Archives for CCK08

CCK08: Do groups filter access to networks?

Posted by  on Thursday, October 9th 2008     

I was reading this excellent post about groups and networks and I started to think about if groups filter access to networks. I think that all of the readings this week (at least how I understand them) point to groups being a restricted entity. In other words, there are definite boundaries to a group, access is controlled, there is an accepted language and other norms, etc.

On the other hand, networks are an ad hoc, fluid connection of autonomous individuals.  But can a person’s membership in a group potentially prevent him or her from seeing a beneficial network?

In my last post I talked about group styles, or signatures. This signature includes expected behaviors, language used, clothing worn, beliefs, etc. New group members are included (or excluded) based on their knowledge and use of the group signature.

Maybe part of a group’s signature is to create barriers to the information seeking behavior that would allow individual group members to connect to different networks. I found a paper that I may rework and post about “information imposters”. Here’s the definition of an information imposter from Dr. Chatman’s class notes:

Information impostors are persons within a small group that give the illusion of having knowledge. They jam the information social system with their own psuedo-information, shutting down the information seeking process. In effect, they claim to have given all the information that is necessary, telling members of the small world that they do not need to seek for any more information.

Sounds familiar to anyone following the US elections I bet. :) Is it possible for a group to have information impostors that purposely obfuscate connections to an outside network?

So individuals are in groups, and groups expect certain behavior from their members. In some cases groups obscure pathways to certain types of information. Individuals can connect to networks, but only if their information-seeking behavior is not blocked by the behavior they are expected to show to remain a member of their group.

In other words, groups can filter access to networks.

category: CCK08
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CCK08: The language of groups and networks

Posted by  on Wednesday, October 8th 2008     

I want to start by getting something off my chest. I attended tonight’s Elluminate session, where Terry Anderson was the guest presenter. He had a very interesting presentation which I enjoyed very much. One thing he spoke about is going to make its way into a presentation I have next week. Good stuff!

I am very interested in figuring out how the thoughts in this week’s CCK08 discussions (which is about networks and groups) are different than existing group theory produced by sociological, ethnographic, and information studies disciplines. I was roundly chastised by @downes for “complaining” and “harping” when I was asking honest questions. It is very confusing when there are terms being introduced that are similar to terms in other established disciplines. I thought these questions would be easily answered, but I was basically told to put up a definition or shut up.

I didn’t appreciate that at all. Actually, using that sort of tactic is a way to control membership in a group. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

I’ve started to map out what I am getting from the readings and presentations about groups, networks, and collectives in this wiki.

I don’t have any of my old books, and I don’t want to post any of my old papers. I was a pretty angry political woman when I finally made it to FSU. I will post some of the quotes from my favorite professors. Her name was Elfreda Chatman, she died very suddenly a couple of years ago. She specialized in studying the information seeking behavior of folks in small worlds, especially disenfranchised folks.

One paper I wrote was titled “Information and Cyberspace: Ethnography and Virtual Communities” (April 2000). I quoted a paper by Steven R. Thomsen (Ethnomethodology and the Study of Online Communities: Exploring the Cyber Streets”). He had a definition for community:

“the place of idle talk and banter with acquaintances and friends, is often where the sense of membership in a community is achieved and experienced…it should not e surprising that millions of people throughout the world turn to the Internet to recreate and reestablish the third sphere of conviviality “

From one of Dr. Chatman’s lectures I had this note:

A group’s “style” is their signature. This signature will define the way the group will handle certain events, including what topics are to be discussed (or excluded), the form of interaction, and the level of meaning. An important area where this style is utilized is when a group member encounters a stranger, or someone who is not part of that small world. In ideal situations, when a stranger enters a small world they provide raw materials that allow the member of a small world to look at a world larger than their own. As long as the stranger knows what the rules of information exchange are within the group, he will be allowed to share his world view. However if his information style collapses, he will not be allowed to communicate any longer with the members of the small world be cause they won’t show their true selves (only a false front).

I think I may have broken one of the CCK08 small world communication rules today in that Elluminate session. I’m not sure what – maybe just asking for clarification is a bad thing. We’ll see if I get treated any differently.

category: CCK08
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Autism – Networks

Posted by  on Tuesday, September 30th 2008     

Ok, I give! CCK08 is officially killing me! I’m going to try and hang in there. I think the problem is that the topics are so meaty, and interesting, that I want to only do this class and nothing else.

For instance, this post has been sitting in my head for a while. I just haven’t been able to get the words together to do real justice to the idea in my head. So I put it off, and the idea gets bigger. Then I get frustrated. It’s such an evil cycle.

