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H: Attractors for Affordances

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on April 1, 2009 at 10:37:56 am
 

‘Connectivist’ (Digitally Enhanced Ecology) Hypotheses

 

 

This is a draft zero of an ecological analysis based on ‘attractors’ / ‘resonance’ / ‘dissonance’,

using some complexity theory and a musical /wave theory metaphor.  The references (CRP Ref) are to the numbered hypotheses in the Hypotheses page.

 

 

Comments:

1. Section 4: I haven’t got enough clarity in my own mind to do this section.  Maybe later!

 

2. For my own clarification, I needed to separate out what I think are generic blog affordances from affordances of blogs-in-RSS-networks.  Similarly, I needed to separate out generic online forum affordances from the particular ones in CCK08.  It is quite possible to merge the two blog matrices, and to merge the two forum matrices, and I will do so if that would help.

 

3. As I said elsewhere, this reflects the way I (try to) organise my thinking on the issues of hypotheses, it might not suit everyone else, in which case, regard this as an interesting but peripheral blog post that got lost here by mistake!

 

 

4. I must add that being part of this collaborative team  has (is? you're not leaving us are you? :-)) [no, wouldnt miss it for the world] really been more than worth the effort.  Thanks.  This looks like a good example of "the knowledge is in the quartet" and possibly "the knowledge is in the wiki", or not?

 

5.  The most interesting part of an 'ecological' or 'connectivist analysis is probably in the three right hand columns, but I havent done more than just start filling that in.  Any thoughts?   

 

Blogs per se are attractors and enablers for the following (affordances): (B)

Where I have added CCK08, it is because I think the affordance statement applies to the CCK08 course, which is what we are investigating and it seems they all apply, no?

 

 

 

 

 

CRP

Ref..

Affordance, competence (etc)

Resonates with …

Dissonant  with …

Creative tension with ?

B0.1

1d

Personal sense-making and self-expression CCK08

 

B0.2

 

 

F0, F7

B0.2

Id??

Creating and integrating attractive layout with ideas and presence CCK08

 

B0.1

 

 

 

 

B1

1a

Developing a personal voice CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

 

B2

1a

Developing personal connections, beyond the immediate task, group (in fact a dynamic micro-global network - would community be a better word for the CCK08 course?, but that might be ‘another story/) sure

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

B3

1b

Front porch for meeting visitors, with (implicit) front door control CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

F3

 

 

1b1

Bounded by protocols on ‘tone’  - (across many discourses) CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

B4

2e

Quiet, slow, reflection CCK08 

 

 

 

 

 

 

B5

1d

Own / published space / presence / pace CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

 

B6

1b, 1d

Protected space CCK08 

 

 

 

 

 

 

B7

1d

Building and protecting self-esteem CCK08

 

 

 

 

F8 ???

B8

2a, 2c, 3a

Building good  ideas individually / intensive personal learning CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

 

B9

3d

Drawing explicit connections between (fewer and) more distant concepts, that are initially weak and strengthen through time CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

F9

B10

 

 

Focused development of side branches in own space and time, which make (build?) explicit, well formed connections to seemingly distant topics. CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

F10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

Blogs in an RSS network  are attractors and enablers for the following (affordances) (Br):

.

 

 

CRP

Ref..

Affordance, competence (etc)

Resonates with …

Dissonant  with…

Creative tension with ?

 

 

 

 

All of the above, plus …

 

 

 

 

 

 

BR1

1a

Developing thoughtful long term relationships and networks CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BR2

 

 

Developing relationships with a blend of personal / ideas focus. CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BR3

 

 

Rapidly tracking multiple, parallel, blogs and bloggers. CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BR4

1c

Ties which are initially weak and strengthening CCK08

 

F5

 

 

 

 

BR5

 

 

 

Checking against Matthias' spreadsheet QuestionsToHypotheses.xls we may need to add some statements about deeper connections (although this might be implicit in the above); personal freedom (although this might be implicit in the above);  and personal control It would be good to make it explicit - any suggestions? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

               

 

 

 

Moderated Online Forums are attractors and enablers for the following (affordances) (F):

 

 

 

CRP

Ref..

Affordance, competence (etc)

Resonates with …

Dissonant  with …

Creative tension with ?

F0

?

Collaborative Peer learning CCK08 for the assignments - would it be more cooperative for the CCK08 forums? Yes!

 

 

 

 

B0

F1

1b

Close Immediate community CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

 

F2

1b

Variable paced asynchronous interaction My perception is that it was all fast in the the CCK08 course - but I wasn't a moodler  You are right, it was pretty fast.  In my own mind I needed to separate out the generic online course affordances (if there is such a thing as a typical online course??) from the exception that was CCK08 - mainly because I wanted to systematically try to identify just where there were differences, if indeed there were.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

F3

1b

Marketplace to bump into people / ideas with front door control CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

B3

F4

1b1

Bounded by protocols on ‘tone’  - (emphasis on academic) I don't think there were protocols on 'tone' in the CCK08 forum. They weren't apparent to me, although the tone was often academic. See MSOF3 Ditto F2 above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

F5

1c

Ties which are group-like, uniformly medium-strong CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

BR4

F6

1d

Close immediate community (see F0) CCK08 Does this need to be separate from F1 or is this an error Delete!

 

 

 

 

 

 

F7

1d, 3a

Fast, Provisional, exploratory expression and knowledge drafting CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

B0.1

F8

1d, 2a, 2c

Building good  ideas collaboratively / intensive collaborative learning CCK08 - as above I'm not sure that collaborative is the correct word I would go with your term, cooperative.

