February 2008 Archives
I've smushed my Wenger and Nardi/O'Day reflections together.
Nardi and O’Day speak of technology as either tools, texts or systems. These metaphors run parallel to our class themes design, community and identity, in my opinion. The two equate tools to, “.. something made to fit in the hands and minds of individual human beings (27)” with intrinsic features called affordances defined as, “those properties of an object that neatly support the actions people intend to take with the object (28).” In other words, tools have certain attributes built into them which people then use to do actions, jobs or tasks. Tools are designed to assist humans in specific ways. Design implies intention, there is a task this toll is made to do, but as Nardi and O’Day point out, “Some of a tool’s affordances emerge during use, unanticipated by designers (29)” When Swedish scientists designed the internet to disseminate data did they intend for it to one day be used by many to find true love a la match.com, eharmony.com etc etc? Did they see it as a forum for people to set up shop and start a home business a la ebay or to search for and download music, movies and radio a la iTunes? I am willing to make the leap that these affordances were not intended as part of the design, they emerged through the use of the tool. The tool guided it’s own use. We have definitely proceeded with “reverse adaptation” as the two suggested, changing our behaviors to coincide with the tool’s affordances. Scary? Perhaps. Foreseen? No. Here to stay? Most definitely! So the question on the table now is not how do we resist technology, as Foucault calls for, but rather how do we move forward as an informed community?
Nardi and O’Day move on to discuss technology as a text, “a form of communication, a carrier of meaning that may be reinterpreted as the technology passes through different social situations (31).” This is the metaphor I find most comfortable with. It implies alteration, appropriation and modification by users not simple acceptance and utilization. Technology as text, facilitates community. People come together via the common bond of a shared technology, yet they are no longer bound by time and space. Familiarities emerge and individuals connect in ways unimagined prior to the technology. But as Wenger indicates, a community only becomes a community of practice when members employ a notion of shared learning. Wenger goes on to say that, “Practice is always located in time and space because it always exists in specific communities and arises out of mutual engagement (130)” I agree with this notion but wish to expand our ideas of “time and space”. Community implies interactions, engagement and participation which is why Wenger asserts that a DVD player in not part of the community of a family while a loved dog is, so community is inherently human and humans exists, we are situated in a specific location and are alive at a certain time in history. Though our bodies are bound by time and space, our ideas extend beyond ourselves. Mutual participation can arise between anyone, not just those sitting next to us. A 34 year old stock broker in New York can be more intimately connected to a colleague in Japan than to his boss down the hall. Yes, trade-offs are inherent. This became painfully obvious in the Rheingold piece where he, rather offhandedly, mentions that his family has gotten used to him spending his evenings on the computer rather then interacting with them but aren’t some the tradeoffs worthwhile? If an individual finds someone online who can dramatically assist and augment his thinking about a specific project, so as to move that project forward, and spends many hours talking online with this person rather than chatting with his colleague in the next cubicle over; may the tradeoff between a personal relationship with his colleague versus achievement, job recognition and a pay raise be worth it? I propose that yes, some trade-offs are worthwhile and welcome but that we must exercise caution and make informed decisions on which trade-offs we find acceptable.
The metaphor for technology as system, is the one I find most troublesome as Nardi and O’Day warned. Their discussion of Technique sent chills up my spine with visions of The Matrix swarming my thoughts. Yet many of their arguments rang true, especially in term of reverse adaptation. We respond to the affordances of technology and react accordingly. If a cell phone is not getting reception inside a building we move outside. If a fax machine is broken we mail a form instead. If email is down we make a phone call. Technology is shaping our actions. But isn’t what we do ultimately who we are? When you meet someone for the first time one of the first questions is, “What do you do?” What we do is how we interact with others, how the world sees us and at the end of the day how we view ourselves. If, when we try to get our luggage off the revolving beltway at the airport, grab it at the wrong time, have a bad angle, are unable to lift properly and end up in a heap on the floor after being pulled down by 45 pounds worth of suitcase, then we become embarrassed, and may label ourselves as a klutz or worse! Because of having to grab a bag off of an assembly line technology rather than the floor we have altered our self-image. If what we do influences how we see ourselves and how we see ourselves is who we are then technology is shaping our identity; and if technology begets technology, who is really running the show here?
