CCK08: Necessary Preconditions?

Image: genvessel, via Flickr

In reading and commenting on some class participants' blogs today, I found myself paying particular attention to the comments on Sarah Stewart's recent post. Folks there were talking of both their longing for connection and dialogue, and their frustration with connection and dialogue gone wrong. There were also some interesting comments about the inherent implied tensions between "learner-directed" learning and "teacher-directed" learning. All of which got me thinking: if networked connections are the lifeblood of learning, what are the necessary preconditions for those connections?

Here are the things that come to mind for me:
a shared means of connecting
a willingness to fail
a willingness to be wrong
a willingness to seem unknowing
trust in the other nodes of the network you're trying to build
some degree of cognitive discomfort ("The intent of sense making is to increase the cognitive comfort of an individual by reducing confusion and chaos." - G. Siemens, Connectivism: Learning Theory or Pasttime for the Self-Amused) (hat tip to marialetizia for the excerpt)
a perception of relevance

What comes to mind for you? What am I missing? Do you think there are constants, here, or is everyone's list different?



CCK08