 

 

 

 

 

B8, B7 ???

F9

3d

Conceptual connections which are more implicitly present, closer in time and space and more numerous CCK08

 

B9??

 

 

B9

F10

3f

Big picture discussions with digressions, disparate topics.  CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

B10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MassiveOpen (i.e. "self-organising") Forums are attractors and enablers for the following (affordances) (MSOF):

 

 

 

CRP

Ref..

Affordance, competence (etc)

Resonates with …

Dissonant with …

Creative tension with ?

 

 

 

 

All of the above, plus …

 

 

 

 

 

 

MSOF0.1

 

 

Sparring alpha-fe/male contestation CCK08 

 

 

F5

 

 

MSOF 0.2

1b

Free-for-all Marketplace without a regulator. CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

 

MSOF 1

1b

Fast paced asynchronous interaction CCK08

 

 

 

 

B4

MSOF2

1b

Developing relationships biased towards ideas. CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

BR2

MSOF3

1b1

No restrictions on ‘tone’ (supposedly self-correcting!) CCK08

 

 

 

 

 

 

MSOF4

 

 

 

Other statements which we may want to include - because they appear in Matthiass' spreadsheet QuestionsToHypotheses.xls are

- greater number of readers/responses (although you may think this implicit in what is above); the ability to track back through discussion more easily; the lack of links. I agree - greater number of prompt responses, ability to track back through discussions, and scan across one person's discussion postings - these should be included in the generic forums section. 

 

Lack of links - I was surprised at the lack of links in the forums.  Question: how would this be an affordance?  "Direct interaction without the distraction of links?" perhaps, or did you have something else in mind? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

.

Jenny, a rather lengthy response to your question, which is why I have posted it here, rather than in the discussion.

 

Jenny ... what you do in forums, for example, (you dont have to use the term affordance) sometimes reinforces and optimises what you do in other media - like blogs, email, etc.  So in connectivist terms, different paths and connections in the use of blogs may reinforce other paths, in the use of forums, or email, or clash with them.  

On the other hand, the tension between a particular affordance in one medium and different affordance in another (see BR2 and MSOF2)  might be neither a relationship of 'reinforcement' nor a 'clash', but rather a creative tension.  

For example, I tend to cross link, and even cross post between blogs, wikis, forums and emails, although generally speaking with a light edit or two as I transcribe from one to the other.  And although the content of the post is very much the same, I am 'doing' something different in each case - in the forum I might be looking for a rapid response mainly to the ideas, in the blog I might just be weaving my own thought (and the quoted thoughts! MM30.3.09) together within a coherent, but narrative, train of thought, etc. I think the same happens with bloggers, who quite often post links to blogs in a forum, or copy parts of a blog to a forum, or (more rarely) reference and perhaps quote a forum post in a blog.

  • "More rarely" linking from blogs to moodle: This supports the hypothesis that forum is still the more common one that yields more readers. Thus, this copying & linking is no sign for a transmodal culture, even thogh I like you term transmodal. (MM30.3.09)

I might be the exception, but I think not.  The core hypotheses, (however we express them, and I am happy to go along with the more other formulation of hypotheses) must, for this research, be focused on blogs and moodlers.  But the question of whether there are only two type of people that are relevant to this research (bloggers and moodlers), or whether there are also other important groups of people, who cross the borderlines, and exhibit blog-ish and moodle-ish behaviour simultaneously is a question that we need to investigate empirically, even if it is not the core issue in the research, as it affects the framework within which we set up our hypotheses.   

  • I fully agree, the questions needs to be investigated. But given the small overall base population for this experiment, and given the expectable sample size, the transmodal cases seem very hard to grab with statisticically significant evidence. Therefore I think it should be covered in the "suggestions for future research" section of the paper. (MM30.9.09)

And if we are going to collect some data on our trans-modal colleagues, we must think through some hypotheses about what we think they may be doing, and then test those ideas.  So I started to think about how this could be done, and thought well, first of all, some things are quite simple - the slow, reflective development of a narrative of ideas (in a blog) could link very positively ('resonate, or reinforce) the tentative development of thoughts in progress (in forums).  And equally simply, the cooperative exchange of ideas in blogs cannot in any way be compatible with testosterone overload behaviour in a forum.

But that leaves out the most interesting part, which is where affordances can be realised in blogs and forums, in slightly different ways, or affordances can be realised quite differently in blogs and forums, but in a creative tension.  It also lead to the question that a hypothetical Stephen, George and Katherine might all answer in different ways, namely: Did Katherine's posting provide a useful, creative tension between her ideas and other people's ideas, and between her style and other people's styles?   

 

Many thanks Roy for this helpful explanation. Do you think then that we need to add some questions which will capture the thoughts/behaviour of those who 'cross the borderlines' or will our Likert scale enable us to capture this? 

 

@John: Change (your 1.) is too much for this stage. If we start discussing this again Jenny could speak of "going round in circles :-). " as in her To do list 2. And success factors (your 2.) is IMHO also much beyond the scope of the mere preference for, and feeling comfortable with, one of the tools.

So I would plead for leaving all these (however interesting) dynamical and transmodal dimensions for a later stage.    

 

Sure, we can leave the transmodal issues for later.   I am distinguishing, in my own mind, perhaps, between the questions that we need to ask, within the limits of what is feasible to ask people to respond to, on the one hand, and on the other hand the hypotheses which are the issues that I would like to be able to test, even if implictly in some cases, by examining the empirical responses we get from the participants.  The hypotheses can be more extensive and more complex than the questionnaire, by definition, no?

 

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