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Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
This is all very nice, except, of course, that it is impossible to take all of learning, put it into one nice little box, and then say, "Learning is such and such." I mean, take a look at this account. I read it and say, "Oh, so learning is a change in mental state then." Well, no, not every change in mental state counts (unless you are one of those people that says we are learning every minute of our lives, which begs the question of why we think learning si an activity separate from everything). Well, then, what sort of changes in mental state count? That's where it gets confusing. It depends on what the previous mental state was, it depends on what you want your new mental state to be, it depends on how you intend to apply that mental states. Some mental states, for example, produce behaviour - but it would be a mistake to say that learning is the production of a certain sort of behaviour. So successive assimiliation and accomodation is one way of looking at learning, but not a terribly useful way.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: Dec 23, 2024 02:16 a.m.

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