Connectivism Network

Our task this week is to create a Bubbl mind map for how we learn in order to examine our connectivist networks. I've chosen to focus on how I learn about education. Here is a look at how mine turned out:

With regards to this map, we're asked to answer the following three questions:

How has your network changed the way you learn?

To a degree, I think this question is a bit backwards. I think for my generation and learning habits, the question is more "How has the way I've learned changed my network?" It's somewhat of a chicken-and-egg type question, but for me, it's been more of a willful effort to change my network to be more engaged and connected. Connectivism doesn't come naturally to me. I'm much more cognitive and constructivist by nature.

So for me, it's taken determined efforts at engaging in social media and internet forums. The network didn't change me, I changed and adapted to the network.

Having said that, compared to four or five years ago, I'm much more of a connectivist learner than I ever imagined. I keep abreast of developments in education and educational technology through Twitter, am highly involved in our Innovation Forum (all are welcome to join) at work, where several dozen active posters share and develop new ideas on education 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I use Google Docs to share, edit, revise, and collaborate on projects. It's been an amazing transformation for me over the past three years, and I feel more connected, faster at learning, and filled with information than I did at any point in my past.

Which digital tools best facilitate learning for you?

In the past two years, I've been amazed at the efficiency of two tools: Twitter and our Innovation Forum. I love to follow the Twitter #edtech and #edchat hashtags. I can spend about 30 minutes there a day and learn so much about what is developing in education and educational technology. More so, I can engage in conversation about the news and ideas that I'm reading. I've started building a list of my favorite Tweeters. This is very much a work in progress, but I hope it develops into an even better source of information.

I also spend about two hours a week on our district's Innovation Forum. This is a digital version of Steven Johnson's collaborative tea houses, and it serves as a place for me to connect with other educators interesting in innovation. We share ideas, information, and half-ideas freely. We've had this running now for about two and a half years, and we now have more than 500 members and 6,000 posts.




How do you learn new knowledge when you have questions?

My first inclination is to "Google it." No matter how connected I am, I think my most efficient path to an answer is an effective Google search. Over the past ten years, I think that I've gotten much better at searching, and that searching has in itself gotten more efficient.

My second act would be to post on our innovation forum and ask if someone knows the answer there, although for specific questions I often have one or two people in mind who I know I can ask and get a good answer.

The caveat here, however, is that I am more likely to use digital resources for informational searches. For questions of a less well defined nature, I'm more likely to go to human resources directly. In other words, if I want to know good websites for learning javascript, I'll Google it. If I want to develop a plan for increasing our iPad usage in our District, I'm more likely to seek direct input from colleagues.

Lastly, I'm very interested in connecting with more educators. Follow me on Twitter (@MikeSmart) and I'll follow back!

Collaboration and Natural Instinct

Our topic for this week's blog post asks a fascinating question: Do you believe that humans have a basic instinct to interact and work as a group? Using the Tragedy of the Commons and the Prisoner's Dilemma as a base for individualistic activity, Rheingold (2008) makes a strong argument for the power of collaboration in his TED Talk on the same topic. He pulls in examples, such as Toyota's coaching of its suppliers and collaborative Bittorrent streams, to make the claim that collective action is growing in ways that increase the efficiency and productivity of individuals in groups.

To return to our question, however, as to whether humans have a basic instinct to interact and work as a group, I think that the answer is not a simple yes or no. I'd argue that humans have a basic instinct to socialize, and an extension of that socialization may be interaction as a group. However, I'd argue that humans also have a fundamental instinct to act in their own self interests, as evidenced by Rheingold's (2008) articulation of studies that show that humans will by and large desecrate common resources. To argue then, that interaction and cooperation are instinctive is clearly overstating the case. They are not.

Complicating this issue further is the role of groups in society. One could argue that mothers, for example, have an instinctive protective response for their children. Is this evidence of a basic instinct to interact, or is it an extension of the human need for survival?

Also, it's very easy to mash together words like cooperation, collaboration, and collective action into a stew where each term means the same thing. Using these terms interchangeably, however, muddies the issue. When we look at human interaction in more detail, we find that what is often termed as collaboration or cooperation, is in reality individuals each working alone to produce a collective product. Collective action is not the same thing as cooperation. Most examples that are touted as cooperation are in fact individual actions, cumulatively producing a product. For example, my direct supervisor loves to present a graphic on the construction of a modern aircraft as an example of cooperation and collaboration, where multiple entities work together to produce a plane. However, when you look at what actually happens, what you begin to realize is that it is in fact each company acting individually to produce a product that in turn gets assembled into a final product. Collective action, then, in most cases, is the sum of individual actions only thinly connected by any semblance of cooperation.

What is clear, however, is that there can be powerful benefits to times when groups truly cooperate. Anyone who has played on a sports team where the team must truly coordinate actions in order to succeed knows the true power and force of actual cooperation. Similarly, orchestras, where musical timing and a strong awareness of the group's actions are necessary to achieve success, must know the magic that lies in strong, interdependent group action.

What is remarkable now is the opportunity we have to cooperate and collaborate in ways that would have been unthinkable a mere ten years ago. Technology plays a big role in this enhanced collaboration. There are two ways this happens. First, technology now grants us connections to information and people that create an ease and opportunity for collaboration that greatly enhances its likelihood. If anyone remembers the early days of online video conferencing, for example, when good connections were extremely rare, and most conversations were like Maxwell Smart using the Cone of Silence, you can appreciate how much more communication and collaboration happens because video conferencing for the most part works now.

It's better now.

Second, technology also facilitates collaboration with its impressive array of tools for collaboration and sharing of content. The most pronounced example of this in our organization is the explosion in use of Google Docs that allows us to cooperatively create and share data to a degree unimaginable five years ago.

Research supports collaboration as an effective tool for learning in education, as evidenced by numerous studies. One such study (Vescio, Ross, & Adams, 2008) highlights the power behind professional learning communities (PLCs) in educational settings. This meta-analysis of several studies on PLCs showed that PLCs have a positive impact on student learning.

References:
Rheingold, H. (2008, February). Howard Rheingold on collaboration [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html

Vescio, V., Ross, D., & Adams, A. (2008). A review of research on the impact of professional learning communities on teaching practice and student learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24(1), pp. 80-91. Retrieved from: http://goo.gl/dvK2P

Photo Attribution:
Yuan2003, via flickr, Creative Commons. Thanks!