It emphasizes how internet technologies such as web browsers, search engines, wikis, online discussion forums, and social networks contributed to new avenues of learning.
Technologies have enabled people to learn and share information across the World Wide Web and among themselves in ways that were not possible before the digital age.
It was later expanded in 2005 by two publications, Siemens' Connectivism: Learning as Network Creation and Stephen Downes' An Introduction to Connective Knowledge.
Both works received significant attention in the blogosphere and an extended discourse has followed on the appropriateness of connectivism as a learning theory for the digital age.
In 2007, Bill Kerr entered into the debate with a series of lectures and talks on the matter, as did Forster, both at the Online Connectivism Conference at the University of Manitoba.
[3] The idea of organisation as cognitive systems where knowledge is distributed across nodes originated from the Perceptron (Artificial neuron) in an Artificial Neural Network, and is directly borrowed from Connectionism, "a software structure developed based on concepts inspired by biological functions of brain; it aims at creating machines able to learn like human".
[10] The network metaphor allows a notion of "know-where" (the understanding of where to find the knowledge when it is needed) to supplement to the ones of "know-how" and "know-what" that make the cornerstones of many theories of learning.
[13] All course content was available through RSS feeds, and learners could participate with their choice of tools: threaded discussions in Moodle, blog posts, Second Life and synchronous online meetings.
Community of practice (Lave & Wenger 1991) asserted that the process of sharing information and experiences with the group enables members to learn from each other.
[16] Kop and Hill[17] conclude that while it does not seem that connectivism is a separate learning theory, it "continues to play an important role in the development and emergence of new pedagogies, where control is shifting from the tutor to an increasingly more autonomous learner."
LaaN starts from the learner and views learning as the continuous creation of a personal knowledge network (PKN).