Thursday, April 18, 2013

Rhizonomy and Learning 3.0

I learned a new word today!  Actually, I still wrapping my head around it and what it could mean for teaching, learning, the classroom, educator professional development, my job . . . you get the idea.  The word that could be changing my life is Rhizonomy. It is so new it's not even in Wikipedia yet. Imagine that. 

 
Steven Wheeler
I am discovering that this is what is behind the idea of learning analytics (see previous post) .  I think we are all familiar with the idea of a taxonomy - organizing, classifying information.  A term that came along with the web, and more specifically Web 2.0, is folksonomy.  A folksonomy falls out from a collective or collaborative method of classifying information on the web. It's more organic, in a way. You may have heard the term used in relation to the practice of tagging information on the web. Tagging is a way of developing a shared understanding or use of something. Am I being too vague? 


    Okay, so, think . . . 
    Taxonomy = Learning 1.0
    Folksonomy = Learning 2.0
    Rhizonomy = Learning 3.0

Shared from Steve Wheeler's blog post on Next Generation Learning  

Rhizonomy = Learning 3.0?  What does that mean? I found a blog post that may help us with this: Next Generation Learning by Steve Wheeler.  I like this paragraph: 
Learning 3.0 will be user and machine generated, and will in all respects be represented in what I will call  'rhizonomies'. The rhizonomic organisation of content will emerge from chaotic, multi-dimensional and multi-nodal organisation of content, giving rise to an infinite number of possibilities and choices for learners. As learners choose their own self determined routes through the content, so context will change and new nodes and connections will be created in what will become a massive, dynamic, synthetic 'hive mind'. Here I do not refer to any strong artificial intelligence model of computation, but rather a description of the manner in which networked, intelligent systems respond to the needs of individual learners within vast, ever expanding communities of practice. Each learner will become a nexus of knowledge, and a node of content production. Extending the rhizome metaphor further, learners will act as the reproduction mechanisms that sustain the growth of the semantic web, but will also in turn be nurtured by it. Learning 3.0 will be a facet of an ongoing, limitless symbiotic relationship between human and machine.
  
I kind of like the idea that not only do we sustain the growth of the web as users, but we also become nurtured by it. 

Do you think this is possible? 

Just Wonderin'
Lee Anne