Nardi and O’Day speak of technology as either tools, texts or systems. These metaphors run parallel to our class themes design, community and identity, in my opinion. The two equate tools to, “.. something made to fit in the hands and minds of individual human beings (27)” with intrinsic features called affordances defined as, “those properties of an object that neatly support the actions people intend to take with the object (28).” In other words, tools have certain attributes built into them which people then use to do actions, jobs or tasks. Tools are designed to assist humans in specific ways. Design implies intention, there is a task this toll is made to do, but as Nardi and O’Day point out, “Some of a tool’s affordances emerge during use, unanticipated by designers (29)” When Swedish scientists designed the internet to disseminate data did they intend for it to one day be used by many to find true love a la match.com, eharmony.com etc etc? Did they see it as a forum for people to set up shop and start a home business a la ebay or to search for and download music, movies and radio a la iTunes? I am willing to make the leap that these affordances were not intended as part of the design, they emerged through the use of the tool. The tool guided it’s own use. We have definitely proceeded with “reverse adaptation” as the two suggested, changing our behaviors to coincide with the tool’s affordances. Scary? Perhaps. Foreseen? No. Here to stay? Most definitely! So the question on the table now is not how do we resist technology, as Foucault calls for, but rather how do we move forward as an informed community?
Nardi and O’Day move on to discuss technology as a text, “a form of communication, a carrier of meaning that may be reinterpreted as the technology passes through different social situations (31).” This is the metaphor I find most comfortable with. It implies alteration, appropriation and modification by users not simple acceptance and utilization. Technology as text, facilitates community. People come together via the common bond of a shared technology, yet they are no longer bound by time and space. Familiarities emerge and individuals connect in ways unimagined prior to the technology. But as Wenger indicates, a community only becomes a community of practice when members employ a notion of shared learning. Wenger goes on to say that, “Practice is always located in time and space because it always exists in specific communities and arises out of mutual engagement (130)” I agree with this notion but wish to expand our ideas of “time and space”. Community implies interactions, engagement and participation which is why Wenger asserts that a DVD player in not part of the community of a family while a loved dog is, so community is inherently human and humans exists, we are situated in a specific location and are alive at a certain time in history. Though our bodies are bound by time and space, our ideas extend beyond ourselves. Mutual participation can arise between anyone, not just those sitting next to us. A 34 year old stock broker in New York can be more intimately connected to a colleague in Japan than to his boss down the hall. Yes, trade-offs are inherent. This became painfully obvious in the Rheingold piece where he, rather offhandedly, mentions that his family has gotten used to him spending his evenings on the computer rather then interacting with them but aren’t some the tradeoffs worthwhile? If an individual finds someone online who can dramatically assist and augment his thinking about a specific project, so as to move that project forward, and spends many hours talking online with this person rather than chatting with his colleague in the next cubicle over; may the tradeoff between a personal relationship with his colleague versus achievement, job recognition and a pay raise be worth it? I propose that yes, some trade-offs are worthwhile and welcome but that we must exercise caution and make informed decisions on which trade-offs we find acceptable.
The metaphor for technology as system, is the one I find most troublesome as Nardi and O’Day warned. Their discussion of Technique sent chills up my spine with visions of The Matrix swarming my thoughts. Yet many of their arguments rang true, especially in term of reverse adaptation. We respond to the affordances of technology and react accordingly. If a cell phone is not getting reception inside a building we move outside. If a fax machine is broken we mail a form instead. If email is down we make a phone call. Technology is shaping our actions. But isn’t what we do ultimately who we are? When you meet someone for the first time one of the first questions is, “What do you do?” What we do is how we interact with others, how the world sees us and at the end of the day how we view ourselves. If, when we try to get our luggage off the revolving beltway at the airport, grab it at the wrong time, have a bad angle, are unable to lift properly and end up in a heap on the floor after being pulled down by 45 pounds worth of suitcase, then we become embarrassed, and may label ourselves as a klutz or worse! Because of having to grab a bag off of an assembly line technology rather than the floor we have altered our self-image. If what we do influences how we see ourselves and how we see ourselves is who we are then technology is shaping our identity; and if technology begets technology, who is really running the show here?
