RKCS Learning Solutions

I’ll start with an aside. I couldn’t find any witty anecdotes for my title and had two thoughts on the brain so I wrote them both. I thought I would write that aside for those that were wondering about the connection. Maybe I have already defeated my purpose because the mystery might have allowed the readers to make a connection of their own. (There ARE some of you reading this, right?)

Anyway, I went to check out Transformers-Revenge of the Fallen today. Because it was a big, robot, futuristic, action flick, we decided that the ONLY way we could watch this was at the IMAX which has the largest screen that I have come across. So, we hopped on over to the science museum to take in this presumably delightful adventure. Because the screen was so big, we thought it best to get as far back as possible to take it all in. Well, the robots were so big, the action was so fast paced that I had to keep turning my head to look at different parts of the screen and while I felt engrossed in the film, there were so many things flying by, especially in fight sequences that they looked blurry. While I didn’t get a headache, I had to turn to my buddy next to me to say, “Hey man, I’m almost feeling like it might have been better to see this on a smaller screen.” His response? “Yeah, I was feeling the same way. You can’t really take it all in at once!”

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I LOOOOVE cartoons.  It’s the kid in me. Actually, many cartoons these days are not for kids, so I should probably rethink that whole ‘kid in me’ concept.  I don’t just like any cartoons.  It has to be the old cartoons like Tom & Jerry, etc.  But, I really have a special thing for superhero type cartoons.  I loved the old ones, Space Ghost, Thundarr the Barbarian, Birdman, Herculoids, with their cheesy dialogue, inconsistent storylines, beams and explosions.  I love the new ones especially the Justice League (my wife thinks I’m nuts because I DVR the Justice League when I can’t watch it).  

Well, I was watching an episode of Justice League the other day where an android was created that has basic powers to begin with.  But the android leaves earth, travels the universe for quite some time and returns to earth with ridiculous amounts of power.  When all of the Justice League heroes, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, etc, tried to defeat this android, they couldn’t.  It turns out that the android was like a supercomputer that just collected and assimilated information from whatever zone or dimension that he was in and applied it to his new situation.  So, to make that even clearer, if he had fought someone previously, he collected information about that hero, their strengths, weaknesses, patterns, powers, emotions, and used that to make himself stronger.  There were other bits and pieces of it that would make the story more clear, but that would extend this a bit longer than I need to.

My mind reflected on this cartoon today when I read this line: “Connectivism is driven by the understanding that decisions are based on rapidly altering foundations. New information is continually being acquired. The ability to draw distinctions between important and unimportant information is vital. The ability to recognize when new information alters the landscape based on decisions made yesterday is also critical.”  For those that are already connectivism gurus, this comes directly from George Siemen’s paper on connectivism.  It would make sense that as we experience life we are acquiring new information.  But it is being recognized that the information doesn’t necessarily remain static after it is learned.  There are factors that ‘alter the landscape’ and the information either needs to be relearned or adjusted.

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