February 2008 Archives

I have always viewed technology only as a "tool" that could assist in education and learning.  Bonni Nardi and Vicki O'Day suggest that we should go past this ideology and view technology as a tool, text, system and/or ecology.  In terms of text, technology is seen as "a form of communication, a cattier of meaning that may be reinterpreted as the technology passes through different social situations" (Nardi & O'Day 1999).  Technology as a system allows for technology to influence our lives through a systematic perspective.  We often try to predict and steer the results of innovation.  We need to understand that sometimes technology cannot be controlled.  Technological change is hard to understand because it is very large-scale and distributed in our society.  Nardi and O'Day use pollution to explain this complexity.  Pollution results from cars, buses, barbecues, manufacturing plants and we don't have a plan that addresses all of these technologies.

What does this mean to us as educators and instructional technology innovators?  I feel that technology advances will only come if we are open to the possibilities of technology.  In other words, we can't limit our views of technology.  We can't be constrained by viewing technology as only a tool and look more into how it can be used as text, system, and ecology.  If we follow these ideas, we will see potential and productive uses of technology and will be change-agents in our communities.

One such example is using facebook.  I have previously only viewed facebook as a tool for education practices.  However, how can facebook affect communication, our educational perspectives, or our education ecology outlook?  This has interesting implications... and i'm not sure where it can go.   

"It was just another night with the sun set and the moon rise not so far behind.  To give us just enough light to lay down underneath the stars.  Listen to papa's translations of the stories across the sky.  We drew our own constellations." -Jack Johnson

Upon reading Chapter 5 and Coda 1 of Etienne Wenger's "Communities of Practice," I am finally able to say the readings are making sense and I can answer a lot of the questions that I had previously about communities of practice. 

Wenger introduces Constellations of Practice.  These constellations are groupings of objects, in this case individual communities of practice.  One of the questions I have had up to this point was: Wouldn't there be many communities of practice and each community of practice would have smaller communities of practice within it?  The answer is that there are many communities of practice that make up not a bigger community of practice, but rather, a constellation of practice.  These constellations of practice are not considered communities of practice because they overlook the "multiplicity and disconnectedness of the perspectives involved" (Wenger 1998). 

A second question that I have had for a long time was: Can computers be considered members of a community of practice because they are able to interact with other members of a community (i.e. search engines)?  The answer is that computers are NOT considered members of a community because computers lack an understanding of meaning.  They cannot mutually engage with other members because they lack an understanding of meaning, they cannot understand the community's enterprise because of the same lack of meaning, and they cannot negotiate the repertoire also because of this lack of meaning.

The third question I have had throughout this entire process has also been cleared up.  With the development of online COPs and member's splitting their identities, isn't there a lack of member engagement in their real lives?  Yes, Wenger explains that the "scope of engagement is not so much expanding as it is a series of trade-offs between forms of complexity" (1998).  So, as we enter into more and more online communities, our engagement with our original community (family) is not as complex as it once was.  I am interested to see what the implications are in terms of social interaction in the next 50 years.

Bringing this back to Constellations and the Jack Johnson song I quoted at the beginning of this post, we are involved in many different communities of practice.  All of these communities of practice can be combined to form our own individual constellation of practice.   We ARE drawing our own constellations (of practice).

COPs or Communities of practice are defined as a "shared history of learning" and gain meaning through participation and reification (Wenger 1998).  Participation and reification have dual modes of existence in time, remembering and forgetting, and continuity and discontinuity.  You use participation to get past "bureaucratic rigidities" of policies and you use reification to "combat forces of partiality that can bias politics of participation" (1998).  The evolution of COPs involves the politics of both participation and reification.  Participation and reification contribute to the discontinuity of a boundary or help to create a boundary.  What is a boundary?  A boundary object is any "artifact, document, term, concept, or other form of reification around which communities of practice can organize their interconnections" (1998).  Boundary objects allow for the negotiation of meaning in a community of practice. 

In the Web 2.0 world, members negotiate meaning with communities of practice through many technologies including but not limited to video sharing sites, podcasts, blogs, wikis, online learning communities, online social networks, online news feeds, multi-user domains (MUDs), and massively multi-player online role playing games (MMORPGs).  All of these Web 2.0 technologies allow for communities of practice to organize their interconnections.  They can be considered "boundary objects" that Wenger refers to. 

The difference between these "boundary objects" and the ones we see in real life are that the Web 2.0 objects allow members to negotiate meaning in a system with a very different sense of identity, community, and design.  Members can be whoever they want to be; they are no longer constrained by their physical appearance or demeanor.  The community is no longer a community that exists in the neighborhood.  You can negotiate meaning with users anywhere in the world.  The design process is changing too.  Our online COPs are dynamic and changing.  In order to create online COPs, instructional designers must consider peripheral roles in the community.  The number of peripheries in a community is no longer limited by location or time.

