Albeit rather dangerous tasks, as history has shown us….

But, any more dangerous than surrendering your own learning and knowing to the network?

Thanks for your thoughts Mark, well written, I think.

I’m very interested in the comments above as they connect with some points I raised in the conclusion to my review, especially the ones around the role of the individual and the development of critical-interpretive skills as a way to understand the world.
Here is more of what I wrote:

‘Now back to the big question that runs through this work. How are we to make sense of a world of rapid and endless change? If we are facing a world where knowledge turns over at such a rate – where the relevant today, becomes redundant tomorrow- what then are the implications for schools and educators in particular, and society in general? How are we to understand ‘content’ in this context? Siemens grapples with these matters, and there is a great deal in this book that stimulates one’s thinking about these profound issues. His championing of the network, and certain networking skills, as the solution to the challenge of ceaseless and accelerated change warrants further discussion; an exchange he actively encourages.

Overall, there is much in his analysis that I find persuasive, but I’m not sure if the solution to the knowledge dilemma, as described by Siemens lies in ‘offloading’ the ‘act of knowing’ onto the network (2006:33). This is not to underestimate the significance of the ‘network’. As Siemens illustrates, and our experiences tell us, the network – in its various permutations (eg. virtual, face to face or combinations of both) is becoming increasingly important as the generator of, and mechanism for, knowledge creation and distribution. But the network is only part of the story. Perhaps knowing when and how to be ‘disconnected’–and knowing what to do when you are – is equally important in trying to understand the world. In other words, to critically interpret the world, we need, for at least some of the time, to stand apart from it. How we manage to do this, in a world where we’re encouraged to be ‘always on’ or ‘connected’, remains to be seen. It strikes me that regardless of the knowledge ‘value-add’ of any network, first and foremost we, as individuals, have to make sense of the world ourselves. Either way, we seem to come face to face with an unsettling realisation; that with the emergence of the knowledge society we encounter a set of social conditions more fleeting and uncertain than ever before, where even the task of distinguishing the solid and permanent, from the transitory and shallow, becomes increasingly problematic.’ End of quote.

I’d be very interested to explore these questions further-especially the empowering of individuals within the network, solitary reflection-which I dubbed, for want of a better term ‘disconnected’ or ‘standing apart from the world’, but that’s not quite what I want to convey.
Regards
Mark

The herd instinct and lemming-like run to adopt social networking and tech applications frightens me a little. But for entertainment purposes, it does have some value.

An equal goal for networked theories of learning might be to empower individuals to learn as effectively on their own as they do socially using technology such as AI and self-directed learning techniques. Maybe Connectivism needs to reconsider this as a balancing component in the theory. Maybe a re-evaluation of Romanticism in the 21st Century might not be bad either. (I’m betting its revival is just around the corner anyway.) Encouraging individuals to place equal emphasis on maintaining metacognitive skills for solitary reflection and learning helps to maintain a check on the power of the crowd, which can be surprisingly wrong at times and very susceptible to groupthink and the pied piper syndrome. Sometimes when I think about Heylighen’s global brain and hear all the gushing about the rush to connect every facet of our lives, I feel that we could just as easily be describing the early development of the Borg as some bright new future of increased human potential.

‘Expression in civility’ may suggest a set of norms that not all might subscribe too. What do you mean by this, Donald?

On the other hand, while I also agree that “Ideas in tension is a good thing” may I extend that thought?

I would plea for: “Ideas in tension, but expression in civility”. It’s the latter part that is too often missing, I find.