The Birth of a Text

As I wrote the last post, I had one of those nagging notions that I was leaving something out, that I had not quite said what I needed to say. I kept writing, hoping that the idea would present itself, as it so often does in writing, but it didn't arrive.

Then today at the office I was looking at the new TED-ED site in preparation for a writing lesson about using imagery in documents. I navigated to a page in search of Hans Rosling's quite marvelous video about data visualizations, when I noticed this other video from Deb Roy about how he traced the birth of language in his child by recording his home over a period of several years. I thought I remembered the Roy video and thought that I might review it again after I watched the Rosling video, which was really the video I needed, so I grabbed my mouse and clicked on the Roy video. Of course, it proved to be the video that I was looking for all along. It visualizes the structures I was trying to capture in my last post and not explaining so well.

I think my mind functions mostly underwater, and I am able to see only the surface. Most of my cognition, like the Internet, is submerged and hidden. Things arrive on my screen and in my conscious mind, but I too seldom know how they got there. Usually I don't think about it. It can be too troubling.

Anyway, let's watch this video, and I'll try to make the connection to writing as a function of complex networks. Deb Roy:



What captures my attention first is our emerging ability to capture and investigate large data sets. This ability is critical, I think, for understanding the network nature of texts and writing (or anything else, really). Those who study writing, through either rhetoric or poetic or both, have long had an intuitive sense of the network nature of writing, and we have developed concepts such as genre and process writing and schools such as feminist studies to try to embody those intuitions. Yet, we have never had the ability to collect and investigate texts as Deb Roy and his associates do in this movie where they can position a given television show (a text) within its ecosystems of other TV shows and the resulting social and scholarly buzz. They have access to the computer systems and networks that allow them to collect and investigate an amount of data that simply was not possible to collect and investigate with paper, even though we sensed the presence of those network structures and actions like some great sea creature moving in the depths, not seen clearly enough for analysis or even identification, but definitely felt.

Not only does Roy have the tools to capture and investigate the networks within which a television show emerges or within which a baby learns a new word—both the show and the word are texts to my way of thinking—but Roy can also express those networks in images and movies that help us to see not only the text itself but its emergence, movement, development, and interactions within its ecosystem. In other words, he can visualize with incredible accuracy the patterns that before we could only intuit in the life of the text but could not capture with any accuracy. Those of us who have had children know that our babies develop language, but Roy captures exactly how they develop it, and he contextualizes the text in ways that we could only intuit about our own babies. He demonstrates conclusively that there is no text without a context. Likewise, there is no context with the texts.

Of course, he can also tease out patterns that we can't even intuit are there. This is one of the most exciting promises of the digital humanities, to my mind. At last, we have the technological tools and techniques (and the promise of more) to capture the kinds of data sets necessary to wrap our heads around a complex network structure such as Shakespeare's Sonnet 73, which some researcher will soon think of as a complex strand of DNA, with its own internal network structures, introduced into an ecosystem of complex networks, taking root there, and then growing rhizomatically as it feeds value into that ecosystem and eats value from that ecosystem. That's enough work to occupy the entire professional life of a literary scholar. It will take a university of scholars with massive computing power to map the genome and the rhizomatic development of The Bible. That would be a damned fine project to work on, though. I hope someone does it in my lifetime.

Writing at Different Scales, #cck12

So what happens to the field of writing if we start with the idea that writing is a function of complex networks?

One of the first concepts that I draw from the study of networks is that network structures appear at most any scale from which you consider an entity. For instance, if we think of human consciousness as a function of complex networks, we find networks whether we consider consciousness at the molecular or cellular levels, the neuronal level, the brain regions level, the level of the nervous system as it extends throughout the body, and on to the sensory level, and out to the interpersonal, social, cultural, historical levels. Physics is currently able to push in to reality all the way to strings (those wispy networks of harmonic vibrations) and push out all the way to networks of galaxies. A dedicated student could follow consciousness all the way in to strings and all the way out to galaxies, I think.

Writing is similar. Whether we look at the scale of cognition, physico-motor, language, interpersonal, social, poetic/rhetoric, genre, or more, we find network structures at work. This text, for instance — this very post that I am writing and you are reading — can be thought of as a network structure: morphemes networked into various words, words networked into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, paragraphs into sections or posts, posts into a blog, the blog into larger educational, intellectual, and social networks. I think this network structure has always been a feature of written texts, but it was not obvious. Given the requirements of print, we tended to emphasize the linear nature of text, but we can think of this linearity in the same way we might consider a strand of DNA: linear if we view it one way, but very much a network if we shift our view just a bit. We can think of DNA strands as they unfold, or blossom, into a living organism. We can think of these sentences as they unfold into a living discussion. These sentences in this post are strands of DNA expanding in an ecosystem, creating an organism that interacts with other organisms, that both draws from and adds to the ecosystem/s within which it finds itself. And of course, hypertext makes explicit this network nature of written text.

But I think even standard printed text can also be seen as a network structure. For instance, this post is one node within this blog, and it interacts with the blog in much the same way that a new tadpole interacts with its puddle. This post draws value and energy from the blog as an ecosystem, and it feeds back its own value. I can scale down, and see the same dynamic at work: this very sentence is a node within this paragraph, and it draws meaning and value from the paragraph and returns meaning and value to the paragraph. This blog is easily seen as just one node within a network of blogs all exploring higher education, or writing, or Connectivism, or things I'm not even aware of.

And meaning emerges at all those different scales, and the meaning at one scale interacts with, supports, and modifies the meanings at the other scales, and we can see different meanings whether we are giving a text a close reading or fitting it into its larger genre. Different meanings emerge at different scales. This is a very dynamic way to think about writing and written texts, and it gives us dynamic tools for thinking about writing and for teaching writing. This, I think, is worth exploring.

We also see that the rules, the patterns of organization and interaction, can shift from scale to scale. This is a new idea for me just now, and I need to do more work on it, but it seems right. I like the ring of it.

Writing the Rhizome

Okay, for the sake of discussion, let's just accept that my last post is correct and that a network view of knowledge is indeed part of the DNA of connectivism. Let's even assume that this distinguishes connectivism from constructivism, cognitivism, and behaviorism as learning theories. Is this such a big deal?

I think so. Starting with a view that knowledge is a function of complex networks changes how I view everything else, especially everything about my own discipline. Also, starting from this vantage point allows me to connect to and cultivate different streams on energy. I'm fed differently than if I were starting from another point of view about how knowledge is produced and propagated.

My professional gig is writing — I write and I teach others to write. Connectivism, then, encourages me to say that writing is a function of complex networks at any scale I choose to consider it.

This is worth exploring, and for ease, let me start at the scale I'm working on just now. I'm writing a blog post about connectivism to mostly educators — at least the audience I'm aware of is mostly educators, and most of them at the college level. I write to connect to the conversation of those people. This conversation is a network structure facilitated by many other network structures: my own neural network, the Internet, a MOOC, the English language, educational theory, etc. Through writing, I both connect to the conversation (the network), and I exchange value with the other nodes (people and their own texts, mostly) in the network. I am writing, now, to connect to you and to exchange value with you.

Now, compare this view of writing to the traditional view of writing: a solitary student struggling to complete an assignment, writing about a topic that far too often does not interest him and writing to people (the teacher) to whom he does want to connect. The literary version of this image is not much better: a solitary, starving poet in his lonely garret overlooking Paris struggling to capture his vision of Life for an audience that will not find him until decades after his consumptive, wretched death. Neither of these writers connects to an ecosystem that feeds and nourishes them. None of us would want to be one of these poor wretches.

Actually, the student has an ecosystem, but he is punished for connecting to it (no talking in class). Notice that when students find that they can use writing to connect to their ecosystems (their peeps, gangs, and posses), then they will write their tails off. The last estimates I saw said that the world is now generating over 5 billion text messages per day. No other period in history can approach this volume of writing. Are you not amazed that most teenagers today would rather write to their friends than talk to them? That makes no sense from the traditional views of writing. It makes great sense if you think of writing as a function of complex networks in which nodes connect to nodes, exchange energy and value, and all are enriched. (I know that not all connections are enriching, and that way too often, people connect for the purpose of abusing, but even that kind of bullying is more easily understood — and dealt with — from a network perspective that looks at interconnected nodes in a functioning network than from the perspective of the morally deficient individual preying on others.)