Institutions do not define communities of practice, “An institutional boundary may therefore correspond to one community of practice, to a number of them, or to none at all. (109)” Penn State is a wonderful example of this. Under the umbrella of the University there is a rallying cry which unites all Nittany Lions through space and time. When I had been dating my husband for approximately three months, I thought I new him pretty well but, we were hiking in Tuckerman’s Ravine on Mt. Washington in NH and all of a sudden someone coming toward us on the trail yelled, “WE ARE!” and without missing a step my husband yelled, “PENN STATE” just as loudly. I had never heard this combination of words put together in such a fashion and was instantly aware that I was on the periphery. “Do you know them?” I asked, not understanding the significance of the interaction, “No, that’s just what we do” he responded. By this point in our relationship I had begun thinking of the two of us as a “we” so his comment caused me further internal upheaval. It was like I had just found out he was part of a little club, with odd rituals and arcane traditions. Overtime I would come to understand his member in the Penn State community and eventually form my own identity as a Nittany Lion, not quite as intense as my husbands but mine non-the-less.
On that hot August afternoon, I felt disturbed and yet intrigued by his interaction. I learned to adjust to dating and eventually marrying an undergraduate alum from Penn State. His intense identity as part of the Penn State community was foreign to me. I had gone to a little liberal arts school in Vermont, our unifying element was that we had been listed in High Times magazine; there were no identifying cheers we could use to identify each other. My husband and I were our own community which overlapped several other communities and we were both learning how, “The combination of perturbability and resilience is a characteristic of adaptability. Learning involves a close interaction of order and chaos. The continuity of an emergent structure derives not from stability but from adaptability (97)” A necessarily stable structure must bend in order not to break, as a high-rise slightly sways with the wind, so did our community as a couple change, and vary.
Wenger argues that communities can not remain stable because members move in and out of the system, goals change, and innovations are introduced. Though communities are in a constant state of flux, this discontinuity mostly goes unnoticed. The high-rise accommodates the wind, an unseen force bending the very foundation of the building while reinforcing its resilience, as communities of practice accommodate advancement. Both must be anonymously pliable to continue. Yet, “There is a stake in continuity - at the level of the institution, and at the level of the community of practice as well. Everyone and everything concur to sustain this sense of continuity in the midst of discontinuities (94)”
If a community of practice is to survive beyond a single generation, there must be a way for new members to learn the ways of the community without unnecessary struggle. “ … ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ (characterizes) the process by which newcomers become included in a community of practice … the required learning takes place not so much through the reification of a curriculum as through modified forms of participation that are structured to open the practice to nonmembers (100).” Newcomers must find their place within a community, they must determine where they fit in and how they best interact with other participants. This is not a passive process and cannot be achieved by simply reading a handbook (reification of a curriculum) or observing the action of others. It is only though participation that newcomers can truly learn the ways of a community of practice; but their learning curve cannot disrupt the workings of the community. Thus legitimate-peripheral participation, where learning is scaffolded, slowly handing more and more responsibility to the newcomer, through a training period, internship, mentorship or other form of initiation is needed. Through this process the newcomers are taught how to negotiate the boundary objects (acronyms, forms, locations, procedures and language) of the community. It must be remembered that not only is the newcomer influencing the community but that “(learning) is not just the acquisition of memories, habits, and skills, but the formation of an identity (96)” and so the community is also shaping how the newcomer sees him/herself. Is the newcomer capable, eager and talented or unskilled, slow-to-learn and stumbling; a welcome addition or a thorn in the group?
How are the newcomers perspectives integrated into the community’s mechanisms? Usually newcomers find one or two people with whom they ‘click’, and these participants are able to act as the newcomer’s broker. “Brokers are able to make new connections across communities of practice, enable coordination, and - if they are good brokers – open new possibilities for meaning. (109)” It is imperative that newcomers find such brokers in order to gain acceptance into the group; someone the community knows and trusts needs to vouch for the legitimacy of the newcomer, basically saying, “Hey you guys, she’s ok!” This process is informal and outside the scope of ‘legitimate-peripheral-participation’. Brokers are pundits of, “.. the politics of participation include(ing) influence, personal authority, nepotism, rampant discrimination, charisma, trust, friendship (91)” Though as Wenger says, practice itself forms connection, it is a cruel reality of humanity that we cannot flourish in isolation and need social connections within our communities of practice in order to become central participants; brokers help newcomers negotiate this process.