How are people on the Autism spectrum affected by a network? I’m just going to bullet point my main ideas, feel free to pull them apart. I do believe that if we are talking about a new theory of learning, we have the opportunity to investigate this theory for ALL learners. So I think we should take some care to think about how this new theory of connectivism works for folks with learning disabilities.

So here is the list of my thoughts on autism and networks. It is not referenced, I just don’t have time. These are merely the thoughts of a mom with a child on the spectrum:

  • Some learners won’t give any (expected) feedback about being connected to the network, but will learn from the network.
    I say expected because they probably are giving some sort of feedback, but it’s just not at the frequency that the rest of the world is listening for.
    Obvious examples of this would be non-verbal people with savant qualities. These people have an expert level of knowledge or skill in one particular area. Did this quality come from the sky? Or are they plugged into the network somehow?
  • The lack of social awareness may help attach to a classroom network, but being overwhelmed with sensory data may prevent that attachment.
    One of the hallmarks of Asperger’s Syndrome, which is on the autism spectrum, is that a person with this syndrome won’t understand social cues. They have a hard time making friends (connecting to the network?), are loners, etc. But they usually also have one or two special interests for which they are experts. People on this end of the spectrum are usually very intelligent as well.
    Maybe because their lack of understanding social norms is what helps them excel in school. They are not distracted by the social cliques at school because they just don’t see them. They don’t see the social circles, so they are left out them (excluded from those networks?). But this helps them have more attention for the lessons. So while socially they seem disconnected, they are very tuned into the classroom instruction.
    That is, if they are able to tune out sensory information. Many autistic people have very sensory integration problems. So while they are oblivious to social cues, every sensory cue that is in the room is handled as a major issue to be addressed cognitively. Florescent lights, someone sweeping the hall outside, kids whispering, all of that is hard to filter if you have sensory integration disorder. Since their sensory filters don’t work to filter sensory input properly, autistic kids may be too flooded with information to attach to the classroom network.

That’s all I have so far. Sorry there’s not more hard evidence attached to my idea. What have I left out?

category: CCK08
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Networks – CCK08

Posted by  on Friday, September 26th 2008     

This week has been about networks in the CCK08 course. I haven’t posted or responded much to posts. My excuses:

  • End of the quarter at work
  • Group at school is non-technical, I’m practicing positive inter-dependence and helping them

But I have been reading, and thinking, and talking about the information flowing through the CCK08 network about networks. Valdis Krebs on networks was amazing, and brought me back to my undergrad years. His presentation reminded me that you can represent networks inthe following ways:

  1. Hierarchical (e.g. org charts)
  2. Hub and spoke (obvious informal networks)
  3. Just connecting the dots that show us how the work really gets done (sound familiar to anyone at EMC?).

What I thought of almost instantly was the big E2.0/L2.0/Web 2.0 buzzword: Community. Everyone is racing to set up a “community”. What do people mean when they say that? Do they mean some of the things that Valdis is able to uncover with his network maps, for example:

  • Expert Location – put the experts out there with your customers
  • Communities of Practice – form learning communities with your customers
  • Key Opinion Leaders – Put the key influencers out there with your customers

Do people even think this far when they are making the community — why do you want one? Because you were told to make one? If that is the only motivation, the community will die because there is not a network feeding it, breathing life into it.

The question remaining for me is: is a community a network? Or is the network the energizing force that powers a community?

category: CCK08
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Trying to visualize Networks

Posted by  on Sunday, September 21st 2008     

When we talk about networks in constructivism or group theory, my mind always compares them to computer networks. It’s the easiest reference I can pull up, since I deal with computer networking on a daily basis.

I’m going to try and post a series of posts including some mindmaps to help me make sense of my comparisons of a  computer network to the connectivist’s network.

This first map is of a compute node:

I am the world’s worst artist, so it doesn’t look like I want it to. But I am going for the concept here:

  • Our Long-Term memory is like a hard drive, a place to store data
  • Our Short-Term memory is like a computer’s RAM
  • Our Mental Models are like filters applied to an individual compute node
  • Network Connections are our access to information, just like that cable you plug into the wall to get on the internet.

To me, applying the constructivist theory of learning to how an individual learns makes sense. We are bound by what we filter with our mental models. I am comparing the mental models to filters because in a sense they are, they are social constructs so they may not allow us to search for or appreciate information we encounter from new networks.

Connectivism, to me right now at least, is everything from the Network connection out. Problem is, we have more than our own filters sifting through all the information we encounter. The network itself is filtered, and that may prevent us from ever knowing about certain networks.

I’m off to participate on a panel about Asperger’s and college (talk about filtering…), but when I get back I will try and draw out how the network filters work.

category: CCK08
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