Starting with the notion that the production and propagation of knowledge through writing is a function of complex networks allows me to think very differently about how and why people write. That prompts me to change the way I teach writing to others. I'll explore that soon, but likely I have not finished thinking about writing as a function of complex networks. There are other scales to play in this tune.

Connectivist DNA: Epistemology #cck12

I started this post weeks ago, but life happened. I want to continue talking about defining Connectivism.

So if we are to avoid a definition of Connectivism that disjoins the theory from similar theories and from the rest of the world and reduces the theory to a handful of essential characteristics how should we proceed? Morin says that we proceed by "distinction, conjunction, and implication" (51). I guess that clarifies things. Let's see.

We distinguish Connectivism as a theory about education without separating it from other such theories about education and without separating it from the very thing that it seeks to illuminate: Education. We look for both the particular starting point of Connectivism and the connections that Connectivism affords us (connections should be easy for a Connectivist theory). The starting point is the DNA; the connections are the flows of energy, matter, organization, and information between Connectivism and its eco-system. Thus, we distinguish Connectivism from Cognitivism, say, but we do not disjoin it from Cognitivism. Rather, we include in our definition the flows of energy between the two. Likewise, we look for the flows of energy and information between Connectivism and all those who have explored it and between the theory and the actual practice of Education. We also include our own DNA and the DNA of others who are exploring Connectivism. We assume, then, that Connectivism is defined by the dialogue, the unresolved tension and interplay, between its DNA and its eco-system. Connectivism is what emerges within this dialogue. This is a start.

For me, the first bit of Connectivist DNA is found in its epistemology. This is not a casual choice, but one that reflects my interest in rhetoric, my own intellectual DNA. In his book Rhetoric and Reality (1987), James Berlin says that the rhetorics of the 20th century can be defined by their epistemologies. In fine Cartesian fashion, he disjoins the three main strains of 20th century rhetoric and reduces each to a central tenet about how knowledge is generated and propagated. I have an interest, then, in what a Connectivist, or rhizomatic, rhetoric might look like, so I want to follow Berlin's lead—if not his methodology—and begin with epistemology. Given that Education is all about the generation and propagation of knowledge, epistemology has much to recommend it as a starting point.

So what is the epistemological DNA that Connectivism brings to the eco-system? Both Downes and Siemens write about knowledge, but I'm drawn first to Downes' 2005 article An Introduction to Connective Knowledge, mostly because I'm familiar with it, but also because it has received significant reading from others and, finally, because I just reread it. For me, this article makes about as clear and concise a statement about knowledge as an article can make when it says that "Knowledge is a network phenomenon, to 'know' something is to be organized in a certain way, to exhibit patterns of connectivity. To 'learn' is to acquire certain patterns. This is as true for a community as it is for an individual."

At the heart of Connectivism, then, is this idea that knowledge is not some thing, like a nugget, that we can pass among ourselves and reduce to a nifty definition. Knowledge is not a nugget that resides either in objective, external things or in a subjective, internal mind. Rather, knowledge is a function of complex networks. Knowledge is the pattern of dynamic connections among various nodes regardless of whether the nodes are neurons in an individual brain, people within an individual community, communities within an individual society, or societies within an epoch. Knowledge is what emerges from the patterns of interactions of millions of individual neurons functioning according to their own rules of behavior and in response to the rules of the clusters of neurons they have joined or found themselves grouped with. Knowledge on a different scale is what emerges from the patterns of interactions of millions of individual people according to their own rules of behavior and in response to the rules of the clusters of people they have joined or found themselves grouped with. While the specific mechanisms and rules may vary from node to node and scale to scale, the pattern seems remarkably consistent: meaning and knowledge emerge from the unresolved, dynamic interplay between an individual node and its network/s of other nodes.

This view of knowledge seems to me to be different from that of other educational theories. Behaviorism, as I understand it, appears to place meaning and knowledge firmly in the objective, external world of observable, measurable behaviors, and it focuses on developing those behaviors. Cognitivism, on the other hand, places meaning and knowledge in the subjective, internal world of the mind, however defined, and it focuses on developing those cognitive skills and resources. As I understand constructivism, it places meaning and knowledge in the interaction of the individual mind with reality. Social constructivism expands the concept by adding the social group to the mix so that meaning and knowledge is created by the individual in her interaction both with reality and the group. Social constructivism, then, focuses on developing those interactions among the individual, the group, and reality. This approaches, perhaps even implies, a network structure, but I don't know that it requires it.

I am aware that my statements about the above theories are gross reductions that distort the ideas of some brilliant thinkers, and I do not want to suggest that those theories and thinkers do not have tremendous value in helping us understand knowledge and how people learn. I am least fond of behaviorism, but that line of thought has generated true insight into humanity and education. They have all contributed, but I do want to say that I think we can see and understand things differently by starting from the view that knowledge is a function of complex networks, as Connectivism does. And I think that particular starting point is part of the DNA of Connectivism, but not core to the other theories, not even social constructivism. I think one can be a social constructivist without a commitment to knowledge as a function of networks. I know that one can be a behaviorist or a cognitivist without any consideration of networks. I don't think one can be a Connectivist without that very commitment.

So what do we gain by saying that knowledge is a function of networks? If we climb this particular mountain, then what do we see that we didn't see from the other peaks? What can we connect to from this starting point that we could not connect to so easily from the other starting points? I want to explore that.

Sentences from the Inside, #cck12, #change11

I keep thinking that I'm going to move from the middle of connectivism to start defining it, but then I think of something else to say, or I come across something someone else has said, and I start talking about the middle again. This afternoon's online New York Times features an essay about writing by Constance Hale in which she says:

At some point in our lives, early on, maybe in grade school, teachers give us a pat definition for a sentence — “It begins with a capital letter, ends with a period and expresses a complete thought.” … But that definition misses the essence of sentencehood. We are taught about the sentence from the outside in, about the punctuation first, rather than the essential components. The outline of our [sentences], the meaning of our every utterance, is given form by nouns and verbs. … I like to think of the whole sentence as a mini-narrative. It features a protagonist (the subject) and some sort of drama (the predicate): The searchlight sweeps. Harvey keeps on keeping on. The drama makes us pay attention. [Italics and bolding added for emphasis.]

This, I think, points to the problem with most definitions. Saying that a sentence begins with a capital letter, ends with a period and expresses a complete thought is the very least that we can say about a sentence. The very least.

And our students know that. They know that this definition says next to nothing, and most of them wisely ignore it, or if they do force themselves to remember it for the quiz at the end of the week, they ditch it at the classroom door immediately afterward. Wise them. They know that this definition will never connect them to good writing, to the magic that lies at the heart (the middle) of crafting a beautiful sentence. Or even a functional sentence. Students know that if they really want to learn what writing is, then they have to learn it from the inside out, the way they learn video games. They learn Skyrim from the middle, and they have to write from the middle. The above definition separates them from writing. Who's interested in that?

You also have to define from the middle, and maybe soon I can actually start doing that.

The Subject/Object Connection, #cck12, #change11

I want to talk more about defining from the middle-out rather than from the out-in, as this change in vantage changes the relationship between the subject (the defining agent) and the object (the defined agent). And by the way, I want to shift to first-person singular case. I've been using the more inclusive second- and third-persons, but I want to speak only for myself for a bit.