On that hot August afternoon, I felt disturbed and yet intrigued by his interaction. I learned to adjust to dating and eventually marrying an undergraduate alum from Penn State. His intense identity as part of the Penn State community was foreign to me. I had gone to a little liberal arts school in Vermont, our unifying element was that we had been listed in High Times magazine; there were no identifying cheers we could use to identify each other. My husband and I were our own community which overlapped several other communities and we were both learning how, “The combination of perturbability and resilience is a characteristic of adaptability. Learning involves a close interaction of order and chaos. The continuity of an emergent structure derives not from stability but from adaptability (97)” A necessarily stable structure must bend in order not to break, as a high-rise slightly sways with the wind, so did our community as a couple change, and vary.
Wenger argues that communities can not remain stable because members move in and out of the system, goals change, and innovations are introduced. Though communities are in a constant state of flux, this discontinuity mostly goes unnoticed. The high-rise accommodates the wind, an unseen force bending the very foundation of the building while reinforcing its resilience, as communities of practice accommodate advancement. Both must be anonymously pliable to continue. Yet, “There is a stake in continuity - at the level of the institution, and at the level of the community of practice as well. Everyone and everything concur to sustain this sense of continuity in the midst of discontinuities (94)”
If a community of practice is to survive beyond a single generation, there must be a way for new members to learn the ways of the community without unnecessary struggle. “ … ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ (characterizes) the process by which newcomers become included in a community of practice … the required learning takes place not so much through the reification of a curriculum as through modified forms of participation that are structured to open the practice to nonmembers (100).” Newcomers must find their place within a community, they must determine where they fit in and how they best interact with other participants. This is not a passive process and cannot be achieved by simply reading a handbook (reification of a curriculum) or observing the action of others. It is only though participation that newcomers can truly learn the ways of a community of practice; but their learning curve cannot disrupt the workings of the community. Thus legitimate-peripheral participation, where learning is scaffolded, slowly handing more and more responsibility to the newcomer, through a training period, internship, mentorship or other form of initiation is needed. Through this process the newcomers are taught how to negotiate the boundary objects (acronyms, forms, locations, procedures and language) of the community. It must be remembered that not only is the newcomer influencing the community but that “(learning) is not just the acquisition of memories, habits, and skills, but the formation of an identity (96)” and so the community is also shaping how the newcomer sees him/herself. Is the newcomer capable, eager and talented or unskilled, slow-to-learn and stumbling; a welcome addition or a thorn in the group?
How are the newcomers perspectives integrated into the community’s mechanisms? Usually newcomers find one or two people with whom they ‘click’, and these participants are able to act as the newcomer’s broker. “Brokers are able to make new connections across communities of practice, enable coordination, and - if they are good brokers – open new possibilities for meaning. (109)” It is imperative that newcomers find such brokers in order to gain acceptance into the group; someone the community knows and trusts needs to vouch for the legitimacy of the newcomer, basically saying, “Hey you guys, she’s ok!” This process is informal and outside the scope of ‘legitimate-peripheral-participation’. Brokers are pundits of, “.. the politics of participation include(ing) influence, personal authority, nepotism, rampant discrimination, charisma, trust, friendship (91)” Though as Wenger says, practice itself forms connection, it is a cruel reality of humanity that we cannot flourish in isolation and need social connections within our communities of practice in order to become central participants; brokers help newcomers negotiate this process.
I may revisit this as I am feeling tired and a tad foggy but wanted to get something posted.
