Knowing Knowledge

I've been given the opportunity to review George Siemens new book KnowingKnowledge this last month and have found new inspiration with every reading.

This is a very different book - it will be available on-line for download, in wiki format to stimulate a conversation and in hardcopy to reflect upon away from the computer. Full of deep questions, bold statements and insightful prose, this work collects ideas, thoughts, diagrams, insights, intuition, feelings, awareness and profundity.  I liked the lack of structure, appreciated the awakening of new connections, felt the power of learning and experienced regrets that I had not made those same associations.

George is right - in some ways knowledge has and is changing. It flows faster, reaches more widely, resides in many more distributed spaces, is more closely tied to the individual, comes at us from a far richer ecology and requires new orientations. I wonder though, if the fundamental nature of knowledge has changed at all?. It still requires social validation, needs an appreciation of context, resides in mainly in tacit form and emerges in dialog.

• Yes we need to become conduits not containers.
• Yes individuals rather than external agents (newspapers, teachers, preachers) are doing the filtering.
• Yes we are moving more and more toward the 'now' rather than engaging in reflection.
• Yes access to knowledge is fast becoming more important than mere possession.
• Yes we need to foster, sustain, grow, nurture those knowledge spaces rather than classify, construct, decree, ordain in advance.

Take my advice join the conversation

Comments

[Patrick Hindert]

Denham: thank you for reviewing and introducing this interesting resource. Best regards, Patrick