In his tidy little book On Complexity (2008), Morin spends a fair amount of time showing how complex thought restructures the relationship between subject and object, leaving the relationship reflective and reflexive. Morin insists, and I believe, that the past three hundred years of Western thought has worked out of a subject/object dualism that encourages the subject to reduce, disjoin, and simplify the object through scientific analysis and overcoding. This is typical of society's method of defining, for instance. Thus, in defining connectivism, the conventional impulse can be to reduce connectivism to a few essential characteristics that distinguish it from other ideas—especially from those ideas closest to it, such as cognitivism and constructivism—and that leave connectivism simple at best, complicated if necessary, but certainly not complex. I'm working here intentionally with Snowden's Cynefin framework, and relying on Dave Cormier's observation that connectivism, rhizomatic learning, and MOOCs all belong to the complex domain in the Cynefin framework. I haven't thought this next idea through, but I'll say it anyway: all good theory belongs in the complex domain, and as soon as a theory is reduced down through the complicated to the simple, it ceases to be theory and becomes dogma. (I really will have to think on this some more, but it sounds pretty good just now, so I'll leave it; otherwise, I might forget it.)

Through a fairly involved argument which I will not repeat here, Morin insists that as open systems both subject and object are constitutive of each other. "The world is interior to our mind, which is inside the world. … In the same way that as in microphysics, the observer disturbs the object, which disturbs the perception, in the same way the notions of object and subject are profoundly disturbed each by the other: each opens a crack in the other" (26). So is reality in the mind (the subject) or out there (the object)? Well, it's in the dynamic interplay between the two. It's in the connection. It isn't a case of either/or, it's a case of and/and.

So as I define connectivism, connectivism defines me. Moreover, my observations about connectivism change it, which changes my observations (my self), which changes connectivism, and so on. There is always, then, an indeterminism and uncertainty which must be allowed for in my definition from the middle.

This definition from the middle does introduce at least one problematic issue: I am in the middle. This can be construed to say that I am the center of connectivism, or indeed, of the entire Universe. Of course, I am in the middle of the Universe. If it is infinitely expansive one way and infinitesimally shrinking the other way, then I must be in the direct middle. How do I keep such a view from degenerating into an oppressive  narcissism?

Well, two correctives come to mind immediately. First, the Universe and I have a quite recursive and reflexive relationship, and it defines me as much as, if not more than, I define it. I am as defined as I am defining. Second, and perhaps more importantly, everyone else is at the direct center of the Universe. Moreover, their lives, activities, and knowledge become part of the Universe that I am in a reflexive relationship with, just as my life, activities, and knowledge are fed back; thus, I must account for their knowledge as an integral part of the Universe I'm trying to know. I may be at the center of the Universe, but the Universe does not revolve about me. I may be at the middle of connectivism, but it does not revolve about me. Rather, my knowledge of connectivism is fed back into the eco-system where it must work out its own salvation among all the other ideas, and those ideas feedback into me to change my ideas, and round and round, in and out, up and down, or in whatever motion I want to envision it.

Place Precedes Space, #cck12

So what does it mean to move to the middle?

It seems to mean more than just a shift in point of view, but it is that as well. Indeed, it is a recognition that there actually is a point of view. Definition from outside the system inward is the attempt at a null-view, an objective view. It seeks to efface the viewer, to remove the human from the vision. It is an impossibility. We always look from a point of view, in all the meanings of that phrase: physically, mentally, socially. There is no other way to look, and moving to the middle forces us to accept that.

When we move to the middle of a system such as Connectivism in order to define it, then we start with the DNA of the system PLUS whatever DNA we bring. For instance, as I am working out the definition of Connectivism, I contribute my understanding of Deleuze and Guattari's rhizome, as does Dave Cormier. I don't know that everyone is happy about this rhizomatic influence, but it is really impossible for me (I won't speak for Dave) to snip away the bits of DNA that I have absorbed from Deleuze and Guattari. I also bring my thoughts about Morin and complexity and my thirty years of teaching English composition. I probably also bring in bits of nucleic acid from the 60s and my life as a father and husband. My very presence in the middle of Connectivism rearranges the space. You can say this pollutes the space, the purity of the idea, but I don't know what that gains you. It's simply impossible for me to be in here without tracking some of my DNA about. Likewise, you can't be in here without making your contribution, and as I work to define Connectivism, I have to account for your DNA as well as mine and all the others.

Now, I've mixed metaphors (point of view and DNA), but I'm comfortable with it. They both work for me.

But what about the point of view from the middle? Well, the boundaries look very different from inside. For one thing, they are not nearly so distinct as they are from the God point of view, which can delineate quite nicely the boundaries of Cognitivism, Behaviorism, Constructivism, and Connectivism. The God view can then apportion what belongs to each: Oh, talking about human agency? That belongs to Cognitivism, not Connectivism. You network guys can't talk about that. From the middle, I can look out at anything, and the question becomes not what issues belong to which system but what can I see differently from this system than from the other systems. Connectivism can look at human agency and quite likely say some things about it that are not so easily said from the other systems.

I like to think of it visually. Imagine four vantage points in a wilderness (pick your flavor: desert, forest, or tundra), and label them Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism, and Connectivism. Each vantage point brings certain ad-vantages, showing us things about the wilderness that we could not see or not see so well from the other vantage points. Each vantage point has its distinct uses. None of them give the complete picture. Each of them can give us a better idea of how to get where we are going, depending totally on where we are going.

I must apologize here for the slight trick I just played. In visualizing the four vantage points, I gave you a God view, a point of view you could not in reality have unless you were in an airplane or you were … well, God. Still, the fact that you could imagine such a point of view shows that this point of view has its uses. However, this point of view is always secondary to the anchored points of view. I pick up this insight from a wonderful statement by Bruce B. Janz in his essay The Territory Is Not the Map: Place, Deleuze, Guattari, and African Philosophy where he says that place precedes space. Well, what he precisely says is: "I want to argue that place, the place we find ourselves in and which has meaning to us, precedes space, the bounded and abstractly defined territory." Isn't that clever? I'm glad I came across it, as it clarifies things for me.

What it says to me is that space builds upon place. I must have a sense of place before I can develop a sense of space. Place comes first. From a sense of concrete place, I can eventually develop a sense of space, but not the other way around. From my sense of Macon, Georgia, USA (where I have lived the longest), I can develop a sense of the large space that encloses that place, but it seems to me, I am always working from the inside out: from place to space. I am always standing in one place looking out to the cosmos. I can imagine looking at the Universe as God might, but it really is only a fictional point of view always grounded in my sense of place.

Let's look next at the characteristics of Connectivism that Siemens listed, working from the inside out. Could be fun.

The Least to Say about Connectivism, #cck12

I said earlier that a definition is about the least that we can say about anything—teacups, for instance. This does not mean that we shouldn't say the least that we can say. What it means is that this is the barest of starting points. This is the point at which we begin picking ourselves up by our bootstraps to create meaning out of almost nothing. This is the DNA—the arrangement of "discrete units, empty of meaning (like phonemes or letters of the alphabet), combining into complex units, carriers of meaning (like words)" (On Complexity, 13). As Morin says of information: "Information is not an end-of-the-line concept, but rather, a point-of-departure concept" (14). As he says later, we must learn to define from the center out, not from the outside in.

So what is the least that we can say about Connectivism or Rhizomatics? Let's start with what Siemens says about the basic principles of Connectivism in his online book Knowing Knowledge (2006):

• Learning and knowledge require diversity of opinions to present the whole … and to permit selection of best approach.
• Learning is a network formation process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources. 
• Knowledge rests in networks.
• Knowledge may reside in non-human appliances and learning is enabled/facilitated by technology.
• Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known.
• Learning and knowing are constant, on going processes (not end states or products).
• Ability to see connections and recognize patterns and make sense between fields, ideas, and concepts is the core skill for individuals today.
• Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
• Decision-making is learning. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision.

And what do Deleuze and Guattari say about Rhizomatics? Well, they try not to say much of anything, but they finally concede that "we get the distinct feeling that we will convince no one unless we enumerate certain approximate characteristics of the rhizome" (A Thousand Plateaus, 7):

• connection,
• heterogeneity,
• multiplicity,
• asignifying rupture,
• cartography, and
• decalcomania.

