Connections

The conversation with Chris Lott, Stephen Downes and George Siemens at George's Connectivism Blog has been a great example of why semantics is important. George points out that the focus has been on content for the past several centuries because it's been easier to create the content than the connections.

But connections have always been possible as well. You can go to a library (Carnegie, a university, a monastery, Alexandria). Read books and articles. Go sit at the feet of great teachers. Go do original research. Publish it. Get feedback. Rewrite, remix, feed forward.
That's all been possible since ancient times.

What's new, now, is that it's easy, cheap, and fast. Ridiculously so. We make connections at the speed of light rather than at the speed of text. I'm still trying to work out whether this represents a fundamental change.

People are still people. Mazlow's ladder applies today as surely as it did to the slaves of Rameses, the beggars outside Solomon's palace, or Siddartha Gautama. Technology does not change the things we do - only the ways in which we do things.

People today and a thousand years ago want to be entertained. So today we download mp3 files rather than wait for a traveling minstrel. Today we have far greater choice, zero delay of gratification. But is that a fundamental change?