A Honeybee Cannot Make Honey Without Some Help...



       Connectivism is a new way of thinking about learning in our digital era. In this theory, a learner is described like a honeybee. The honeybee lives in a colony and thrives on working with and learning from the other bees in its hive. One bee cannot do all the work himself: it is the collaboration of all of the bees that ensures that the pollen is collected, the honey is made and that more bees are being reproduced to help maintain the cycle. In Connectivism, a learner can benefit from that same interaction that a honeybee has with other members of the hive. The interaction and collaboration in a group is a tool to help all members of that group develop knowledge and to become successful learners. Like a honeybee, one individual learner cannot be successful without the collaboration, interaction and communication with his peers.

        In the article, “Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age,” author George Siemens helps to reinforce this idea. Siemens writes about the need for using social media in the classroom to help embrace this shift in learning. He writes, “Including technology and connection making as learning activities begins to move learning theories into a digital age. We can no longer personally experience and acquire learning that we need to act. We derive our competence from forming connections.” At one point, learning was much more of a personal, individual activity, but now, learning has become much more social. Our students live in a world of social media and social networking sites, so we need to embrace these technologies and use them in the classroom.

 Later on in the article, Siemens writes specifically about how forming groups within these networking sites can lead to knowledge formation and understanding. He writes, “Within social networks, hubs are well-connected people who are able to foster and maintain knowledge flow. Their interdependence results in effective knowledge flow, enabling the personal understanding of the state of activities organizationally.” I think it is important to stress that this knowledge is formed as a result of the group atmosphere, not personal efforts. When we learn to utilize the knowledge of others by communicating, interacting and collaborating, we can learn so much more than we can by ourselves.

        These ideas are further developed in the video “The Impact of Social Media on Learning.” Siemens talks about Connectivism in this video and says, “Through social means, we are able to share and connect to one another.” These social networking sites are tools for us to use to become better conversationalists and to learn to connect to other individuals and form a community. The communication and dialogue on these websites is what really helps us to learn. As Siemens says, “Our learning today is one of forming networks with each other, so our tools enable that effortlessly and in a way that’s very human to us, because when you think of it, we all enjoy dialogue and conversation. It really boils down to our ability to have a dialogue with other individuals and when we have that dialogue, we ourselves grow in our knowledge. We grow in understanding of our own ideas sometimes.” Again, the importance of the group membership is stressed. Although one person might have a good idea on his own, it is the discussion and collaboration with others about that idea that makes it a great one. We learn from one another and cannot make the honey, the great knowledge, without the help of the other bees along the way.

Bees working together!