These, then, are the starting points for defining both connectivism and rhizomatics. These are the bits of DNA out of which we can create meaning in a particular kind of way. If this is where we are hoping to end up, then we've missed it, I think. We can, of course, use these definitions to isolate both concepts, distinguishing and separating them from their competitors (if we choose to see it as a competition), and in the end we will pull them both from the eco-systems that feed and inform both and that they both feed back into. In the end, we will kill both concepts.

To keep both concepts alive, we most start at these points, and possibly a few other points, and then work outward from the center. To my mind, then, this is the first step in changing the way we define: locate ourselves in the center and work outward from there—recognizing, of course, that we have become part of the definition. We cannot overlook that. Definition from the inside-out means that we are part of the definition. We have no god-like privilege or position outside the system we are defining. Trying to take such a position is a fiction, a not always helpful fiction.

Teacups and CCK12

I said yesterday that a definition is about the least you can say about something. My wife and I had friends over today, and the talk turned to teacups and my wife's impressive collection.

The Net defines a teacup as: a cup from which tea is drunk.

I don't know about you, but I can hardly imagine saying less about a teacup, but I can imagine saying more.

I recall when, as a newly married couple, Daphne and I were first visiting my parents' home. Wanting to impress her new daughter-in-law, my mother served hot tea for breakfast instead of the usual coffe. Daphne's face went ashen as Mom passed her a coffee mug full of Luzianne tea. The breach of that moment has been bridged, but not forgotten. Of course, you only serve tea in fine china teacups, and you should use only Yellow Label Lipton or Red Rose teas for breakfast.

When my family arrived in Nassau for the summer break from teaching, we were always greeted with a cup of tea. We would unload the bags in our bedrooms, and by the time we had returned to the family room, the tea was on, usually accompanied by a slice of Ma Gwennie's pound cake, a rich, buttery bit of yellow heaven that melted on the tongue and in the heart. All the family would usually pop in to greet us, and before the pot was finished more water was brewing. My boys learned to love their Nassau family over a cup of tea.

An auntie gave us a particularly beautiful Tuscan teacup not long before she was diagnosed with breast cancer. A sister-in-law gave us several teacups from the collection of her grandmother who had passed away in Idaho at the age of 100. A dear friend returned from a cruise of the Rhine River with a teacup. My father returned from the Ukraine with a set of teacups. My dear mother-in-law left her entire Shelley collection to my wife in her will. Those teacups are precious.

Just this afternoon, I served tea to my wife, sister-in-law, and a couple of cousins from the Bahamas. Honestly, the teacups were not the center of conversation, but they were witnesses. So much of the life of my family has flowed through teacups.

And this doesn't even begin to cover all the things that a maker of fine porcelain could tell you about clay, calcined bone ash, molds, casting, firing, and glazing. You could spend years becoming a master craftsman, and quite likely, even if you  were gifted as well with words, you could not define teacup as you really know it.

A dictionary definition, then, is an example of what Edgar Morin calls simple thought. Such thought is convenient and handy, and sometimes it is sufficient for the need, as Dave Cormier explains in his post about the Cynefin framework of Dave Snowden. But simple, dictionary definitions are not sufficient for complex, open systems such as Connectivism and Rhizomatics. This, I think, is why Cormier and Siemens do not want to define either concept.

Still, people want to know what they are talking about when they say Connectivism or Rhizomatics, and they are reasonable to ask for definitions. How, then, does one define without reducing to an almost meaningless statement? I like this question.

Defining Connectivism, #cck12

This past Thursday night, I checked in on the CCK12 online session about one of my favorite topics: complexity. When George Siemens opened the session for questions, I raised my hand to ask him if he has had to change the way he defines Connectivism, given that it is itself a complex, open system for studying complex, open systems. As too often happens in an open forum, I did not frame the question well, and George seemed to think I was asking for a definition of Connectivism. That wasn't my intention, so let me reframe the question here. I think it's important.

What I want to get to is the problem of defining complex, open systems. This issue has been popping up from time-to-time from lots of different people and in different contexts. It seemed especially contentious in Dave Cormier's recent discussion of rhizomatics. Lots of people pressed Dave to define rhizomatic thinking, and he did an admirable job. People also press Siemens and Downes to define Connectivism, and in Thursday's session, George noted that he has made a number of statements about what Connectivism is throughout his writing, but that basically he doesn't like to define it too precisely.

That isn't a bad tack: just don't define it. Let the concept work itself out, or not. Perhaps that's the tack we should take with rhizomatics, but I agree with Deleuze and Guattari that if we don't say something, then we will not be convincing. But how do we define Connectivism or Rhizomatics?

I think the problem begins with the act of definition itself. In brief, it seems to me that our habits of definition are informed by the reductionism that has characterized Western intellectual life for the past 300 years. I think we need a new way of defining, a new procedure. I'm certain that someone has dealt adequately with this issue already, but I'm not aware of who has done it or what they have said. If someone will send me a reference, I will be most appreciative.

Anyway, we can start with the simple definition of the word define taken from an Internet dictionary, and we can immediately see the problems (and yes, I am aware of the irony of starting an attack on definition with a definition):

1. to determine or identify the essential qualities or meaning of.
2. a : to fix or mark the limits of : demarcate; b : to make distinct, clear, or detailed especially in outline.

Defining in this sense is an intellectual activity from the outside in. It is an act of overcoding and power by an outside subject onto an object. The outside agent first defines the essential characteristics of the object and then marks the limits or boundaries of the object. Thus, it is an act of reducing the object to its barest minimum. I believe that a definition is always the very least that you can say about anything, which in most conversations renders it useless.

For instance, consider the definition of the word innuendo by the dictionary: an allusive or oblique remark or hint, typically a suggestive or disparaging one. Now, consider Wallace Stevens' use of the word in his poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird:

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling,
Or just after.

There is nothing more to say about the dictionary definition of innuendo, but I'm still learning about Wallace Stevens' definition. The dictionary definition creates a closed entity with clear, fixed boundaries, an inert nugget, the ideal item for a multiple-choice question on a middle school English quiz. The Stevens' definition creates an open entity with permeable, active boundaries, a rhizome. It is anything but a multiple-choice answer. We very well may write about Stevens' meaning for the next few centuries.

Connectivism needs this second kind of definition. I think Morin has something useful to say here, and I'll take that up next in a next post. G'night.

PS: I just looked at Dave Cormier's latest post, and I see that he is tackling the same issue as I. What happy serendipity. Dave starts with Snowden's Cynefin framework, a concept that I intended to tackle in a later post, but now Dave has done most of the thinking for me, and he's spot on, so I'll just rip, mix, and burn. Further, I sense that he, too, is unhappy with the process of defining Rhizomatic learning, at least in the terms that most people seem to demand. Nice.

Connectivity and Open Systems, #cck12

Sometimes you follow a line of thought like a crack in the ice, excited to see where it goes but also wondering if all break-throughs are such a good thing.

Anyway, in my last post I tackled the issue Frances Bell posited about "the connections between humans and non-human in understanding learning," and I suggested that Morin's concepts of open and closed systems might contribute in some way. An open system, by Morin's definition, exchanges energy, matter, organization, and information with its eco-system, which includes both closed and open systems. This exchange makes for a stabilized dynamism that is self-organizing and in some fashion aware of its environment. By awareness, I mean that the open system—an amoeba or a sunflower or human—can perceive changes and options in its environment and make choices that help it respond to those changes. For instance, an amoeba can perceive a drop of acid in its petri dish and can turn away. It seems to me that most open, living systems have relatively few perceptions and choices, but as we move toward more complex systems, we can see an increase in the relative number and variety of perceptions, choices, and responses, but this might be an entirely chauvinistic bias on my part. Amoeba may live in a world as rich with potential as mine is. I don't know. Anyway, we humans commonly believe that the dynamic relationships between the open, living system and its eco-system become more complicated and more nuanced, more distanced from a simple stimulus-response, though never losing that simple basis for interaction. In other words, stimulus-response always remains necessary for explaining the behavior of living systems, but it seems to become less sufficient an explanation as we move toward the human.

