Does a flow of information exist in a connectivist network?

In some networks we will see nodes and wires. The nodes could have different functions, the connections connect, the wires connect the current.

I don’t  like the confusion in the discussions on connective networks. The information factor and the human factor are mixed and I miss a clear view on what people are writing about. People are showing maps with social networks in the CCK11 course, and I think that is confusing.

In a connectivist network it is complicated, for it has a human factor and an information factor. The nodes are they bits, chunks of information? S.Dowes: “Hence, in connectivism, there is no real concept of transferring knowledge”. The answer is NO, no bits of information flowing through pipes to other nodes.

My comment on Is Connectivism a Cyborg pedagogy? : A metaphor is in the way of proper understanding,In some way you (and most other people) seem to think learning is collecting information and somehow digest this information. Information is a collection, it is something one can store in a brain.But learning is not input of information. Information cannot flow. Electricity flows (experts do say it does not) water flows, but information does not flow. The use of this image of a stream of information is a metaphor and metaphors are not true.

Dowes: ... the concepts of what it is to know and what it is to teach are very different from the traditional theories that dominate distance education today. Because if learning is not the transfer of mental contents – if there is, indeed, no such mental content that exists to be transported – then we need to ask, what is it that we are attempting to do when we attempt to teach and learn.”

And the connections are  they the human factor? Connections or pipes in connective networks are important, it that because the pipes are the human factor? The human factor with framing? Stephen Dowes: “In connectivism, a phrase like ‘constructing meaning’ makes no sense. Connections form naturally, through a process of association, and are not ‘constructed’ through some sort of intentional action.”

S.D. :”Connectivism is not a representational theory. It does not postulate the existence of physical symbols standing in a representational relationship to bits of knowledge or understandings. Indeed, it denies that there are bits of knowledge or understanding, much less that they can be created, represented or transferred.”

I want to try an example: Learning to play the bass clarinet. Not so much knowledge involves, it is a kind of bodily training. Trying to play a new melody takes repetition. Repetition will make the connections between different nodes needed for a good performance. Knowing how to play does not make one a bass player. Listening to other players will help. Playing in a band will help.

Physical network and social network The answer on my question in this post is a clear NO. No similarity between a computer network and learning in a connectivist network. No flow of information, but connections.