Frances Bell’s Blog

I first came across Stephen Downes characterisation of Groups and Networks in 2006

And my reaction to it then was quite similar to my current view, that the very open word group was being associated with a set of attributes in order to make it different from the desired form of association - networks.

‘When _I_ use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master - - that’s all.’

In other words, Stephen Downes was playing Humpty Dumpty with the terminology but what was to be master?

Having been through CCK08 and CCK09, I am pulling out another issue that has been vaguely troubling me.  Working on this xtranormal video has helped me puzzle out the issue as I re-read what other participants had to say about networks and groups in order to include their words in the script.

It seems to me that ascribing the attributes of autonomy, diversity, openness and emergent knowledge to networks and suggesting that groups foster the opposites of these is adopting a normative stance, assuming we always want total autonomy, etc. and that networks are a ‘good’ organizational form because they will deliver this. As an educator,  I would definitely aspire to all of those attributes for myself and the students, but can see circumstances when learning activities that compromised on these could be helpful for learners.

Autonomy

“What this means in practice is that there ought not be an identifiable dependence (that is, an explainable correlation) between what someone else says or does, and what you say or do” http://www.downes.ca/post/38545

When a teacher is working with students to help wean themselves off a dependence on particular sources or people, this may take some time, identification of the dependence, and helping them leave it behind (e.g. by giving ‘permission’ to disagree with the teacher) in ways that may be more directive than modeling behaviours in a network.

Diversity

The example of women-only networks show the value of reducing diversity in one setting as a means of achieving more diversity in the longer term.

Openness

With openness of dialogue and resources, I am inclined to paraphrase Einstein’s maxim on simplicity “It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.”  Hence we can make things as open as possible but without surrendering the expressed desire for privacy of the individual.

Emergent knowledge

I can see that knowledge is much more likely to emerge in networks with diverse and autonomous nodes connecting on open conditions.  However such absolutes may not be achievable for all sorts of reasons.  An example that I have thought of in CCK08 and CCK09 is that in providing only open resources (ones that have been published on open web site) the study of connectivism is restricted to only ideas expressed on the open web.  We have seen actor-network theory brought up on Moodle forums on CCK08 and CCK09 as a network theory that uses symmetric analysis of human and non-human nodes in networks.  However, it has been addressed little by the main protagonists of connectivism.

My own view expressed in the video above is that pragmatic teachers will adopt group and network organizational forms at will to suit the circumstances in which they and their learners find themselves.

Video credits:

WARNING : This is not a real conversation. It is intended as a good-humoured parody of conversations about Groups and Networks that took place on CCK08 and elsewhere. This video is a mashup of the words of Bob Bell, Lisa Lane, Ariel Lion, Frances Bell, Stephen Downes, Ailsa Haxell, Roy Williams and possibly others, with a few extra words thrown to glue the conversation. You will have been quoted out of context, and otherwise had your words twisted but I hope you take this in good spirit.
http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/moodle/mod/fo…
http://lisahistory.wordpress.com/2008…
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