The open system, then, participates in defining itself in and through its interactions with its eco-system, and it participates in graduated degrees from the most simple life form to the most complex, us humans. Again, my chauvinism is showing. The open system starts, of course, with a given configuration of energy, matter, organization, and information from its genetic parents, but it can modify that basic configuration as it interacts with its eco-system.

The task for the open, living system is to constantly monitor its environment and to open itself to good things in the environment and close itself to bad things. Open systems have evolved different mechanisms for opening and closing themselves to manage the flow of energy, matter, organization, and information between themselves and their environments—in other words, to manage their connections—but they all seem to have some mechanism. We humans appear to have quite sophisticated mechanisms, including the ability to develop new mechanisms. This constant opening, closing, and reopening of the self effectively makes the boundaries between the individual open system and its environment dynamic, malleable, and porous, and it effectively changes the way we should define the individual. Traditionally, we have defined open, living systems from their skin, hide, cell wall inward. Now, as Morin shrewdly observes, we must define living systems from their center outward, knowing that the skin, hide, or cell wall is porous and that the boundary between the individual and her eco-system is open to negotiation, growth, and dynamic shift.

This negotiation, this interplay between the individual and its environment, introduces the concepts of intentionality and power for me. When an amoeba swims forward into a drop of acid, it has a choice to make: continue forward into a bad environment or swim away into something better. Its decision to move away forms the rudiments of intentionality and power. While the amoeba's decision may be much closer to an automatic stimulus-response kind of decision than to the complicated moral choices that humans make, it is the bedrock of intentionality and power, the sort of bedrock that a stone, for instance, does not have. As far as we know, a stone has no choices.

This allows me to distinguish between force and power. A stone has force, but no power, at least not as I am using the terms. If moving, a stone can strike another thing with force, and if the stone is bigger and harder and, thus, carries more force, then it demolishes the smaller thing, or if the other thing is bigger and harder and, thus, carries more force, then the stone is demolished. As open, living systems, we humans have force, but we also have power. If I encounter you, then I exert a gravitational force on you that does not depend on my intention, but if I hit you or hug you, then I have exerted a power on you that is dependent on intentionality. Force is independent of power; whereas, power emerges from force. Because power is an emergent property of open, living systems, force is not sufficient to explain power, though understanding force can clarify power. Power functions at a more complex level than force, and as such, it has rules and capabilities and implications that force does not.

I'll worry later about the differences between force and power, but I want to shift now to talking about humans, non-human appliances, learning, and how they all connect before I get any further out on this very thin ice.

It seems to me that much of what we humans do as open, living systems is learn about our environments: we learn what good things to connect with and bad things to avoid. Infants start learning early what to put into their mouths, what not; what to stick their fingers into, what not; when to sleep, when not; when to cry, when not. They learn to distinguish good energies and matters from bad and to choose appropriately, but infants also start learning very early about organizational and informational exchanges and how to distinguish the good from the bad. They learn family and not-family, group and not-group. They learn truth and lie, how to get to school and how not. The various connections or flows that humans cultivate or deny begin to redefine who they are. The physical, genetic substrate for any individual remains, of course, but it is not sufficient to sustain the individual, or to define them. The sustenance and definition of an individual depends as much on the interactions with the individual's eco-system as it does on the core genetic material that the individual starts with. Perhaps sustenance and definition depend more on our connections. At any rate, our connections are indispensable, and we cannot understand ourselves without understanding those connections. Our meaning emerges in our dynamic connections, and these connections seems to inevitably involve matters of intentionality, power, and learning.

When closed systems interact, we can describe the interactions as forces and regularities, but when open systems interact, even with closed systems, then we must add power and intentionality to the description, especially if we are looking at the interaction of two or multiple open systems—a student and a teacher, for instance, or a shopper and a recommendation engine.

To my mind, then, the connection between a shopper and a recommendation engine always involves intention on the part of both, but that intention cannot be understood apart from the connection. Yes, each individual brings core characteristics such as emotional dispositions and programs, but the intention of each emerges in the interaction of the two, as each shapes the other, learns the other and learns the rules of the interaction. This way of viewing intentionality is reminiscent of Randall Collins' treatment of the situation as defining the individual, rather than the other way around. In his book Interaction Ritual Theory (2004), Collins says:

We get more by starting with the situation and developing the individual, than by starting with individuals; and we get emphatically more than by the usual route of skipping from the individual to the action or cognition that ostensibly belongs to him or her and bypassing the situation entirely. … The human individual is a quasi-enduring, quasi-transient flux in time and space … This is not to say that the individual does not exist. But an individual is not simply a body, even though a body is an ingredient that individuals get constructed out of. My analytical strategy … is to start with the dynamics of situations; from this we can derive almost everything that we want to know about individuals, as a moving precipitate across situations. (3,4)

I like that. An individual is a moving precipitate, a nexus for the dynamic connections it attracts, carries, sustains, and abandons on its nomadic way.

Well, I let this sit overnight for a fresh look, and I don't think the crack in the ice took me where I thought it would, but I'm okay with that. I'll let this stand. I wanted to think about an issue I hadn't really thought about before: the connections between humans and their non-human appliances, and I did a bit of thinking. Did I reach a conclusion? Nothing that I'm willing to bet on, but I did lay some groundwork to continue thinking. I think relationships between humans and smart machines cannot be explained simply in terms of amoral force. The machines themselves are coming to simulate open systems so well that we must begin to relate to them as open systems. This necessarily involves intentionality and power, and Connectivism which focuses on connections must recognize this intentionality and power and offer an explanation for it, or at least an examination of it.

Human and Non-human Connections, #cck12

I want to continue using comments from a discussion I've had with Frances Bell, mostly on Dave Cormier's blog. Let me note up front that I have not understood Frances particularly well, or perhaps a more forgiving way to say it is that I am having to learn what she means, and I don't always do that before I speak. It's a bad habit, but thus far, she has been quite generous with me.

At the end of her comment on Dave's post, Frances introduced two very interesting topics that I've been edging toward through my last two posts:

1. the connections between humans and non-human in understanding learning, and
2. power relations in networks, especially "where the machine is seen as amoral and humans as 'democratised.'"

I want to explore in this post the first issue: the connections between humans and non-human in understanding learning. Connectivism says that knowledge can involve non-human entities. I find a telling footnote in a list of Principles of Connectivism in George Siemens' online book Knowing Knowledge. The salient principle reads "Knowledge may res ide i n non-human appliances, and learn ing i s enabled/facilitated by technology." The footnote reads:

The concept of knowledge resting in non-human appliances (mediated by artificial intelligence or directed by intelligent agents) is controversial. As with the discussion on context-games, how one defines knowledge largely determines whether one will accept this definition. As I mentioned in the preface, I have largely avoided the use of the word information in this text. It could be well argued that all knowledge is simply varying shades of information, and information itself is transformed into knowledge when we have a personal relationship with it (i.e., we internalize information). This discussion, from my perspective, is unnecessary for the purpose of this book. In order to have any practical discussion of information and knowledge, we need to discuss it as if it is something that a) describes some aspect of the world, and b) something on which we can act. This simple definition provides the basis for viewing knowledge as being able to reside in non-human appliances.

Of course, this is too short a selection to be taken as a definitive statement of Siemens' position, but it can be a useful point of departure for my own thoughts. First, I notice a tension in how Siemens situates knowledge in an appliance, by which he seems to be suggesting modern, electronic appliances with artificial intelligence and intelligent agents. In his principle and then again at the end of the footnote, Siemens says that knowledge can reside in non-human appliances. He compliments the verb resides with resting when he says that "the concept of knowledge resting in non-human appliances … is controversial." To my mind, reside and resting suggest a passive holding place for knowledge, and this is very old hat indeed. We've been using non-human appliances such as cave walls, clay tablets, and papyrus scrolls to hold knowledge for millennia, both as extensions to our memories and vehicles for communication. Nothing new here. Of course, we can store more information in smaller spaces than before and we can share that information more readily with more people, and those are important differences, but they seem to me differences of degree rather than kind.

