Learning: more than conversation

Mind Map from Informal Learning SessionToday I took part in a small portion of a larger online/F2F event originating in Germany from LearnTec.

It was fun to trade ideas with Heike Philips, Dave Cormier and Jay Cross (and I am sorry Jennifer Jones was unable to chime in due to timing/home rhythms at the early time of day). We all were strong proponents of the value of conversation in learning (informal or otherwise) but I found myself backing off a bit and reminding myself that conversation is one of the three legs of my learning stool.

  • Conversation – making meaning, getting different perspectives, trying out and testing ideas, challenging assumptions.
  • Individual reflection – (because group reflection is a subset of conversation, no?) Stepping back, reviewing, observing, evaluating our own learning both in terms of process and content. Reflection provides us needed self awareness and the ideas we bring back into conversation.
  • Reification – borrowing from Communities of Practice theory, what we create that expresses what we are learning or have learned. With internet tools makeing self publishing so easy, this area has blossomed – videos, images, blogs — things that manifest both our conversations and our reflections and put them out for wider consideration.
These three are a vortex, always intersecting with each other, even competing for our attention, eh? I wish I had paid more attention to reflection when I was younger. 😉
I have a habit of worshippping at the altar of conversation. But like all things, I must not let that blind me to other elements. It is in the interplay, the fluctuation between things, the margins, the tensions of what we know and don’t know, that learning happens.

Digital Habitats: stewarding technology for communities

Ward Cunningham interviews my co-author John Smith (along with Etienne Wenger and I) about our upcoming book  “Digital Habitats: stewarding technology for communities.”

One of the things that John says in this video is the importance both of a view of a community from the inside AND the outside. This is why I love it when communities sit within wider networks to make this possible.

As we work through the final layout, it is starting to actually feel real. YAY!

Interested in Informal Learning? Join us at LearnTec 2009

Tomorrow I’ll be the guest of Heike Philip (in Germany) along with Jay Cross and Ken Thompson for an online roundtable on virtual learning, informal learning and virtual teams. We’ll mix it up, I’m sure. It is part of a larger day of activities that are F2F and online in GERMAN in the morning, German time, and in English in the afternoon, German time (early morning for us on the US West coast). Join us!

DateFebruary 4, 2009
Time1:30pm – 6pm Middle European Time
Duration4,5 h
BusyPeople
World Timewww_timeanddate_com
PlaceElluminate
TagsLearnTec 2009 , Simulcast, European Telecoaches Institute
Max. no of participantsNo limit live online, entrance fee at the LearnTec conference 49 €
ProgramProgram in pdf-format in ENGLISH, GERMAN, SPANISH
Registrationhttp://www.lancelotschool.com/index.php/services/events/registration
RecordingThis event will be recorded

Meeting Point @ LearnTec 2009
4:30pm  Virtual Collaboration Moderation Heike Philp
Introduction with Lutz Berger, free journalist 2.0, Science&Faction
Virtual Round Table – Panel Discussion

4:30pm  (GMT +!)   Virtual Collaboration Moderation Heike Philp
Introduction with Lutz Berger, free journalist 2.0, Science&Faction
Virtual Round Table – Panel Discussion
Jay Cross, author of the book ‘Informal Learning’, Nancy White, consultant for communities of practise and Ken Thompson, virtual team expert and author of the ‘Bioteaming Manifesto’, meet live online to discuss strengths and opportunities as well as weaknesses and threats for virtual teams.
This is an unusual and an explosive mixture of experts and trendsetters who have been doing the ground work of connecting people. We are looking forward to hearing their views on the ‘next 5000 days’ of the Internet, an Internet that appa rently took 5000 days to reach the same amount of connections than our brain has todate. Heike Philp will be moderating the discussion and invites all present, namely all ‘virtual’ and all ‘local’ participants to testdrive virtual collaboration and to freely share ideas.

How are we building our “community soil?

Via Hyperlocavore, I watched this video on preparing an urban, raised-bed garden. It focuses on the building of raised beds, using rotating small animal waste, and hoop houses to get an early start on the gardening season. If you are interested in gardening, take a look at the video. If not, skip the video and hop below for the online community connection.

Last week, I pondered the agricultural metaphor for knowledge sharing. The idea of “gardener” as a community role is not new, nor is the ecosystem metaphor.

So what are the practices for communities that are akin to the late winter preparation for Spring gardening?

In the video, Gardening Girl talks about:

  • start with clean, well drained soil
  • use a modular design so you can easily take care of your garden
  • use all the creatures available – chickens and rabbit hutches rotated over dormant beds to do off season soil building (in other words, good s$%#)
  • take advantage of free stuff to build soil – leaves and grass clippings
  • cover unused beds
  • build  simple hoop houses to get an early start on the season (she even shows us how – it’s easy!)
  • raised beds take the back breaking work out of gardening, bringing the garden to you
  • intensive gardening saves water and increases yield

From an online community building perspective, this might translate to:

  • Clean soil – simple environment. Make sure the technology you use is aligned to the core needs of the community – what tasks do they need to do together. Other stuff can be added later, but if you start with a mess, you’ll end with a mess.
  • Modular – can tools, processes and content for or developed by the community be used easily in different ways? Can you repurpose something for another use if needs change or you need to expand or contract? Can you easily add and subtract activities and tools?
  • All the Creatures – who is already doing something similar? Are there early joiners who have something to add to the initial start up building and process? Use what is available! Be creative. Don’t let things go to waste!
  • Use the Free Stuff – Look around and see what free things can support (build the soil) your community.  Can you put up with some ads and use a free tool? Can you recycle existing resources (and save the earth a bit along the way). If you have a budget, where is it best spent? On tools, or the rare chance for a face to face? On technology, or chocolate? (well, I may be getting carried away.) Make recycled chic and focus your resources where they count – on people.
  • Cover Unused Beds – empty spaces create empty feelings. Is some part of the community technology configuration unused? Are there dead forums? Pull out the good content and recycle it elsewhere, and either archive of button up the empty spaces. But be careful about what you delete. See these threads on the ComPrac list about the dangers of assumptions about archives.
  • Hoop Houses for Early Starts – sometimes online communities need a smaller, protected space to germinate, build trust and get strong to withstand some of the buffets of the open world. This may mean finding an existing set of core members and gradually growing, or creating a little hot house to get things going.
  • Raise the Beds – like higher planting boxes that reduce stooping, bringing community as close to where people are now rather than making them go further out of their way to participate. Can you piggy back on their community rather than starting a new one? Are there some simple overlaps or complementarities that suggest some sort of cross community collaboration?
  • Intensive Gardening – good soil retains water and has greater yields. Good nurturing, leadership, stewardship and followership makes it easier for communities to focus on why they came together in the first place. This is not about control, but creating space and conditions for success. So a little extra work up front can go a long way. But like anything, don’t get carried away. Like a garden, a community has its seasons and it changes over time. Be as intensive as is right for the moment!

So is Spring approaching in your community? What are you doing to prepare?