Maggie Hos McGrane

Maggie Hos McGrane

Maggie has been teaching for 25 years in international schools in Europe and Asia and is currently working at the American School of Bombay in India. Her blog, "Tech Transformation" reflects her thoughts and wonderings as a tech coordinator, a R&D core team member and a member of ASB's Design Thinking team

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Tuesday, 28 January 2014 14:34

Knowledge: product vs process

How does a student gain knowledge? Is it via reading, or rather by collaborative exercises? As an international educator of 25 years and currently teaching in Mumbai, Maggie Hos-McGrane gives her thoughts on the issue.

I'm reading George Siemens' Knowing Knowledge very slowly as there is a lot to take in and think about. There are a couple of questions that I'm thinking about today:

  • Is knowledge acquired or created with others through active participation?
  • Is knowledge a personal activity or is it socially constructed?

I'm now thinking about the connection between learning and knowing, and have come across the word connectivism which asserts that learning is a network-forming process. The success of these networks in encouraging knowledge varies depending on a variety of things:

  • Diversity - how wide the points of view spectrum is
  • Autonomy - whether those contributing to the network do so of their own accord and share their own knowledge or whether there is pressure to promote a certain point of view
  • Interactivity - whether the members are co-constructing knowledge or simply sharing their perspectives
  • Openness - how easy it is for a perspective to enter into the network, be heard and interacted with by others.

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