The last couple of months I have been thinking more then I am writing. I am still thinking. In fact the more I think, the dumber I get and I start to see it as fact. So less writing is done. My network is amazing, however and so I keep connecting them if that seems like a good idea. My network consists of people trying to improve the world, meaning reduce conflicts, access to health facilities, access to education, etcetera. A lot of people in my network are scientists with a vision to improve the world and make it a better place to live in, with quality of life for all (in a variety of forms they define it).
Although still a bit reluctant to write, seeing as I feel in a cognitive slow period of life, this post had to be written. Especially after reading Stephen Downes’ article on Group vs Networks: the class struggle continues. Some quotes from the article:
“It's hard to believe that something like freedom of speech is a radical concept, but there it is. In their own ways, a person in a network should be able to send their message any way they want in their own language using their own computer encoding, using their Macintosh computers, using standards that are non-standards.”
“In networks we have communities of practices where a ‘community' is defined as collections of individuals that exchange messages and ideas back and forth without being impeded. Copyright, trademarks, proprietary software, all of these things are barriers for the communication of thought and ideas. If you allow that using content, images, text, video is a way of speaking to each other, then copyright, trademark, all these things are ways of locking down our speech, saying, "I own the word such and such and you can't use it."
“You can't build a society with walls. …In the longer term we have to do something more imaginative than blocking this technology. We need to live and teach and learn where the students live and teach and learn. That means that we have to stop blocking to their spaces and go to their spaces. So we explore their world. But, you know, there's the age-old danger of explorers that when we go to their world, we're going to want to colonize it. And we're going to want to make them like us. And we're going to want to take them from their mountains and put them in rooms and put walls around them and put locks on their doors and say, "This is civilization."
While picking up parts of the CCK08 last year, I found it enlightening and in sync with some of my world beliefs. This year I enrolled, but I was not actively producing anything. However, I love to lurk and I learn a lot from it which suits my current state of mind. To me Connectivism is more related to Critical Social Science (CSS) then Interpretive Social Science (ISS). This idea matters to me, because I had the feeling that Connectivism had or has an activist agenda incorporated as well. But than, maybe a tainted what I learned or I tainted it in order for Connectivism to suite my preferred worldview.
For those not familiar with the distinction between Critical Social Science and Interpretative Social Science, I give a short list of features for each, as cited by Neuman (2006) in the book ‘Social Science Methods: qualitative and quantitative approaches’, for the CSS frame see p. 102, for the ISS see p. 94.
| Interpretative Social Science | Critical Social Science |
| The purpose of social science is to understand social meaning in context. A constructionist view that reality is socially created (a constructionist orientation is an orientation toward social reality that assumes the beliefs and meaning people create and use fundamentally shape what reality is for them). Humans are interacting social beings who create and reinforce shared meaning. A voluntaristic stance is taken regarding human agency (voluntarism is an approach to human agency and causality that assumes human actions are based on the subjective choices and reasons of individuals). . Scientific knowledge is different from but no better than other forms Explanations are idiographic and advance via inductive reasoning (idiographic: a type of explanation used in which the explanation is an in-depth description or picture with specific details but limited abstraction about a social situation or setting). Explanations are verified using the postulate of adequacy (a principle that explanations should be understandable in commonsense terms by the people being studied) with people being studied. Social scientific evidence is contingent, context specific, and often requires bracketing. A practical orientation (pragmatic orientation in which people apply knowledge iin their daily lives. The value of knowledge is ability to be integrated with a person’s practical everyday understandings and choices) is taken toward knowledge that is used from a transcendent perspective (the researcher develops research together with the people being studied, examines people’s inner lives to gain an intimate familiarity with them, and works closely with people being studied to create mutual understandings). Social science should be relativistic regarding value positions. |
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From all these points, I love this one from CSS the best: Social reality and the study of it necessarily contain a moral-political dimension, and moral-political positions are unequal in advancing human freedom and empowerment. For I feel that fighting to keep communications open and accessible for all is an absolute priority, also in education. But even now, even at the most liberal of educational institutions (university) some of these educational rights are challenged, blocked. So is it not the responsibility of the scientist to actively participate in opening up or keeping the door open to enable all of us interested to use these educational tools?
Why is it important to me to know whether Connectivism is either or, or both? Because it matters to me what a theory does and what its goal is. To me science has a function to serve society, to make all of our lives better.
Sorry for the lengthy post, I should probably do some more thinking.
Do you think Connectivism or its researchers should actively take part in society?