The+Three+C's

The Three C's

There are three major learning theories that my Teaching With Technology class is addressing right now. They are:
 * Constructivism
 * Connectivism
 * Cyborg Theory

They're all really interesting, and I'd like to briefly summarize each of them.

The central idea behind it is that individuals begin with a personal knowledge base, and, as they are exposed to ideas or information, they assimilate it into their existing structure or framework--or they reject it if it doesn't fit. The key, I gather, is that one has to start with something he knows already and then relate something new to it in order to accept the new item and include it in the enlarged knowledge base. The contention is made that a constructivist never sees anything objectively--it's impossible, as everything we learn is built on a personal and subjective framework. My quibble with Constructivism is the old question of where does it start, the chicken or the egg? Ages ago, I had a philosophy class where it was suggested that innate categories existed in men's minds from before they were born, and that all human experience was sorted into those categories. Call me a skeptic, but I don't buy such a tidy explanation. Our genetic code certainly determines a lot, but I think that early childhood experiences play a role in defining the world and our place in it. . I can buy the idea that you have to link a new fact or connection with an existing one, that you have to build on existing knowledge, but you’ve got to start somewhere. Is self-awareness the amorphous boundary that begins one’s framework of knowing and learning? I don’t know. The nature of knowledge is in flux, always expanding, and learners must form connections with each other, with data bases, and with other sources of knowledge. These connections are where learning takes place, and they’re not exclusively within the mind. And they have to keep taking place for the span of an individual’s lifetime, for that individual to stay current.  I have long felt that the dividing line between humans and other primates or dolphins or any other species is our unique ability to externalize our memories, to pass information and ideas and concepts on over vast reaches of time and distance. I can read Homer’s Iliad or the Analects of Confucius. What other species can communicate like that? I personally can’t wait for when I can get an enhanced memory or an insert that will let me speak foreign languages. Throw in some new knees, and I’m good for another century. 
 * Constructivism** came from a Russian named Vygotski, who'd apparently worked on his ideas for a few decades behind the Iron Curtain. When it fell in '89, western academics were delighted to have this whole new theoretical framework fall into their laps.
 * Connectivism ** is a learning theory promoted by George Siemens that dovetails nicely into our shifting landscape of knowledge. Unlike Marlowe’s Faust, who had studied and mastered law, physics, and divinity—the sum total of human knowledge—and bartered his immortal soul for more, the brainiest person alive today cannot hope to master all knowledge of even one sliver of one subject, and—if he somehow did—he could only claim this achievement for the briefest instant as new knowledge and information appear constantly.
 * Cyborg Theory ** is embodied in Kevin Warwick, a professor and researcher who has had a number of electronic implants and interfaces connected to his nervous system. With them, he’s achieved everything from having machines recognize him to experiencing echo-location—Sonar—with ultrasonic sound. The concept that the nervous system and the brain are primarily electrical in nature, and might be enhanced through electronic means has tremendous implications for the future of humanity, let alone education. Warwick predicts that unenhanced humans will become a subspecies, and cyborgs superior.