A Learner is Like a Flash Drive

A learner is like a flash drive.

     Why? With today's technology it would be hard to say that a learner is like a sponge; someone who soaks up knowledge and keeps it with them forever. Flash drives are far more realistic because for the most part, we now rely heavily on computers and various other networks to access knowledge. We don't have remember everything we are taught; rather we are taught how to access knowledge and how to store it for later use. Flash drives are a small device with memory that allow us to do just that. We simple store information and resources on the flash drive in able to access it at any point later on. 

     At the beginning of "Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age" written by George Siemens he discusses new trends in learning. The last bullet on his list states, "Know-how and know-what is being supplemented with know-where (the understanding of where to find knowledge needed). This goes back to my earlier statements of how it is no longer important to remember everything you are taught; rather you need to know where to find the information you need and how to store it for later retrieval. 

     In George Siemen's video "The Changing Nature of Knowledge" he says, "[t]oday because of the complex environments we're in, learning isn't something that's exclusively limited or occurs exclusively within an individual's mind." Learning is no longer done solely in a classroom with a teacher and textbooks, it now consists of networks formed between people and information that can be retrieved from computers at any time of the day. With those capabilities and the rate of speed that knowledge is being created these days, it is impossible to remember everything. That is why it is important to know how to store and retrieve data and why a learner is more like a flash drive than a sponge that is able to soak everything up and remember it.