“The two rural sociologists intuitively sensed what later diffusion scholars were to gather more detailed evidence to prove: that the heart of the diffusion process consists of interpersonal network exchanges and social modeling by those individuals who have already adopted an innovation to those individuals who are influenced to follow their lead Diffusion is fundamentally a social process (35)”
I am hard struck to think of anything that isn’t a social process, and I have been trying! However, since reading chapter 1 of Wenger’s book where he describes the interaction of reification and participation and goes on to say that, “participation goes beyond direct engagement in specific activities with specific people … As such, participation is not something we turn on and off. From this perspective, our engagement with the world is social, even when it does not clearly involve interactions with others. (57)” I will go so far as to say that diffusion is a ‘highly-social’ process where say, polishing silver is a minimally social process. It seems I have just created a continuum of interaction; I’m not even sure if that is possible? Isn’t interaction or social engagement black or white; either something is social or it isn’t? But if we accept Wenger’s assertion, then everything we do is social so there must be a gray area where we are acting on the peripheral or jumping into the center of the social circle. When we are swimming in the center of social-interaction it seems we take on many of not all of the characteristics of Rogers’ “opinion leadership”. Being centrally social means that we are very accessible, have contact with many others, and are primarily viewed as positive by those closest. This position would be able to exert great influence on the inner social-circle. The only image I can muster at this late hour is that of the middle school girls’ click; there is always one opinion leader who can influence the actions of her followers. Showing my age here but in my day slap bracelets and charm necklaces diffused through my middle school like wild fire! Stupid little pieces of fabric covered metal had to be had by every 12 year old girl in the place! How did this innovation catch on so quickly? One or two socially central opinion leaders spread the word that they were THE thing. Without such tightly wound social-networking, I’m sure cheap little plastic necklaces with gaudy charms would never had hung around the necks of so many girls. But social influence is not limited to pre-adolescent girls. One of the main reasons AIDS prevention programs have failed in many developing countries is because of how condom use is viewed. There is a stigma associated with condom use because they are often associated with lack of trust in one’s partner. Rationality and data do nothing to override an angry and/or abusive partner. People tend to turn to those they trust, those who are homophile, and so local tradition, custom and superstition tends to win out over pushy social workers. The power of peer pressure is intense. Since humans are inherently social, we risk alienation if we go against the crowd. This being so, diffusion is best begun by winning over the opinion leader of a group rather than trying to edge in from the periphery like the health worker in Las Molinas.
“The two rural sociologists intuitively sensed what later diffusion scholars were to gather more detailed evidence to prove: that the heart of the diffusion process consists of interpersonal network exchanges and social modeling by those individuals who have already adopted an innovation to those individuals who are influenced to follow their lead Diffusion is fundamentally a social process (35)”
I am hard struck to think of anything that isn’t a social process, and I have been trying! However, since reading chapter 1 of Wenger’s book where he describes the interaction of reification and participation and goes on to say that, “participation goes beyond direct engagement in specific activities with specific people … As such, participation is not something we turn on and off. From this perspective, our engagement with the world is social, even when it does not clearly involve interactions with others. (57)” I will go so far as to say that diffusion is a ‘highly-social’ process where say, polishing silver is a minimally social process. It seems I have just created a continuum of interaction; I’m not even sure if that is possible? Isn’t interaction or social engagement black or white; either something is social or it isn’t? But if we accept Wenger’s assertion, then everything we do is social so there must be a gray area where we are acting on the peripheral or jumping into the center of the social circle. When we are swimming in the center of social-interaction it seems we take on many of not all of the characteristics of Rogers’ “opinion leadership”. Being centrally social means that we are very accessible, have contact with many others, and are primarily viewed as positive by those closest. This position would be able to exert great influence on the inner social-circle. The only image I can muster at this late hour is that of the middle school girls’ click; there is always one opinion leader who can influence the actions of her followers. Showing my age here but in my day slap bracelets and charm necklaces diffused through my middle school like wild fire! Stupid little pieces of fabric covered metal had to be had by every 12 year old girl in the place! How did this innovation catch on so quickly? One or two socially central opinion leaders spread the word that they were THE thing. Without such tightly wound social-networking, I’m sure cheap little plastic necklaces with gaudy charms would never had hung around the necks of so many girls. But social influence is not limited to pre-adolescent girls. One of the main reasons AIDS prevention programs have failed in many developing countries is because of how condom use is viewed. There is a stigma associated with condom use because they are often associated with lack of trust in one’s partner. Rationality and data do nothing to override an angry and/or abusive partner. People tend to turn to those they trust, those who are homophile, and so local tradition, custom and superstition tends to win out over pushy social workers. The power of peer pressure is intense. Since humans are inherently social, we risk alienation if we go against the crowd. This being so, diffusion is best begun by winning over the opinion leader of a group rather than trying to edge in from the periphery like the health worker in Las Molinas.