What is new is captured in Siemens' verbs mediated and directed. I don't know how active a role George is positing here for non-human appliances—and the meanings of these two particular verbs could be slanted either way toward more or less activity—but this is a difference in kind from the non-human knowledge appliances that came before, or so it seems to me. One of the virtues of a printed book is that it does NOT interact with the text, with the information contained within its covers; rather, the book preserves unaltered the text so that what I read today is the same as what I read yesterday (minus my own marginalia) and the same as what I will read again tomorrow. The text is static. Today, text is dynamic—along with other forms of information/knowledge such as image, number, audio, and so on (allow me to use information and knowledge interchangeably for a moment). Few these days will visit a third time a web page that hasn't changed, and while those changes are still mostly made by humans, they are increasingly being made, mediated, and directed by non-human appliances. This represents a fundamental shift in the relationship between human and the non-human knowledge/information appliance.

I see this difference most clearly in terms of Edgar Morin's distinction between closed systems and open systems. A stone is an example of a closed system: it is self-contained, needing next to nothing from the eco-system to maintain and persist as it is. Life forms, including humans, are examples of open systems: they are not self-contained, but absolutely require a dynamic exchange of energy, matter, organization, and information between themselves and their eco-systems to persist as living forms.

A book is more like a closed system (not completely closed, as I will argue another time, but for now, let's just say it's more closed); the recommendation engine on Amazon is more like an open system. The book does not take in more energy or information, process it, rearrange itself according to the inputs, and release new energy, information, and waste into its eco-system. This is not to say that the book is not a dynamic system. It is. Rather, the book is dynamic more in the way a stone in a stream is. Dynamic eddies and swirls develop, shift, grow, and wane as the water rushes about the rock, but the rock does not take in those as inputs. It just remains what it is until stronger outside forces push it into being something else. We want something similar from our books. We want them to stay put as they are. Just try re-writing Huckleberry Finn to see what a fuss you will raise.

The Amazon recommendation engine, on the other hand, does take in information and energy from its eco-system. It then processes that information, rearranges itself accordingly, and releases new energy, information, and presumably waste into its eco-system. This engine is more like a rather single-minded amoeba, or maybe a pigeon. I'm not sure how high up the intelligence ladder to go, assuming there is such a ladder, but this non-human appliance is able to monitor its environment, take in information, recognize options, make regular judgements based on that information, and release new information into the eco-system, which then becomes part of the reiterative feedback into the recommendation engine. Like all life-systems, the Amazon recommendation engine has the ability to self-organize, or simulates that ability very, very well.

Interacting with an open-system appliance is different from interacting with a closed-system appliance, or it sure feels different. But if so, then how? Let's think on that for a day and talk about it tomorrow.

Intentionality in the Rhizome, #cck12

Yesterday, I tried to explain why I think that Connectivism may be guilty of focusing too much on the network and not enough on the individuals in the network. I suggested that Edgar Morin may have the correct stance: it isn't either the network or the individual; rather, it's each that must be accounted for in the examination of the other.

This is not some philosophical compromise or a happy medium in which opposing viewpoints each get a little something to save face; rather, it's a radically different way of viewing reality. I'll explain by starting with an objection to something that Frances Bell said in reply to my comments about intentionality being another point of entry into the rhizome: "I agree that intentionality emerges from more than just an individual ‘forming intentions’ and to some extent may be seen as a local network effect." To be fair, this is basically an introductory statement to her real point about connectivism overplaying the network effect, so I do not suggest that it adequately expresses Bell's point of view, but I can say that it represents the common view about human cognition, including intentionality. For most people, intentionality is a function of the individual brain or mind, even if it involves some local neural networks. If we want to understand any given intention, then we need only look to the individual who has, or creates, or forms, or expresses that intention.

I disagree with this point of view. I insist that if we look only to the individual, then we simply cannot understand the intention. Why? Because as Olaf Sporns says in his book Networks of the Brain, cognition is a function of networks. Olaf devotes much of his book to the neural networks that are the most obvious scale of the networks that support cognitive activity such as intentionality, but he quite clearly opens the discussion to the networks functioning at higher and lower scales. Networks depend upon other networks and form the basis for yet more networks. Limiting a study to one scale can be a useful fiction that allows for great focus and parsimony, but it is not reality—it's a fiction. And I say that in the very best sense of the term and with the utmost respect for fiction. I happen to believe that good fiction is the best we humans can do.

But … I start to wander.

Back to intentionality as a function of the individual. We simply cannot reduce intention (or any other cognitive function, such as learning) to the given individual said to be forming the intention or doing the learning. We can understand any given intention only as the complex interaction of an open system (the individual) with its eco-system. As an open system, any individual is defined in great part by the flow of energy, matter, organization, and information between itself and its eco-system. While the brain of the individual forms a necessary substrate for intentionality, it is not sufficient for intentionality. Rather, intentionality requires the dynamic interaction—what Morin calls stabilized dynamics (On Complexity, 11)—between the individual and his physical, social, emotional environment. Morin goes on to say that "the intelligibility of the system has to be found, not only in the system itself, but also in its relations with the environment, and that this relationship is not a simple dependence: it is constitutive of the system. Reality is therefore as much in the connection (relationship) as in the distinction between the open system and its environment" (11). Thus, if we want to understand anyone's intentions, then we must understand not only their individual reasoning but also the dynamics between them and the world. It's an impossible task to understand even one single intention completely, a human condition for which I am most grateful. We will never have an end to learning. Never. There are simply too many connections to follow, and each intention is the nexus of innumerable arcs, trajectories, flows, and asignifying ruptures.

But, God, can we create some magnificent fictions, full of real insight, beauty, and helpful hints about reality. If Deleuze and Guattari are correct, then we use cartography and decalcomania to accomplish these fictions.

So to sum it all up: yeah, it's all in the connections. Probably even more so than Siemens and Downes know or can imagine. Those connections, of course, include non-human, even non-living, entities.

But the Oscars are on, and my wife wants me to watch them with her, so let's talk tomorrow about how cartography and decalcomania aid the individual in managing the flow of organization and information between the individual and her world.

The Problem of Intentionality, #cck12

In a recent exchange on Dave Cormier's post Embracing Uncertainty and the strange problem of habituation, Frances Bell challenged that Connectivism "tends to overplay the network effect and underplay human agency." It seems that she does not see much room in Connectivism for intentionality. I am not as familiar with the actor network theory that she referenced, so I did a bit of reading, including France's own article Network theories for technology-enabled learning and social change: Connectivism and actor network theory, (and graded 70 papers from my first year college students), and while I've much thinking to do yet on the issue, I want to make a few remarks.

I'll start by addressing Bell's complaint that Connectivism overplays "the network effect." She may very well be correct. While I won't speak for other Connectivists, I will say that I have a tendency to focus way too much on networks, or its more robust big sister—the rhizome. I do have a defense, though, and it has to do with contrast between the individual on one hand and the network on the other. Let me say up front that my discussion draws heavily from Edgar Morin's excellent little book On Complexity (2008), a book that I recommend to all who are interested in Connectivism and its related discussions.

Western culture has three hundred years of intense scrutiny of the individual by a science and philosophy that habitually reduced phenomena to closed systems, or discrete individuals, understandable in and of themselves. In educational terms, we have studied students as individuals, pretty much limited to what's inside their skins and brains. We teach them as individuals, we certainly test and assess them that way, and we promote them that way. We tend to think of knowledge as a function of individual brains (materialists) or minds (mentalists and spiritualists). My own field, rhetoric, has reduced writing to the use of proper grammatical and syntactical structures combined in regular ways—something like a fine watch. This is a mechanistic world view at its finest.

