Online Connectivism Conference Archive

If you missed the Online Connectivism Conference held last week, you can vist the archive (discussions are pretty much winding down) and view the recorded presentations from George Siemens, Stephen Downes, and Terry Anderson among others.

This conference explored many issues surrounding the current state of social networking tools such as blogs, wikis, MySpace, and all the other numerous ways users can get connected today. Conference attendee Michael Hotrum provided this astute observation:

"Textbooks and professors should not position themselves as experts who can claim to keep pace with the changing face of knowledge - but they can guide us, can provide trusted nodes, a framework, a foundation and skill set that enables and maximizes our learning journey."

Educators have known this, of course, hence the "Lifelong Learning" movement, but I think it's going to go much further. What is the purpose of structured learning? Will a university one day be merely a big network with guides showing how to make the right connections to be a professional in the field? In some ways, it already is that and has been...

For background on "Connectivism," check out George Siemen's website. He argues that it's a new learning theory. I'm not convinced of that, but believe that the discussion can help us make sense of this new connected world. Topics such as information overload and teaching the "millenials" were discussed at the conference, and I'm sure will continue to be discussed among educators for a long time.