What is Connectivism? Week 1: CCK09

Reading George Siemens' handout for Week 1 asking 'What is Connectivism?'

This is a good overview putting the aspects of Connectivism in terms of other learning theories. Maybe there is more to it than I initially thought! He models this on Mergel’s emphasis on Ertmer’s and Newby’s “five definitive questions to distinguish learning theory”. The original paper by Ertmer and Newby is also available as a PDF (Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly 1993;6(4):50-72). The two additional features suggested by Ertmer and Newby on Schunk's original list of five were about instructional design in particular and it may be interesting to expand Siemen's list to include these. After all why exclude the instructional design aspect? CCK09 has undergone a process of instructional design.

Also I think it should include social learning theories in the comparisonsuch as 'communities of practice' which also talks of the learning that takes place in the connections between individuals and the knowledge that exists outside the individual.