This science has had almost unbelievable run of successes that is difficult to challenge, but of course, it has been challenged. As Morin notes, the epistemology of classical science was undermined in the 20th century by a microphysics "which revealed the interdependence of subject and object, the insertion of randomness into knowledge, the de-reification of the notion of matter, [and] the eruption of logical contradiction in empirical description" (9) and by a macrophysics which "unites in a single entity the concepts of space and time" (9). And now, "the pedestal of knowledge is cracking" (8).

We now recognize that most systems in the Universe are not closed, especially those systems that we find most interesting: living systems, including us humans. We living things are open systems in a constant and dynamic exchange with our various eco-systems, or the networks within which we are embedded. (Forgive me here as I use eco-systems and networks interchangeably. I know that they are not synonymous.)

This brings me to my point: this blossoming awareness of open systems (Morin's term) and networks (Connectivism) and rhizomatics (Deleuze and Guattari) has proven to be among the most engaging and captivating strain of intellectual thought, at least to my mind, in the latter half of the 20th century. I suppose there are still things to say about the individual, but the rhizome is such rich and fertile ground that I, for one, am seduced by it and spend most of my time talking about it. I suspect that others find it equally attractive.

However, the emergence of the rhizome/network/open systems line of thought really should not dismiss all that we have learned through such great effort about the individual. That knowledge is still critical to our understanding. In fact, I think that we cannot understand the rhizome/network/open system without including the individual. Again, Morin says it best: "Reality is therefore as much in the connection (relationship) as in the distinction between the open system and its environment" (11).

For me, the Sunday School lesson is this: if you want to understand any phenomenon, especially any phenomenon such as intentionality that involves living systems, then you must consider both the individual and the network, the system and the eco-system. We've had 300 years of emphasis on the individual, and now some of us are perhaps over-emphasizing the network. I'm okay with that, but only up to a point, and I'm always pleased when someone reminds me that my point of view is just a bit skewed. It usually is.

Frances said more things, but I will address them later. This is a start.

Technology & Teaching - #CCK12 #CHANGE11

MOOCs such as CCK12 and Change11 almost by definition involve a lot of technology, and so questioning the use of technology in teaching might seem … well, almost sacrilegious. Still, The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article recently entitled A Tech-Happy Professor Reboots After Hearing His Teaching Advice Isn't Working, which seems to suggest that Michael Wesch, the Kansas State prof who has supposedly turned his back on educational technology, has finally seen the error of his ways. So are those of us who followed Michael Wesch's marvelous viral videos into the 21st century now supposed to do an about-face? I don't think so.

The title is a flagrant abuse of journalistic license that maligns both ed tech and Michael Wesch. You should read the article yourself, but clearly, Wesch has not dropped technology. Still, you can almost hear the collective sigh of all those tenured professors who can return to their lectures notes and bits of chalk ends, content that this instructional technology thing has been exposed as a bad idea.

It hasn't. What has been exposed is poor, passionless teaching whether to a face-to-face group of 20 or an online group of 200 or 2,000. The article itself makes the case plainly, despite its inflammatory title:

Mr. Wesch is not swearing off technology—he still believes you can teach well with YouTube and Twitter. But at a time when using more interactive tools to replace the lecture appears to be gaining widespread acceptance, he has a new message. It doesn't matter what method you use if you do not first focus on one intangible factor: the bond between professor and student.

Duh. I really doubt this is a new message from Mr. Wesch. I suspect he has always supported impassioned, competent teaching, even before he went online.

So here's the message: a passionless, inept teacher can muck up 20 students in a classroom or 200 students online. Upon reflection, this might actually be something of an argument against instructional technology. Given that through the use of technology, an inept teacher can damage more students, then we should keep technology out of the hands of inept teachers. I can buy that. However, it doesn't strike me as an argument against instructional technology; rather, it's an indictment of poor teaching.

The article is also an illuminating example of The Chronicle's bias toward teaching as the salient aspect of higher education rather than learning. The point of technology is not mostly to work for the teacher, but for the student. Technology does, in fact, work for students in my writing classes. Pen and paper doesn't work in some f2f classes.

Finally, the article creates a false dichotomy. Technology and f2f are not mutually exclusive. We can do both in different situations. I can imagine a wonderfully delightful f2f session with Cormier, Downes, and Siemens around a couple of pints on a clear, summer evening in Charlottetown, PEI. No doubt, as the student, I would learn much—perhaps they would also learn a few things—but this is not likely to happen as I am in south Florida and they are scattered across Canada (actually, Downes in Moncton is closer to me in West Palm Beach (1,960 m/3,154 km) than he is to Siemens in Athabasca (2,897 m/4,663 km)—just in case you are wondering). While the pints of beer have certain desirable affordances, the Internet has other just as desirable affordances (okay, not quite as desirable, but you get the point). Fortunately, we can have both, and the Net is just so much more accessible. So don't disconnect just yet.

All Models Are Wrong - #CCK12

I was watching a wonderful slideshare by Jurgen Appelo called Complexity versus Lean, when I came across one of those pithy quotes that pulls ideas together for you. On  slide 74 of 92, Appelo says, "All models are wrong, some are useful." I liked the quote so much I googled it and discovered that, according to Anecdote.com, George Box, the industrial statistician, is credited with the quote ‘all models are wrong, some are useful’. I will leave it for another day to figure out what Box and Appelo mean by the quote, but I know what it means for me today.

Just yesterday, I left a comment on Joanne's post Rhizomes and Canons - Week 3 - CCK12, in which she says YES to many Connectivist principles that she's learning in CCK12, but NO to the idea that there is not "some knowledge that is settled and unassailable." She particularly wants to reserve a special place—perhaps a sacred space—for her own knowledge of God and human love. I have great sympathy for her point of view, being a believer myself, and yet I think she is confusing knowledge of the thing with the thing itself. This is not uncommon. It's what most of us do most of the time, and usually, it gets us through the day quite nicely.

But this quote—All models are wrong, some are useful—puts this habit of mind in perspective for me: all our models of God are wrong, some are useful. Likewise, our models of reality are wrong, some are useful. This, I think, is a core principle of rhizomatic/connectivist thinking. Reality does not sit still for our models. While we must create models of reality to attain some kind of sanity, the models are at best useful for a time. Eventually, all our models slip into an intolerable inconsistency with the reality they once mapped, and they cease to be useful—or worse, they become harmful and dangerous.

This is why Deleuze and Guattari insist that one of the core principles of the rhizome is cartography, or mapping. We must be in a constant process of mapping reality, especially that reality that we think we've already nailed down. Reality slips, and our models no longer map to it. We must build models and constantly rebuild our models. Models such as Connectivism, then, are wrong, though I and others find it useful for a time—perhaps a life time. I'm satisfied with that, but also vigilant. We are in most danger not when we think we know, but when we think that our knowledge is permanent, settled and unassailable. Nothing stops learning as quickly as settled and unassailable knowledge.

Chasing Metaphors in CCK12

In a recent post entitled Week 3: Rhizomatic or biological neuralogical network?, my colleague in CCK12 Matt Bury writes that he's "been pondering the analogy of distributed networks of learners, i.e. Connectivism, as rhizomes" and concludes that he "wasn’t convinced by it from the start." You can read the rest of Matt's thoughtful comments on his blog, but if I understand him correctly, he doesn't see a tight fit between botanical rhizomes and networks of people. Actually, he seems to prefer neurological networks, which appear to be structured much more like social learning networks. I, too, have found neural networks to be most helpful in understanding networks in general and neural networks in particular, and I heartily refer interested scholars to Olaf Sporns' book Networks of the Brain.

Matt makes a fair point that others have made: the Deleusian rhizome doesn't match so well with botanical rhizomes which don't match so well with social networks. I see Matt's point, and I think it has some substance, but for me, it is somewhat beside the point for several reasons. First, Deleuze and Guattari use the rhizome mostly as a metaphor, or so it seems to me, and I don't think metaphors can be pushed to any great precision. Rather, a metaphor compares a more tangible thing to another less tangible thing to illuminate some aspect of the second thing, or sometimes both things. Love is a rose is a metaphor that suggests certain features of love that we might not have thought about before; however, if we press the metaphor too closely, we can quickly discover features of love that are not like a rose and vice versa. Metaphors shift our point of view so that we look at an object differently than has been customary. It doesn't map to the second thing precisely.

