The externalized generation and its connectivist education needs
What we create to survive during one era serves as neurosis for another. In education – particularly in technology enhanced education – a similar trailing of ideologies from another era is observed.
George Siemens writes that:
“Without going through a painful attempt to deconstruct learning and its systemic origins, I think it’s safe to state the following as the key elements of a weltanschauung that define formal education:
1. We know what students need to know in advance of their arrival (the learning needed can be defined)
2. Through manipulation and sequencing of content and interactions, we can get students to learn what we’ve already decided they need to learn (control)
3. Students at a similar age/grade/program level have a similar knowledge base. Even if we don’t make this explicit, how we design and deliver learning in K-12, university, and corporate settings is evidence that we hold this view. (similarity)
4. Structure, goals, outcomes, and assessment are all good. For that matter, coherence is good. Learning needs a target. (coherence and structure)”
But is such an approach suitable for what he calls the ‘externalized generation’?
“The last decade has provided individuals with the tools to continually externalize their thoughts and ideas. History is generally revealed to us through significant artifacts. We have books (artifact) that capture certain time periods. But we don’t have the raw daily conversation. We have a sanitized view of history. Future generations will likely have access to far more historical information than we currently have. Through Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, SecondLife, podcasts, Flickr, and blogs our daily conversations can be captured. Conversations that occur on Facebook or Twitter do not vaporize the way conversations around a boardroom table do. As both Vygotsky and Wittgenstein argued, language gives birth to thoughts. Twitter gives birth to identity, to being. Technology has enabled our generation to externalize – through video, pictures, audio, text, and simulation – our ideas. Once externalized, a trail of identity and conceptual development is left for future consideration and analysis.”
Current technological practices and potential undermine the main underlying theses of current formal education:
“First, given nature of today’s complex problems – we have hit the limits of cognition in the head. We need to rely on the network as a cognitive agent. Solving the biggest problems of humanity will require a pedagogy built on networks and the distributed knowledge amplification opportunities they allow.
Second, it pushes learning into the background. Rather than saying “I am learning now” – a nonsensical statement as we are constantly learning – it makes what we’ve learned explicit only after learning, rather than before (i.e. “learning outcomes”). Where the learning is undesirable (a misconception, for example), feedback is provided through both social networks and through conceptual patterns analysis.
Third, it accounts for the complexity of learning by permitting learning needs to be formed and reformed based on current needs and context. The learner is, in the much abused term, “in control”. Learning as foraging.
Fourth, instead of squeezing all students into a curricular path that ignores individual distinctions, students are continually provided personalized (ugh) content and connection suggestions.
Fifth, the coherence and structure of learning is not solid and fixed as in a course. Instead, coherence is continually shaped and formed as new connections are suggested, existing conceptual networks are challenged (by social networks and patterning software). Structure is a by product of learning processes, used to evaluate quality of learning in relation to some other entity (say, the competence and knowledge to be a nurse or a business person or a plumber). Where no ulterior motives – such as accreditation – are sought, evaluation is not a significant concern.”