E-learning definition/view

Electronical learning is a growing part of today's knowledge building. Basically it can be seen as the presentation and distribution of all types of education via digital media (such as our own INHolland Blackboard). Moreover it can be used for the interpersonal communication and correspondence at any given time and therefore it is an advantage when it comes to our contemporary economy (with traditional methods). As far as the personal 'face-to-face' interaction is concerned e-learning certainly drifts education into anonymity. This might be an advantage for some if you think about the classroom nightmare when being asked and you don't have an answer. Since e-learning can be done in three levels (see the three aspects of 'Learning') it always depends on the individual if he or she stays anonymous.

*No single e-learning method is best for every learning need. You will most likely need to use several e-learning technologies as well as traditional learnings methods. A blended learning program combines e-learning a traditional learning methods. Blended learning give us the convenience, speed and (cost) effectiveness of e-learning with the personal touch of traditional learning.

Definition of Learning

The three aspects of learning are:

• Knowledge acquisition
• Participation
• Knowledge creationn

These three aspects are essential for the minor. However, learning is not only the acquisition and development of knowledge, wisdom and understanding. It is also the product of experience and the goal of education. Learning may be formal and informal.

Formal learning is learning that takes place within a teacher-student relationship, such as in a school system.

Non-formal learning is organized learning outside the formal learing system. For example: learning by coming together with people with similar interests and exchanging viewpoints, in clubs or in (international) youth organisations, workshops. Informal learning occurs through the experience of day-to-day situations.

Mind Map

Above you can see the mind map I made about visual knowledge building.

Pictograms, Icons and Symbols

These also play a large role in VKB.

Pictograms

A pictorgram or pictograph is a symbol representing a concept, object, activity, place or event by illustration.

Pictograms remain in common use today, serving as signs or instructions. Because of their graphical nature and fairly realistic style, they are widely used to indicate public places such as public toilets, airports and train stations.

A standard set of pictograms (see diagram below) was defined in the international standard ISO 7001: Public Information Symbols.



Symbol

A symbol can be an object, picturem, written word, a sound, or particular mark - that represents something else by association, resemblance, especially a material object useed to represent something invisible. Symbols indicicate or serve as a sign for and represent ideas, concepts, or other abstractions. For example, in some countries a red octagon is the symbol that conveys the particular idea of "STOP".

Emoticons

Graphical symbols or ASCII charactes that convey emotions or emphasize the communication by messages. An example of a well known emotican is a smiley facee :-) or a frowning face :-(

On the web and a large number of modern mobile phones, text emoticons are ofte automatically replaced with small corresponding images. Similarly, in some versions of Microsoft Word, the Auto Correct feature replaces basic smilies such as :-) with a single smiley-like character. Originally, these image emoticons were fairly simple and replaced only the most straightforward and common character sequences. Emoticons have now expanded beyond simple cartoo facial expressions to a variety of still or moving images. Some of these graphical emoticons do not actually represent faces or emotions, for example, an "emoticon" showing a guitar might be used to represent music. Further, some instant messaging software designed to play a sound upon receiving certain emoticons.

Design of icons and symbols

Well-designed icons and symbols cann have the following advantages over writte commands and labels. They ca be:

• more distinctive
• more efficient
• easier to recognise and remember over long periods of time
• easier and faster to learn when the size of the symbol set is small
• language inidependent

More on Visual Knowledge Building

The creation, testing as well as the improvement of conceptual artifact. It is not confined to education but applis to creative knowledge work of all kinds.

Also, a combination of two definitions which are called Visual Knowledge Building and Visual Communication.

On one hand we have the Knowledge Building theory that states and describes what a group of learning people need to accomplish to create knowledge. On the other hand Visual Communication as the name suggests deals with communication using visual aids.

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My first impression of VKB at the beginning of this minor:

My first understanding of the term Visual Knowdledge Building was the ability to develop knowledge by visual means. However, there have been many theories and ongoing discussions about wat visual knowledge really is, and until today it still is somewhat sketchy to me. Earlier on I posted that "In simpel terms, one may say vkb can be defined as the ability to accumulate knowledge through visual aids. But it is definetly ot the only way of building knowledge. It is safe to say that visual aids are often supported by text which enhances and/or helps to build knowledge.

The traditional way of knowledge building used to be, for example, by lectures or by literature. Whereas in modern day studies, information is often supported by images and not only provided in the form of text of spoken word (for example: a PowerPoint presentation). Besides the fact that digital natives have access to anything at anytime, they are not very fond of only reading literature but also looking at images, therefore visual aids play a crucial role in knowledge building.

Visual Knowledge Building

In simple terms, one may say that visual knowldge building can be defined as the ability to accumulate knowledge through visual aids. However, it is ot the only way of "building knowledge". It is safe to say that visual aids are often supported by the text in which inhances and/or helps to build knowledge.

Visual blog kick-off test!

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