Terribly sorry all... I know I was supposed to separate the last post into three, but as of Tuesday (and the last revision of my draft post), I have come down with some sort of flu. The meds + fever are preventing me from any form of coherent thought (my head actually hurts from entirely non-academic reasons tonight). I figured it would be best to post the draft "as is" in order to give people a chance to read over it. Again, my apologies.
Community, Identity, Design.
I can’t seem to separate one from the others, so I wish you luck trying
to follow the thoughts of my very scrambled brain. Our class has shifted from reading a wide
variety of authors to Wenger; so needless to say, many of my thoughts (ok, our
thoughts) are centered on the ides of Wenger.
From my very first post containing substantial content “Thinner” I have
been concerned with the concept of identity.
From the comments received, it seems like others have their concerns
too. I believe that identity is a lens as
stated in my post “to be or not to be,” and I agree that is not a dichotomy but
a gradient between the individual and the rest of the community. If the community were to disappear, you would
no longer have a lens, but a mirror.
What you see in a mirror is quite different from what is viewed through
a lens. I am finding comfort in this
definition because you can control your own identity (to some extent). You can control what is put out there for the
rest of the community to view through the lens.
You cannot control, however, the lens through which people are looking
back at you, and that makes part of your identity not your own. In this way, your identity means something
different to everyone whom with which you engage. I am still uncomfortable with the thought of
multitudes of identities looking back at me.
As Wenger writes, maintaining an identity takes energy and energy is a
finite resource. I like to be able to
pick and choose (to the greatest extent possible) what parts of me I will show
to other identities to be viewed through their own lenses. This discretion takes some energy, and I am
sure this energy expended will increase greatly as I have more contact with
younger students. Some designs allow
more of your identity to be seen than others; writing in blog, sharing an
evening (in the same room!) with friends, or posting on facebook, all change
the identity lens. In the case of
facebook, I am very glad that the design is so restrictive (to the point that I
feel it is not even a community).
A
person’s information is shared, but as Wenger says … sharing information is not
the same as engagement. To have
engagement a person has to be a part of a community and he or she has to have
an identity in that community that is shaped (though the lens) by the other
community members and the other community members have their identity shaped by
that person. In the blog post “it takes
a virtual village,” Lis beautifully states how she engaged with her virtual
community. Her identity was changed by
her community and the other members’ identities were changed by Lis being a member
of the community. If Lis were never to
have joined that community, neither she nor the other members would have had
the same type of engagement. With
facebook, if a user were to stop using (yes… like an addict), the other “pseudo
identities” of the other facebookers would not be affected. Again, I’m trying not to be a hater… I do
think that there can be wonderful, rich, virtual communities; I just think that
engagement may come a bit more naturally when people are in more “personal
contact.” (Humans have evolved within
the context of voice inflection, body language, and physical contact.)
Back to design… design can be a facilitator of engagement. It can help create a community or help prevent one from forming. I think sometimes design is unintentional by it is always evolutionary. As the community changes, identities change, and design changes as well. Something with a static design may start out as a community but cannot be maintained as a community.
Another important issue brought up in these chapters is the issue of reconciliation of identity between communities of practice. I’m sure we all have know that gorgeous blonde, who deep down, is probably pretty intelligent, but acts stupid because his/her identity in his/her academic community of practice cannot be reconciled with his/her social community of practice. This student would be an example of a willful non-participant. In order to help teach students with difficulties in reconciling identities (differences in culture, religion, socioeconomic background, etc.), we need to be aware of the many different identities each student holds. Also, we will have to help our students (and ourselves) with the transitions from their “Web 2.0” identities to their other identities with respect to learning.
In this mindset, I enjoyed reading by Nardi and O'Day. We have started thinking about some of the issues they present and they seem to be giving an overview of many ways people have thought about (and are thinking about) technology. I also like how the book was written by a technology specialist and a sociologist. Some try to separate the social aspect from technology in order to make value-judgments, but we are seeing that this is clearly impossible. In my previous blog, I made the statement that technology was neither good nor bad, it is what we do with it that determines its value; I would like to retract this statement. Because people are designing technologies (or discovering them) and people are animals with emotion, foresight (occasional), values and opinions, technologies are "delivered to the world" with values already attached, good or bad. Whether we use the technology as intended, however, is still another matter altogether.
I will keep my discussion about the Wenger readings brief. I am truly wondering what it would be like to have a "live" conversation with this guy. I bet his kids (if he has any) are like "Please dad! Stop telling me why I shouldn't not help out in my group project for school because I won't be an inside member of a community of practice and just let me go out and play!" and then Wenger replies "OK dear, just mind your mom's flowers because they can't mind you." Sorry, that was totally non-academic. I do wonder where he is going in his book though. He keeps defining and clarifying many aspects of communities of practice but he doesn't say why he is going to all this trouble.
Wow! I could actually sort of understand what Wenger was talking about this time. Either he is making more sense or I am just getting used to his manner of writing. From what I gather, Wenger's definition of learning is what takes place within and among communities of practice. It is forming an identity (whether personal or collective). If a person is rejected from the community, they cannot learn. I think Wenger was a bit redundant on how communities are continuous and discontinuous at the same time. He summed it up best by saying that they are in a "dynamic equilibrium." The interaction of communities, as described by levels of membership as well as boundary objects and brokering, ties into the article by Rogers. The way an innovation diffuses depends heavily on how individuals act within a community and how communities interact with each other. Another connection is that of homophily and community dynamics. Both Wenger and Rogers note that people who share something in common, whether it be a community of practice, or a socioeconomic status, are more likely to act in a way that reflects their own groups' politics.
Though Rogers does not go into much detatil about the consequences of accepting an innovation, I think that it is a very important topic to consider for this class. We disscussed how there seem to be two groups in the class, those totally for new technology and those totally against it. I don't think there was anything such as "the good old days" and nor do I think there is going to be an "amazing, wonderfull future." (I'm still waiting for my jet-pack!) I think that the technology is what we make of it... it is neither good not bad; it is just different. And it is up to us to decide what the consequences (good or bad) will be.
With the Cluetrain Manifesto, I began replacing the word "market" with "education," "people from your company," with "teachers," and "we" with "students." That helped me greatly in relating to the 95 theses. (I was never very good at economics). Not-so surprisingly, swapping the words did not change the meaning of the statements, just their application. The three that I pick as my favorite (somewhat arbitrarily, because there are so many) are: "Markets (education) are (is) conversations," "Markets (education) consists of human beings, not demographic sectors," and "We (students) are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting."
I think the main goal of this class is basically just "how do we connect to students and help them to prepare to make the best of their lives?" If we can accomplish this goal through Web 2.0, we must try and do it (even as reluctant as some of us may be). I still don't think Web 2.0 is a substitute in any way for a face to face conversation with our students, but if connection on the Web helps facilitate that conversation, then it is necessary.
I am still having a lot of difficulty understanding the readings by Wenger. (Can anyone help me!!??) I think it is because of all the definitions. I do give him credit though, he is trying to define things that almost seem impossible (i.e. like defining interactions in everyday life). I almost feel that way when trying to define identity, community, and design. Each definition will be different depending on the person and the context in which they are applied. By reading Wenger, I am getting a sense of the complex and dynamic connectivity between all three "definitions". Relating to Web 2.0, to me, "participation" is the actual, physical, human, involvement in the community. "Reification" is the interface we use and artifacts we leave behind when we visit. Participation requires an identity as well as a community. Reification requires participation as well as a design. Oh dear, now I am confusing myself. See you all in class.
P.S. I've lost many a good friend to the World of Warcraft... don't let it happen to you.
