Mod 4 Post #1

A learner is in one way like a baseball batter.  (Throughout this example, I will use male pronouns for consistency.)  A batter must make decisions about the ball that is being pitched to him.  Is it something that will be useful to him?  If it isn't, he should let it go without acting on it.  If it is something that will be useful, he should act on it.  Similarly, a learner today is presented with so much information that part of the learner's job is to decide what information is useful and what is not.

Before a person can go about deciding which pitches are useful for him, he must find a pitcher or a pitching machine.  How can he find one?  He may have a few different places in mind, and some are more reliable in throwing usable pitches than others, but batting cages sometimes go out of business, and human pitchers are highly mobile entities.  Similarly, before a learner can decide which information is useful for him, he must have a way to find sources of information of the type that is potentially useful.  He may have experience with certain sources (i.e., websites), but even the information on some of the more reliable sites is probably in a constant state of change.  He can also go to different sources, looking for more specific and up-to-date information, but those sources may be fleeting.  To find these, a knowledge of how to search is important.

Siemens writes that "the connections that enable us to learn are more important than our current state of knowing."  In other words, being able to find information is more important than possessing a repertoire of specific knowledge.  Further, he states in his video, "The Changing Nature of Knowledge" (deep embed) that "...it's not just what we know today that's important, it's our ability to continue to stay current as knowledge changes."  To paraphrase, being prepared to find the most current information is more important than possessing a wide range of facts.