I recently found an excellent an in-depth review of George Siemens’ book on connectivism, written by Mark Landy, and which was first published May 2007 in The Knowledge Tree An e-Journal of Learning Innovation, Edition 13, by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework

In the review, Landy wonders whether the book is correct in assuming that the know-where and know-who skills have surpassed the know-how and know-why skills (excerpt 1), and he then proposes a ‘metacognitive’ approach (excerpt 2).

I strongly recommend reading the review in full.

Excerpt 1:

“If Siemens is correct in asserting that the skills of ‘know where’ and ‘know who’ are now more important than the ‘what’ and ‘how’, we must ask: what then are the implications of this position for the role the teacher, and the place of content/curriculum in education today?

To put it another way: what is the nature of the relationship between learning about things – the bodies of knowledge – and learning how to learn about those things? Perhaps the relationship between content and the learning process has always been a problematic one, but it does seem that the impact of the digital technologies in education is bringing this issue into the foreground like never before.

On the one hand, I agree with his observations about the changing nature of the world, the significance of networks, and so on, but I also feel rather uneasy about his point that the ‘know where’ and the ‘know who’ are more important today than the ‘what’ and the ‘how’. For example, might we find lurking in the Siemens’ position a tendency to over emphasise the technical wherewithal required to work with and manipulate digital technologies and data, at the expense of a learner acquiring a deep knowing about the world and his/her place in it?

Obviously, becoming digitally savvy is a vital skill for all to learn, but I also believe we need an informed citizenry that can also understand the world at a deep critical – interpretive level. How these skills can be fully realised in a context that privileges the ‘know where’ and ‘know who’, remains unclear. Moreover, teacher anecdotes seem to be telling us that this generation of learners don’t need so much to be shown ‘where’ to find information – they are already experts at that. Rather, it’s learning the skills required for assessing and applying knowledge that is becoming increasingly important.

In my view, what the learning process must develop, at the very least, is a toolkit of critical – interpretive skills that enable learners to sort through the dross, so they can assess the relative worth of one source of information over another and so on. And a deep knowledge of the world, gained through the study of the ‘what’ and the ‘how’, seems to me to be a skill, or a pursuit, that is as vital as it always has been.”

Excerpt 2:

“The meaning of ‘knowing’ has shifted from being able to remember and repeat information to being able to find and use it. More than ever, the sheer magnitude of human knowledge renders its coverage by education an impossibility: rather the goal of education is better conceived as helping students develop the intellectual tools and learning strategies needed to acquire the knowledge that allows people to think productively (2000:5).

To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must: (a) have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, (b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and (c) organise knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application (2000:16).

A ‘metacognitive‘ approach to instruction can help students take control of their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them (2000:18).

This definition of ‘knowing,’ and its underlying principles, especially its emphasis on the relationship between acquiring competence in an area of inquiry, and facts and knowledge organised in a conceptual framework, combined with Siemens’ networking insights, helps to address some of my concerns about his ‘know where’ and ‘know who’ argument.”