George and I Skyped for the better part of an hour this morning. He'd looked at the foibles of behaviorism (corporations happy with its over-simplicity), cognition (based on reason), and constructivism (which is subjective), and found them all wanting. Information changes too rapidly for courses to capture it. George learns 90% of what he knows from the blogosphere. This is something new. He calls it connectionism.

Connectionism deals with foraging for actionable knowledge. You have to do something or it's irrelevant. (This is what I call performance.)

Knowledge foraging involves finding links that lead to a stream of knowledge flowing by. You reach into the stream and pull something out, and it's invariably not just one thing; it's a web of connections that link to other streams. Weave what you've pulled from the stream into your personal learning network; your network is now attached to sensors and changes, as if you'd subscribed to an instant newspaper. (This is parallel to my free-range learners, augmented learners, channels, and communities. You don't need to know something if you know where to find it.)

Given the name of the profession it's no surprise that instructional designers have historically focused on instruction. The times call for a new approach, an ecosystem designer. Today's instructional designers are like diamond miners who by-pass veins of gold because it's not what they're after. Designers have seen fit to leave communications to chance.

How do you learn, George?

• You and I chatting right now.
• Blog posts -- because of the diversity of viewpoints. If you really want to learn, look at blogs on either side of a divisive issue.
• Serendipity is important in finding those open doors.

I need to re-read George's papers. His collectivism and my informal learner overlap significantly.