Robin Good: I think Sam Gliksman has a vital point here.
The point is this: there is no better way to learn something than to research, organize and build a personal framework of information, facts, resources, tools and stories around it.
And yes, if I do think about it, I can only confirm that my in my experience this has certainly been the case.
Rather than learn by memorizing and going through a predetermined path that someone else has arbitrarily set for me (and thousands of others), by curating my own learning path and curriculum, I am forced to dive into discovery and sense-making for the very start, two essential ingredients for effective learning.
The change is evident: from passive memorization of predetermined info, to personal exploration, discovery and sense-making of what I am interested in pursuing.
With such an approach, the replacement of classic teachers with curators who can act as guides, coaches and wise advisors to my exploratory wanderings may be vital to the success of many learners.
Curation can therefore be a revolutionary concept applicable both to learners and their approach as well as to the new "teachers" who need to become trusted guides in specific areas of interest.
Here's the text excerpt from this article, that sparked in me these ideas:
"Reliance on any type of course textbook – digital, multimedia, interactive or otherwise – only fits as a more marginal element in student-centered learning models.
It’s not the nature of the textbook as much as its reverence in the classroom as “the” singular authority for learning.
Lifelong learners need to be skilled in finding, filtering, collating, evaluating, collaborating, editing, analyzing and utilizing information from a multitude of sources.
Instead we could prioritize “content construction”. Textbooks are an important gateway - a starting point from which students can learn and then begin their exploration of information on any topic (although even on that point I feel we should encourage the “critical reading” of textbooks).
However the days when students could responsibly rely on any textbook as a singular information source are gone.
Also, the process of accessing, synthesizing and utilizing information is often as important as the product.
The skills developed are an essential component of education and life today.
We have access to an exponentially growing amount of information to process and apply [and] there are many excellent tools we can all use to help in constructing and organizing that content."
Insightful. Informative. 8/10
Full original article: http://ipadeducators.ning.com/profiles/blogs/supplementing-textbooks ;
Via
Robin Good
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With regard to the decentralising effect it could probably be interesting to investigate if this effect can be related to what Mejias calls paranodality, i.e. an effect residing in between nodes that can distort a nodocentric view or paradigm that is typical for the network. Mejias even states that paranodality is a necessity in order to prevent networks to turn into echo chambers, i.e. exert a nodocentric view. So not only the number of nodes that are influential might generate this decentralizing effect but probably also the paradigmatic 'space' between the nodes and paranodal tendencies of certain nodes.
Furhtermore I would like to point out the blogposts of Kai Pata, who is involved in the IST 7th Framework Learning Layers project, about differences between communities and networks and classical principles of CoP's (http://tihane.wordpress.com/).
Coming back to your questions about the 'value' of investing in long term learning connections. The answer may even be as simple as that people like to flock with like minded. The primary networkbased connection that was more 'object oriented' (the 'object oriented sociality' described by Knorr Cetina and elaborated by Engeström) can evolve to 'people oriented sociality' (can be traced back to Rheingolds concept of 'virtual community' and related to Jenkins' concept of 'participatory culture') were the 'learning' is more socially and culturally contextualised and determined and less professionally.