Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Questions I'm no Longer Asking

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
George Siemens is "firmly convinced" of the following (slightly abridged):
1. Learners should be in control of their own learning. Autonomy is key.
2. Learners need to experience confusion and chaos in the learning process.
3. Openness increased the random connections that drive innovation
4. Learning requires time, depth of focus, critical thinking, and reflection.
5. Learning is network formation. Knowledge is distributed.
6. Creation is vital.
7. Making sense of complexity requires social and technological systems.
I don't agree with some of the stuff I've abridged from the principles. For example, I would say "navigating the chaos" instead of "clarifying" it. I wouldn't mention "ingesting new information," because that's not how it works. I am more likely to say educators "model and demonstrate" rather than "initiate, curate, and guide." But you know, these core seven principles, yes, I can get behind these.

And like George Siemens I am no longer interested in - and have not been for some time, which explains their complete absence from these pages - questions like "Is online learning more or less effective than learning in a classroom?" and "What role do blogs or microblogging [insert tool in question] play?" and "How can educators implement [whatever tool] into their teaching?" They're irrelevant. So is the learning styles question, but I carp about that because it has been used to make political points about learning which are wrong. Oh, and don't miss Karyn Romeis's postscript.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Apr 23, 2024 1:59 p.m.

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