Then Deleuze and Guattari do not rely so much on any botanical definition of rhizomes; rather, they describe the rhizome as a linguistic and social structure mostly, providing a definition of sorts based on six features: connectivity, heterogeneity, multiplicity, asignifying ruptures, cartography, and decalcomania. I'm no botanist, but I don't think these features are prominent in any definition of botanical rhizomes. For example, Deleuzian rhizomes are heterogenous. Most botanical rhizomes are homogenous. Rather, these features describe much more closely the way language develops and spreads, and Deleuze and Guattari use them that way.

I have found Deleuze and Guattari's rhizome to be a particularly potent metaphor that has given me a new way of thinking about social networks and a new vocabulary to use in discussing those networks. The metaphor may not work for everyone, however. Love is a rose no longer works very well for most people, though at one time, it was quite the fresh and striking image.

I'm not sure why Deleuze and Guattari chose the rhizome upon which to construct their analysis. I think it was the visual features that appealed to them, but that's just conjecture. Or perhaps they wanted another botanical image to contrast with the tree image that they were using to describe hierarchical structures (another metaphor, and again, not so precise as some trees such as aspens could be classified as botanical rhizomes—a detail Deleuze and Guattari ignore or are unaware of). Anyway, I think the point I've been wandering toward is this: when we speak of the Deleuzian rhizome, or rhizomatics, we are not speaking of a botanical rhizome, but of a metaphor for that undifferentiated ground of being out of which structures emerge and into which all structures eventually return. To scale that down to something more practical, we are talking about how we humans are constantly trying to map a shifting landscape—to capture in language, mathematics, and social, political, religious, and economic structures those details of reality that for a time seem important, but which always shift away from our names and structures into something else. If that is how the complex world works, then how do we educate for that? That's rhizomatic learning.

Rhizomatic Growth in CCK12

In a response to my previous post, fellow CCK12 MOOCer and blogger, Matt Bury, describes a number of techniques that he uses to build communities of inquiry and practice in his classrooms, and it reminds me that formal theories—if we choose to call Connectivism a formal theory—grow in very informal, rhizomatic ways, spreading like oil—or as Deleuze and Guattari say of the rhizomatic growth of language: It evolves by subterranean stems and flows, along river valleys or train tracks; it spreads like a patch of oil. It is not proselytized as a monolithic system of thought. I think this is one of the appeals of rhizomatic thinking for me, and I suspect it may be for others as well.

The monolithic system of thought, of course, has a most useful function. For a time, sometimes for a long time, it steadies our thoughts and allows us to measure progress and change. We can define goals and even appear to meet them. Yet, if Deleuze and Guattari are correct, then this measurement and movement is always something of a fiction—a useful fiction often, but a fiction—and eventually it becomes a fascist kernel that becomes more interested in preserving its own identity and establishing its own hegemony than in being useful. Even this open-ended, freely evolving Connectivist community may eventually write its own creed and bless those who are inside that creed and castigate those who are outside.

But never fear. If Deleuze and Guattari are correct, then the rhizome will simply move on, flowing around and beyond the little fascist knots that calcify from time to time. This movement in rhizomatic structures comes most explicitly, and sometimes forcefully, through asignifying ruptures, the fourth characteristic of the rhizome.

#cck12 - A Connected Classroom

I'm finding it quite easy to frame most of what I do in my writing classes with rhizomatic/connectivist thinking. I work hard to connect students to someone other than to me. I begin class by asking my students to take out their cell phones and text someone about what they are doing at the moment: learning how to write. This is a bit theatrical as most of the students think at first that I will demand that they turn off their cell phones. They are shocked but pleased to learn that this class will encourage cell phone usage. We then read the responses aloud, which almost always provides some merriment. This exercise immediately lets them know several things about the class:

• connectivity is paramount in the class.
• the class will connect beyond the confines of the classroom.
• the class will utilize whatever tool is convenient and productive for writing.
• the teacher may not be the center of the class universe.
• writing is quite likely not what they thought it was.
• we will find ways to have fun.

The ludic element should not be overlooked. Research shows that few things work better than fun and play for connecting people with each other and with a new endeavor. Rhizomatic connectivists must have a shtick and a game. By the way, one cannot read Deleuze and Guattari without being struck by the theatrical, ludic quality of their writing. If you aren't laughing through A Thousand Plateaus or Anti-Oedipus, then you're missing the point.

I then ask my students how many of them consider themselves writers. Usually, only a handful raise their hands. I then ask them how often they text each day. They all text a lot. I then insist that they are all writers, and usually, they protest that texting is not writing. This allows us to discuss writing, with me trying to convince them that their generation is generating more writing by more people than any other generation in history. I'm not sure how many of them are convinced, but it does serve them notice that they are not in a traditional college class, much less a traditional writing class. They sense that something is afoot, and by this time, most of them are alert. I like this.

I then have them introduce each other to the class, but only after they interview each other and take notes (more writing and connecting, but they don't usually think of it as writing or connecting). They have to learn the single most interesting thing they can about the other person that can be publicly shared. Both the interviews and the introductions are usually great fun, and after the introductions, I lead them in a discussion of writing as a tool for learning and for remembering. I again ask them how many make notes and lists for themselves or take notes in class. Most all of them do, so I submit that as further evidence that they are already writers. Usually by this time, many are beginning to warm to the idea. I ask how many enjoyed the interview, and most do. So I ask again if they enjoy writing. Not so many raise their hands this time.

I conclude the class by giving them my Gmail address and asking them to send me a Gmail identifying their Google account so that I can send them the link to the Google Sites class wiki, where the syllabus is housed.

So I devote the entire first day connecting the students to each other, to someone outside the class, to writing as they already use it, and finally to me and to the course apparatus, which obviously relies a great deal on Google. I find the Google tools much less restrictive and far more open to connectivity than the school's LMS.

Of course, next term I may use completely different activities, but the point will likely remain the same: foster connectivity that centers about the class proper, but encourages connectivity beyond the class.

Connectivity in the Classroom

So Deleuze and Guattari say that in the rhizome all points are connected to all other points, even unlike, heterogenous points, and that these connected points are a multiplicity emerging from multiplicities. To my mind, this undermines directly the traditional, industrial approach to education which identifies each student and teacher as a discrete unit, each class and lesson as discrete units, each educational cohort as a discrete unit, each discipline as a discrete unit, and arranges them all in some factory order, mostly to meet the demands of the factory, the school.

How would I say this for my classes? A class of 20 students brings together more points of value and knowledge than the class can ever hope to mine, utilize, incorporate, cultivate, or explore. Moreover, limiting the value-add merely to the teacher's knowledge short-changes the students' learning processes significantly. Rhizomatic/Connectivist education, then, looks for ways to form connections to all the value and knowledge resident in any given intersection of students, teachers, content, resources, interests, objectives, and so forth, and suggests that the more connections the class forms, then the more knowledge that emerges for all.

What can we connect to? Well, most everything—especially in higher education. While the class may, and probably should, have a focus similar to my focus on academic writing on the focus of CCK12 on Connectivism and connected knowledge, the rhizomatic/connectivist key is to help students and teachers connect this starting focus to their own personal and professional trajectories. In other words, what is the connection of academic writing to the student in my class who is preparing to be a cop, or a nurse, or a legal assistant? What value can the student with six-years of military service bring to the conversation about academic writing? What value from the student has survived cancer? What value from the student who has just graduated from high school?

A rhizomatic/connectivist approach to education, it seems to me, looks for a space within which students can bring their own value to the discussion of whatever, be it writing, art, or zoology. I think MOOCs are one such space, and I'm grateful to be in two of them at the moment: Change11 and CCK12, but I'm also looking for ways to open my classroom in its traditional space to this rhizomatic/connectivist approach. I need specific techniques.