It's not what you know, but who you know

George Siemens idea of connectivism is concerned with the ability to find knowledge. In my MBA studies there is a lot of validity to this type of thinking. An employees value can be in the specific knowledge about a topic that they posses or it may be their ability to connect different nodes of information contacts. In particular unique sets of contacts that are of value to their employer. These employees can act as gatekeepers of information. Similar to this is the idea of connectivism, where knowing how to access information is what is of value. While I agree this is an important ability, I fail to appreciate how this can apply to everyone. Someone must have the knowledge we are seeking to connect to. Yet, if we only teach the importance of the connections how will new knowledge be created? Yes, people will need to fill the role as gatekeepers in the same way we need supervisors to organise the workforce, but if we only train people how to be supervisors who will end up doing the work? I believe connectivism has an important role to play but it cannot be the only role. As a new teacher I view my job to be helping students do a task and find connections as well. For instance, as a Manual Arts teacher I cannot just teach someone how to find the information about how to weld but need to teach them how to actually weld. Imagine going into a job interview and saying 'I don't know how to join those two pieces of metal but I do know where I can find out how to do it'.  I must say I am really at a loss to see how it could have a major impact on a performance based skill such as drama or music. I realise that this is taking connectivism towards an extreme but for me, it is only a tool and not the entire tool box.