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This is my (lengthy) response to Stephen Downes's responses to my previous post on connectivism . For those catching up with this, my original post was an attempt to make sense of Downes's view of connectivism as a distinctive learning theory, in which I compared it with other related theories, then examined it on its own terms before concluding that connectivism was better seen as a theory for learning than a theory of learning. I saw this as a good thing because the more open formulation as a theory for learning allows us to treat it as a transformative set of related ideas, a fairly tight theme around which we can explore a range of adjacent possibles and move forward more effectively as a set of people with shared interests working in very closely related areas on how to better support learning in the networked age. Though a functionally complete uber-theory of learning which negates or renders pointless any and all others would be a pretty useful thing, (which, as David Wiley astutely observes, as George Siemens agrees, and as I will again argue, is not what Stephen's version of connectivism comes close to yet, and is probably not even what it aims for) it would not negate the value of the connectivist model of the world as a catalyst for positive change, and it does not diminish connectivism's power if it lacks such a theory behind it.
Via Dr. Susan Bainbridge, Miloš Bajčetić, Mark E. Deschaine, PhD
The dialogue continues!