Consulting Wikipedia today on Connectivism, we find this:
Connectivism is a hypothesis of learning which emphasizes the role of social and cultural context. In this sense, Connectivism proposes to see knowledge’s structure as a network and learning as a process of pattern recognition.
The relationship between work experience, learning, and knowledge, as expressed in the concept of ‘connectivity, is central to connectivism, motivating the theory’s name.
What sets connectivism apart from theories such as constructivism is the view that “learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing”.
Or so says Wikipedia on what can be a difficult term to define. One of the early proponents of the concept is George Siemens (blog linked here), and see the post “Being Human in the Digital Age” here at PSA.
George Siemens is a well-known learning theorist who specializes in digitally-based societies. He wrote the article Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, and also the book Knowing Knowledge, which explores the impact of the different context and knowledge characteristics. His work is helping to transform the world of online education by pushing for open teaching.
Kris posted on a similar topic back in 2013 here at PSA site. And in a comment to that post she included the above info on Siemens.
Here’s his original paper from back in 2004 and 2005:
[gview file=”https://publicservicesalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/elearnspace.-Connectivism-A-Learning-Theory-for-the-Digital-Age.pdf”]