As Web 2.0 technologies become increasingly popular and take their new roles as "boundary objects," we are going to see the world change.  Unless you live under a rock or in a bubble, your daily routine will soon change as these technologies take over.  So in borrowing from the theme song from "Bad Boys," whatcha gonna do? whatcha gonna do when they (Web 2.0 technologies) come for you?

Created in 1932, the Dvorak Keyboard was meant to replace the current QWERTY system.   The Dvorak Keyboard system was superior to the QWERTY system yet, it has not caught on as one would have thought it would.  Although the Dvorak Keyboard has caught on in some work environments (especially with computer programmers), it is still not as widely used and accepted as the QWERTY system.  The reason?  According to Everett Rogers, the Dvorak Keyboard was a failed diffusion.

Rogers in "Diffusion of Innovations" provides an outline for diffusion and dissemination.  A diffusion occurs when an innovation is communicated through channels and adopted over time into a social system.  A dissemination is a diffusion that is directed and managed.  When providing a diffusion of an innovation, one must think critically about how the innovation, communication channels, time, and social system will affect the adoption of the innovation.  If an innovation is rejected, it usually can be traced back to a problem with one of these four categories.  With the Dvorak Keyboard, the manufacturers, sales outlets, typing teachers, and typists contributed to the slow diffusion of the keyboard system.  They are considered "laggards" because they refused to use the system.  They made a decision to not sell keyboards with the Dvorak Keyboard.  Because such a small percentage of the population made the decision for all of the consumers, it is considered an authority innovation decision. 

As we discuss Web 2.0 technologies and how we can incorporate them into the classroom, the following questions come to my mind:  Will the Dvorak Keyboard diffusion rejection happen again?  Will there be a Web 2.0 technology that will take forever to adopt because K-12 school administrators refuse to adopt it?

In many innovation decisions, school administrators play similar roles to what the manufacturers and sales outlets did for the Dvorak Keyboard.  In terms of the K-12 school community, the social system is defined by the decisions that a small percentage of the community makes.  School administrators make authority innovation decisions all the time.  Because of this fact, I believe that the answer to the above questions is yes.  I can only make a guess as to which technologies will take a long time to adopt.  Based on the fact that many internet sites are still not available in classrooms, I think any technology that is dependent on the web (social networks, multi-user domains, and massively multi-player online role playing games, etc.) will not make an impact on education for many many years.  Your thoughts?

According to Wenger, "the term practice is sometimes used as an antonym for theory, ideas, ideals, or talk.  However, (Wenger's) use of the term does not reflect a dichotomy between the practical and the theoretical, ideals and reality, or talking and doing.  Communities of practice include all of these even if there are sometimes discrepancies between what we say and what we do, what we aspire to and what we settle for, what we know and what we can manifest.  We all have our own theories and ways of understanding the world, and our communities of practice are places where we develop, negotiate, and share them."

A community involves participation and reification.  Participation refers to membership and interaction of the community.  Reification refers to the instrument(s) that allow for negotiation and the bringing together of the community.  Practice can become a source of community cohesiveness through "mutual engagement, a joint enterprise, and/or a shared repertoire" (Wenger 1998).

Wenger provides a framework that helps to define community, identity and design with disruptive technologies.  In today's society, the community is often a virtual community.  Wenger suggests that in our communities, we "develop, negotiate, and share" our theories and ideas.  The beauty of virtual communities is that there are millions of them.  If we cannot find a community in which to share all of our ideas, we can find others or create a new one.  These communities become communities of practice when we can negotiate and converse with others in the community for a purpose.  This purpose is usually defined as "mutual engagement, joint enterprise or a shared repertoire."  The identity of the community is also usually defined by one of these three terms.  For instance, a discussion board that has a shared repertoire of discussing the Superbowl Champion NY Giants is often defined by this shared repertoire. 

By knowing what a community of practice is and why it exists, we can modify our design practices and define what design is necessary to create future communities of practice.  Disruptive technologies such as computers, cell phones, social networks, or negotiation widgets are often the reification instruments in these virtual communities of practice.

Networked markets are changing the way business occurs in the 21^st century.  Customers can converse with each other and compare and contrast products in a way that was never possible before.  Companies are hesitant to take down their strict firewall protections that would allow networked workers to engage in conversations with the networked market.  The Cluetrain Manifesto by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger introduces these new conversations in an elevator rap: “There’s a new conversation between and among your market and your workers.  It’s making them smarter and it’s enabling them to discover their human voices.”

While some companies are increasing their firewall protection and secrecy, others are opening up their ideas and innovation to the open source world.  Two such examples are Facebook and Second Life.  As stated previously in my post entitled “Howard Rheingold, Facebook, and SecondLife... Millionaires?” these companies are allowing outside programmers to increase the productivity of the software commonly referred to as open source. 

The Cluetrain Manifesto also provides 95 theses to be thought about and discussed.  Five of these theses hit a chord with my outlook on Disruptive Technology as it relates to Community, Identity and Design.   The five theses that I discuss in the following few paragraphs are #31, 45, 47, 48, and 85.  They are first listed below and then I comment on them.

