I am not sure the objectives of this course are happening, and yet there are signs that you are beginning to understand. But the communication between each of you has not been happening. Some have simply not posted exercises, some are too brief to deliver meaning. Rather than push the issue of homework, I wanted to discuss why the objectives of this course are important, and seek your thoughts about whether or not you agree.
Several factors about the way the world works today, are influencing our culture and in particular your generation of learners. Gonzalez (2004) describes the half-life of knowledge as that span of time when knowledge is gained to when it becomes obsolete. Only half of what is known today was known 10 years ago. The actual amount of knowledge in the world has doubled in the past 10 years. Now (2004) it is doubling every 18 months! (American Society of Training and Documentation).
There is simply too much information for any one person to “contain”, if in fact that is even a valid goal. These trends in learning defined by George Siemens in his “Connectivism” paper, provide additional factors:
1. Many learners will move into a variety of different, possibly unrelated fields over the course of their lifetime.
2. Informal learning is a significant aspect of our learning experience. Formal education no longer comprises the majority of our learning. Learning now occurs in a variety of ways – through communities of practice, personal networks, and through completion of work-related tasks.
3. Learning is a continual process, lasting for a lifetime. Learning and work related activities are no longer separate. In many situations, they are the same.
4. Technology is altering (rewiring) our brains. The tools we use define and shape our thinking.
5. Many of the processes previously handled by learning theories can now be off-loaded to, or supported by, technology.
6. Know-how and know-what is being supplemented with know-where (the understanding of where to find knowledge needed. (Siemens, 2004)
A simple example of know-where vs know-how or know-what:
A student wants to change an area of content in an HTML document and temporarily change it to an image. She knows that it can be done with CSS but does not remember how to do it. She activates her browser and types “image swap” + css in the Google window. Immediately there are numerous references that provide solutions to the problem and she selects the one that is most familiar and reads how to perform the needed process.
Is it important that the student did not know how to perform the function she needed? Does it matter whether it was “in her head” (memory)? Of course not. The issue was swapping content for an image and within a few minutes the process was completed, by knowing where to locate the necessary procedure.
This is the reason for the objective, “learning how to learn”, and this is the objective to experience the various tools that will be used during the Interactive Media Design program that allow you to communicate, collaborate, research and distribute information.
We need to comment on each others work – the uniblogs, the new Wordpress blogs, by sharing your aggregated favorites, and working with social bookmarking software to share in a broader world of users and learners. And it is important to you that it comes because you want to communicate your ideas, and develop a community that will support your studies as you progress through the IMD program, and life.
Does any of this ring true to your experience? Is the digital age just for certain people? Are we ready to participate because we want to? Your responses would be helpful!
