I have arrived home from the epedagogy seminar. We have just had a two-way video conference with George Siemens in Manitoba, wherever that is. (The answer is Canada, of course; but my knowledge of Canadian geography is, shall we say, somewhat limited.)1
What follows are some scattered late night thoughts.
George Siemens gave a talk that I need to think more about. It seemed to me to be very problematic in some key areas, particularly in the area of truth.
My understanding of what he said was that he was describing a way in which information is transmitted in a way that amounted to a theory of knowledge. He explained how knowledge differed from information and he explained that understanding arose within the network as an effect of network activity.
He then side-stepped and said that he was not a relativist. He said, in effect, that there were times when, if rationality was in conflict with his deep feelings, he abandoned rationality and went with his feelings. He stated that some things were just true: that a society in which women did not have equal rights was, in some way, sick.
Well, okay: I agree with the sentiment, but that s irrelevant if the task at hand is building or examining a coherent theory of information. In that case, we need to ask: where does this truth come from?
If the answer is “let’s not talk about that” then I feel, and can produce rational arguments to demonstrate, that something is wrong here.
I have gone to his web sites to see if I can find answers to this. In a sense I have. I found a link to a paper called Learning Networks and Connective Knowledge by Stephen Downes. This seeks to provide a clear philosophical grounding for the ideas that fuel connectivism.
Although George Siemens did not mention Paul Otlet, his name arose in the discussion that followed. I found this article about him, although there are many more also available online. Briefly he was born in 1868, and went on to become “co-founder of the present International Federation for Information and Documentation (FID) and The Union of International Associations, developer of the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), theorist of “Documentation”, and pioneer of information science.”
He is regarded by some as the forgotten father of information science.