Full Circle Associates

I am eyeball deep these days writing about tools and online interaction. I keep trying to turn the focus on how tools enable activities. Or how activity should drive tool selection and configuration. As usual, George Siemens has something useful to say:

Connectivism Blog: "Let me state the obvious: the real value of blogs and wikis is not the tool itself. It's what the tool enables. Sadly, many advocates overlook this simple fact.

To continue the over-simplification, it's the equivalent of viewing a hammer as only a means to hit nails. Obviously that is the task at its most basic. But what does it mean? In the case of the hammer, it means we can build a doghouse, a bookshelf, or a house. Until we look past the task and functionality of a tool - to what the tool enables - we largely miss the beauty of why it's so useful.

Over the last several years, my most frustrating, repetitive experience, has been talking about blogs (wikis are even worse). Typically, people are stuck on what blogs do, not what they enable. Most common response: 'Oh, they're like an online diary'. Um, ok. But let's get past that. What do they enable learners to do? They enable learners to connect, to dialogue. 'Yeah, but who has the time - who would actually do that? Many of my learners aren't comfortable posting their thoughts online.' We are all communicators. We'll communicate when we feel a) we have something to say, b) when we have a tool with which to say it, and c) we have a person(s) with whom to dialogue. I've repeated this particularly conversation so often, I feel like Bill Murray in Ground Hog's Day...apparently I still haven't perfected the speech - I'm still going through the motions."