Online Mediation and Culture

So much for those defining CMC in deterministic terms...

Read here

Computer-Mediated Communication

Just to be crystal clear, I need to say this. If I encounter somebody else telling me that "email is less than face-to-face and therefore it limits the ability of communicating" (or something to that extent), I yell.

Emails have less cues than face-to-face stuff. Emails have written words and some paralanguage to convey the message, for sure less than face-to-face. Does it mean face-to-face is a way of communicating that is less ambiguous?

NO.

I'm sorry for the mathematically-challenged persons, but more cues mean adding complexity to the mix, NOT lowering complexity. The higher the number of variables in an equation, the higher the number of solutions. DUH.

And I'm also sorry for the statistically-challenged persons. Supposing to factorize all the variables in the simplest possible way (true/false -- for sake of simplicity) and supposing the probability attached to those variables to be independent (like in the case of two persons not knowing each other and meeting -- aka the case of each person not knowing what a particular voicetone or smile means to the other person), the probability to accurately predict the meaning of a message with lower cues is actually higher than the probability to be able to predict the meaning of a message with higher cues.

For example:
1 cue: 50%
2 cues: 25%
3 cues: 12.5%
and so on.

Hence, the likelihood one has to correctly categorize/interpret the meaning of a message from an unknown person is actually higher through email than through face to face encounter.

The fact one usually thinks it would be the reverse is the same reason for people buy lottery tickets: overestimation of actual probability due to a cognitive bias.

In CoPs

Just today John D. Smith in his group wrote:

"Communities of practice are only observable by people who are IN a social web."

This statement has bounced in my mind for all the day long... What do we mean when we say "IN ..[something that has to do with CoPs]..."?

• if by "IN" we mean an observer has to be in closeness to members' proxemics (see Hall, 1966) in order to be able, capable and aware enough to observe a CoP in action, I would say "Yes, maybe so" (supposing the term "proxemics" to also include virtual ones, and VCoPs as well) and sometimes even "No" (supposing F2F contact with persons to be so full of clues that it might overwhelm/mislead you... or supposing a person in such F2F situation to have poor social skills);
• if by "IN" you mean an observer has to be a "part of", I would say "Not necessarily". In a VCoP, one has to be a member of it, belong to it, be subbed to it, in order to observe it. In a CoP, you can just be an observing.

Denying the role of the separate observer, means undermining the theoretical framework of Legitimate Peripheral Participation (and lurking, in VCoPs), experiential learning and action learning, that is, the very basis of CoPs.

1. LPP works because it is by observing the active engagement of core participants without taking a part in it you learn how to BE one of them (vs how to make one of them... sounds similar, or the same thing, but they are at least ontologically different).
2. Experiential learning works because tacit knowledge is passed by through observation of an experience and its reproduction (even when, or especially, when it's not codifiable! -- see Kolb, 1984).
3. Action learning works because after an action, reflection is necessary for learning to happen (Argyris, Putnam & McLain Smith, 1985)
   

By practising we are in action, but being in action per se does not account for learning. It's reflection after action that accounts for learning from experience (at least, in action/experiential/situated learning, which is the way one learns in CoPs).

Speculating about an experience, trying to find an explanation, a model, a reason is mandatory and far from being idealistic, detached or "not into" the experience. After such "modelization", in action/experiential/situated learning, comes the moment for experiments, which as I said some times before need definitions, methods, and ways to be reproducible. And, of course, next step is.. another experience!

This is all to say, learning is not all from being INSIDE things (ie: practitioners), or all of being OUTSIDE them (ie: academics), but rather a concerted cycle of experience-theory-experiment-learning progressions (or if you prefer, an inside/outside, in-touch/detached cycle).

In this way, from this perspective, system thinking is the way to go. It gives you direction, reminding you that wherever you are at, you have to tilt your perspective before merely hoping to find any grounded solution.

So, how I mean that "IN", is the way we say to one another: "You are IN(to) CoPs aren't you?", where "IN(to)" means "having knowledge of".

Online Communication, CoPs and MDGs

Every now and then, reading here and there, you find some neat piece of information, that prompts some nice reflection.

I have some of them today, so... I've been lucky! ;)

In her Computer Mediated Communication, Jennifer Geary, a PhD candidate, digress on the characteristics of such kind of communication:

"The nuances, processes and structures associated with computer-mediated communication need to be explored and developed so that its full potential can be realised. In this article my thesis was that computer-mediated communication is a form of text paced dialogue that enables challenges associated with time and space to be transcended to unite knowledge based professionals including adult, community and distance educators throughout our “world villages”.

I had been writing for a loooooooooong time on how the supposed "inferiority" of computer-mediated communication (CMC) becomes a big advantage in some situations, for example in self-help groups for anxiety disorders, like the imponent work of Katelyn McKenna.

The second kudo for you all is something on One World, an article on building CoPs in order to achieve the MDGs. And guess what? Using ICT!

The world of dinosaurs claiming CMC communication to be "less" or "just like" f2f one are fading off.

FINALLY!