31. Networked markets can change suppliers overnight. Networked knowledge workers can change employers over lunch. Your own "downsizing initiatives" taught us to ask the question: "Loyalty? What's that?"

45. Intranets naturally tend to route around boredom. The best are built bottom-up by engaged individuals cooperating to construct something far more valuable: an intranetworked corporate conversation.

47. While this scares companies witless, they also depend heavily on open intranets to generate and share critical knowledge. They need to resist the urge to "improve" or control these networked conversations.

48.  When corporate intranets are not constrained by fear and legalistic rules, the type of conversation they encourage sounds remarkably like the conversation of the networked marketplace.

85.  When we have questions we turn to each other for answers. If you didn't have such a tight rein on "your people" maybe they'd be among the people we'd turn to.

Thesis 31 discusses the loyalty of the consumer.  With the internet, a consumer can switch and change their choice within a matter of seconds.  And consumers no longer feel as guilty as they once did because priority one for companies today is the bottom line.  If loyalty is not as important as it once was, is there any impact on our virtual communities?  Does this change the identity of our communities?  Disruptive technologies such as cell phones, computers, and web 2.0 tools allow users to interact with many more communities than was once possible.  Users are no longer loyal to just one community but exist in more communities than we can count. 

Theses 45, 47, and 48 discuss networked conversations (discussion boards and blogs).  In the company intranet, conversation is boring, controlled, and regulated.  If companies were not constrained by fear as the manifesto suggests, corporate intranets would enable conversation that was very close to the conversation that occurs in networked markets.  Discussion boards, blogs, and wikis would be free from criticism and allow for creativity, innovation, and ideas.  These disruptive technologies would increase the productivity and success of the company.  Design would be redefined as something that allows for creativity, innovation, and ideas that were not controlled by corporate.

Finally, thesis 85 discusses the unavailability of conversations between the market and workers due to firewalls and other securities.  With the addition of disruptive technologies to our educational and corporate organizations, security has never been a bigger issue.  Firewalls and other securities help ensure that information does not come in (adult content in education) or go out (payroll information in corporations).  However, the blanket securities often cover too much i.e. school children cannot perform Google searches on breast cancer because the word “breast” is not allowed.  As securities come down and more access is given, conversations will increase the knowledge base of all.  Think of the day that students would be able to converse with breast cancer researchers via webcam. 

In the movie The Matrix, the world that almost every human thinks is real life is in fact a virtual community.  Computers create this virtual community in order to keep control over all of the humans.  Only a select few have freed themselves from the matrix and with the help of others that they recruit, they are able to wage war on the computers in order to free all of mankind. 

What I find so intriguing about The Matrix is that it is not very far off from Sherry Turle's discussion of virtual communities or multi-user domains (MUDs) in Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet.   Turle describes identity as the sameness between a person and his/her persona.  In MUDs, a person can have more than one persona.  According to the people that regularly engage in MUDs, Real Life (RL) is "just one more window."  Users have so many different personas that they can move from one to another just by opening and closing windows on their computer screen.

In The Matrix, the lead character Neo yearns for the truth.  He searches for the answers behind the matrix and eventually finds them.  The answers cause Neo to have a virtual (internet) identity crisis.   What he has thought as RL for so long is actually a MUD. 

Why is this significant?  That lies in the quote that I referenced earlier.  One user refers to RL as "just one more window."  However, should RL just be one more window?  It is scary to think that many online users today are starting to go through similar internet identity crises just like Neo.

In Etienne Wenger's Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, Wenger describes leaning as social participation.  Participation requires individuals to create identities in relation to their communities and actively participate in the practices of their social communities.  Learning in these communities is broken into four components: Meaning, Practice, Community, and Identity.  Learning occurs as experience, doing, belonging, and becoming.

In Instructional-Design Theories and Models, Vol. 2, Katerine Bielaczyc and Allan Collins present an instructional framework for creating learning communities in the classroom.  The framework requires community growth, emergent goals, articulation-of-goals, metacognitive activity, respect for others, fail safe measures, structural dependence, depth over breadth, diverse expertise, multiple ways to participate, sharing, negotiation and a good quality of products.  Learning occurs when knowledgeable members teach and pass on information to other members.  Every member can participate as both a teacher and/or learner at different stages of the learning process and all members are involved in the learning process.  A screenshot of a possible Web Learning Community that uses this framework is provided.  In this learning community, the learning occurs through instructional videos.  In this example, PhotoshopExpertMike has uploaded a video that will teach others in the learning community how to slice a wireframe in Photoshop to create a Website Design.

(click on the picture to see it full screen -- Please also realize this is only a screenshot and not an actual website.  I created the environment and modeled it after YouTube.)

Upon looking at Wenger's theories and Bielaczyc and Collins' framework , the following question must be answered:  Do their theories align?