Hi Laurie,

Thank you for your posting. In your posting, you do hint at something that I experience most days in one of my teaching environments. Connectivism is clearly tied to the pervasive use of technology to generate information and through which knowledge is created. But this comes at a cost. As you point out, many vulnerable populations have very limited access and understanding of technology. I see this every day when I work with newcomers from countries with virtually zero technical knowledge and yet they are expected to learn in an online environment. Oftentimes these learners give up in frustration because they have not had a lifetime of learning and being with technology like those in the West. So, the digital divide grows – both in terms of access and in terms of living in a tech culture. An in non-Western cultures, learning and knowledge is rooted deeply in social, cultural, and human connectivity. So making the shift from non-tech environments to tech environments begs the question: What knowledge is valued and what knowledge is lost in such a move?

best,

Professor Steven Noble

Good morning Steven,

Thank you for replying to my posting. First, I will reflect on your comments using the Internet as an example; then, I will answer your question.

Like you, not a day goes by where I do not use technology, and in many cases, I learn (knowledge) something new. I am frustrated by technology when I cannot figure out how something works – like my damn YouTube video for these discussion questions. Like you identified, I gave up in frustration but merely as a conditional withdrawal waiting for another day to fight the fight.

A considerable percentage of people are located in less developed countries and more significantly in the rural areas where the technology infrastructure and lack of Internet development are inferior. I use the example of the recent US presidential election. Metropolitan cities with an educated population voting Democrat, while huge rural areas are voting Republican. We are aware of the results.

What knowledge is lost, and what knowledge is valued? The censorship or restriction of the Internet by individual autocratic governments to achieve selfish political interests. Knowledge is not valued but suppressed. A perfect example of this happened in December 2016 when the Gambian government blocked the Internet during the presidential election period. Besides this incident, there are well-documented reports of many governments in Asia, the Middle East, and beyond restricting internet access to their citizens in the pretext of avoiding social protests.

Among the wreckage of a ship that sailed the Mediterranean more than 1,000 years before timekeeping gearwork first appeared in Medieval Europe. No one on the planet was supposed to have had complex scientific instruments—what was this thing? It came to be known as the Antikythera Mechanism. In the decades that followed, with ever more sophisticated technology to guide them, researchers would begin to understand how the peculiar device once worked. Today, the mechanism is often described as the world’s oldest computer—more precisely, it seemed to be an analog machine for modelling and predicting astronomical and calendrical patterns—Connectivism at its finest.

Your comments on my first discussion question were to look at ideas socially, politically, culturally, economically, power, justice, etc.  The most important thing is to change the public’s and governments’ attitudes regarding the Internet and understand its importance in realizing a prosperous and knowledgeable society. Implementing the necessary infrastructure and competency to ensure this technology is accessible and secure for the public has too many advantages to ignore.

Laurie

Laurie

There may be some excitement and interest in connectivism whereby nodes of information interconnect and share knowledge/information; however, there has not be much done to differentiate between what knowledge is and what information is? That is the first thing to give consideration to. The second thing is what is the natural extension of connectivism and interconnectivity as a way to learn? As with all things that are science fiction, a recent TV show explores this. The show is called The Feed whereby every person is implanted with a device in his or her brain so that everyone is literally connected through brainwaves so that they can share their thoughts and emotions with one another (Clark et al., 2019). Then someone or something hacks this network. Thinking about this scenario, it would be interesting for you to think about the negatives of connectivism or the potential of what could go wrong when everyone is on the same “wavelength” of learning? Connected to this idea is a TED Talk I listened to years ago and that the reliance on networked learning, particularly as driven by the Internet is problematic in that there are algorithms at work that shape the information one receives based on your clicking history, which in turn serves to narrow down the world as each person knows based on what is familiar (Pariser, 2011).

Professor Steven Noble

Clark, J., Constant, R., Hogg, S., Kennedy, M., Lewis, S., Murray, S., & Lambert, S. (Producers) (2019 – ). The feed. [TV series.]. Amazon Studios; Liberty Global; Amazon Prime Video; Polyband. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8005176/

Goldie, J. G. S. (2016). Connectivism: A knowledge learning theory for the digital age? Medical Teacher, 38(10), 1064–1069. https://search-ebscohost-com.libraryservices.yorkvilleu.ca/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=url,cookie,ip,uid&db=ehh&AN=118586828

Pariser, E. (2011, March). Beware online “filter bubbles”. [Video] TED Conferences. https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles?language=en