BUSY 'BEEING' A WORKER BEE

  

  To me, a learner is like a worker bee. A worker bee is always busy cleaning cells, nursing baby bees, feeding the queen, and making honey. It works and works till the end of its life. Learners nowadays are like worker bees, who must keep learning knowledge since it updates frequently. The knowledge people used to learn was measured in decades, but now even in months and years. In the article Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, George Siemens points out that

“Learners as little as forty years ago would complete the required schooling and enter a career that would often last a lifetime. Information development was slow. The life of knowledge was measured in decades. Today, these foundational principles have been altered. Knowledge is growing exponentially. In many fields the life of knowledge is now measured in months and years.”.

    In the article, George Siemens also quoted from Gonzalez (2004) who describes the challenges of rapidly diminishing knowledge life:
“One of the most persuasive factors is the shrinking half-life of knowledge. The “half-life of knowledge” is the time span from when knowledge is gained to when it becomes obsolete. Half of what is known today was not known 10 years ago. The amount of knowledge in the world has doubled in the past 10 years and is doubling every 18 months according to the American Society of Training and Documentation (ASTD). To combat the shrinking half-life of knowledge, organizations have been forced to develop new methods of deploying instruction.”

    In the video, the Changing Nature of Knowledge, George Siemens also stressed how dramatically different the knowledge he used to learn when he was in school comparing to the knowledge students encounter today.

     After all, living in such a fast-paced society, learners have to learn consecutively just like how continuous worker bees do their jobs.