Guiding Ideas

Introduction

There are two sets of guiding ideas for this unit.

One is to do with the theory and practices at the intersection of Informatics and Analytics. We aim to harvest the rich history of the Informatik tradition in German universities and combine it with some of the emerging practices in Sports Analytics elsewhere in the world.

A second set of ideas draws upon connectivist principles to inform our approach to open sharing and self-organised learning. We aim to build connections and networks. Our focus is your personal learning.

Both sets of ideas are framed by:

opportunities we have to share in a digital age;
the ways we negotiate literacy, learning and authoritative knowledge.

Informatics and Analytics

We think that an integration of Informatics and Analytics provides powerful insights into the systematic observation, recording, analysis and visualisation of performance.

We do see them as distinct fields of study that go beyond their narrow definition as computer science in sport.

We understand that each analyst makes personal decisions about his or her use of 'structured information'. This unit seeks to explore these decisions and explore their implications for practice.

We regard Informatics as an interdisciplinary field of study that:

is concerned with the study of the nature of information and technology with a focus on how people bring them together to produce and manage information and knowledge. (Shayoi He, 2003)

We use Chris Anderson's (2014) definition of sports analytics as:

The discovery, communication, and implementation of actionable insights derived from structured information in order to improve the quality of decisions and performance ...

and add that analysts are increasingly using unstructured information too.

Connectivism

Our second set of ideas relates to our interest in how we learn.

George Siemens, Stephen Downes and Dave Cormier, amongst others, have had a significant impact on the design of this unit through their conceptualisation and practice of open learning. Some of their ideas about Connectivism are presented here.

George Siemens

George Siemens (2005) suggested that:

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.

George identified eight principles of Connectivism:

Learning and knowledge rests in diversity of opinions.
Learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources.
Learning may reside in non-human appliances.
Capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known
Nurturing and maintaining connections is needed to facilitate continual learning.
Ability to see connections between fields, ideas, and concepts is a core skill.
Currency (accurate, up-to-date knowledge) is the intent of all connectivist learning activities.
Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality.

Stephen Downes

You might like to have a look at how Stephen Downes writes about Connectivism. His website is a rich source of information. (See, for example, his compilation of articles.)

We recommend you read Creating the Connectivist Course as an excellent introduction to the ethos that underpins our approach.

In 2010, Stephen (with Rita Kop) facilitated an open online course, Critical Literacies. Their statement about How This Course Works is a great example of Connectivism in action. Stephen notes:

Critical Literacies is an unusual course. It does not consist of a body of content you are supposed to remember. Rather, the learning in the course results from the activities you undertake, and will be different for each person. In addition, this course is not conducted in a single place or environment. It is distributed across the web. We will provide some facilities. But we expect your activities to take place all over the internet. We will ask you to visit other people’s web pages, and even to create some of your own.

There are four actions that characterise participation and engagement in a Connectivist course:

Aggregate
Remodel
Repurpose
Feedforward

We are keen for you to share your ideas and resources. Like Stephen and Rita:

We want you to share your work with other people in the course, and with the world at large. Now to be clear: you don’t have to share. You can work completely in private, not showing anything to anybody. Sharing is and will always be YOUR CHOICE. And we know, sharing in public is harder. People can see your mistakes. People can see you try things you’re not comfortable with. It’s hard, and it’s sometimes embarrassing. But it’s better. You’ll try harder. You’ll think more about what you’re doing. And you’ll get a greater reward – people will see what you’ve created and connect on it. Sometimes critically, but often (much more often) with support, help and praise. People really appreciate it when you share. After all, what you’re doing when you share is to create material that other people can learn from. Your sharing creates more content for this course. people appreciate that, you will probably appreciate the content other people in the course share with you. (How This Course Works.)

For another discussion about connectivsim and learning, see this 2017 open online course facilitated by Stephen and this model of personal learning (Downes, 2017).

Dave Cormier

Dave Cormier's video Success in a MOOC (4m 17s) is an excellent overview that draws together his experience in advocating for and supporting open learning.

If you have an opportunity you might find it interesting to read about Dave's view on rhizomatic learning. He has a very helpfulquestion and answer guide to open online courses.

Summary

This brief introduction to Connectivism has shared some defining characteristics for your consideration. We hope the links to George's, Stephen's and Dave's work will stimulate your interest. In proposing a Connectivist approach here we are not suggesting that it is the only perspective available.

We do think this approach resonates with many other insights that recognise the need to be flexible in the design of opportunities to support self-determined leaning (see for example, Teachonline, 2015).

We think we will see more and more applications of this approach in sport. Here is a 2014 example from adidas.