At the end of each week in our Connected Futures workshop, we are invited to write a post or otherwise communicate some reflection as to how the exercise went. I have been leaving most of my comments within the workshop area (a customized WebCrossing space), so I decided to have this week’s posting on my own blog. I do not have any evidence that anybody in the workshop is reading or otherwise reviewing my blog, nor am I convinced that there is an ongoing web search on using our tag of CP2tech01. That is ok, as the purpose of this post (for me) is to organize and express my thoughts.
I thought this week’s section on using various technologies was probably one of the most overwhelming ones of the workshop. It was almost as if there were a lot of people interested in a lot of tools, but somehow it was not held together as well as it could be. Some looked at Skype, others at Netvibes (myself included), del.icio.us, and Facebook. The objective seemed to be to learn from one another’s best practices, and I was so busy trying to learn new things that I am not sure what to do with them all. I felt people started off in different areas with tools they like, though there really was not enough time in a week to learn anything brand new if there were no previous use of them. I was lost as to how to sign up for working with others on these tools, and while I had a useful Netvibes session, I think the perceived goals of this week were impossible in only one week.
Were we supposed to become our own community? Consider them for our communities? Help one another? I think perhaps a combination of all of them, and every time I thought I got it and went back to the internal wiki, I saw additional documents and instructions. I started to feel that the thinking of how this was all held together was developing in process, and while that can be very good, there was so much to try to learn in such a short point, that I am not sure where we are right now.
While this feeling of confusion has happened before during the workshop (learning can be a messy business!), I am still confident that the workshop leaders have all this together. Of course, with different leaders coming and going with greater or lesser involvement, I am not too sure about this right now. Let’s see what week four brings . . .
I am sure you are right that there was too much for 1 week. It is really hard to pre-judged the amount of time any activity will take. John , I and others discussed this quite a lot and decided that we would offer different levels of activities depending on how much time people had. Maybe this could be better explained than we did on the call.
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I’m watching the feeds from cp2tech01 but I picked this post up from your twitter feed.
Shirley
Shirley, thank you for the response. I can only imagine what a challenge this must be, especially for the first time around. I find it challenging to learn and use new technologies in a short time, though I still try anyway. I wish we could have taken two weeks for it, or perhaps integrate some of them each week, so it is not so overwhelming at once?
… little trails everywhere… and somehow, some way, we pick them up and connect them.
It is in the experience of lostness that we sometimes find foundness.
Sly grin…
Nancy
I think what a community model offers ends up being different from what a planned instructional design model offers, Jeffrey. Ongoing contact with a community gives us a stream of bits that add up to a coherent practice. My goal was not mastery of any given tool but for us to share glimpses of the learning processes — so that we can support such processes in the future. Is that too esoteric? I think it’s a very practical strategy but I may be way out of the mainstream on that.
Nancy, as always you have a knack for saying just the right words of wisdom to capture a moment. Thank you for visiting!
John, your goal makes sense when seen in that light. However, that was neither my goal nor was I keenly aware of that goal at all. This speaks partly to my own interest in communicating and discussing goals and objectives as well as a learning that what seems so straight-forward to one may be completely foreign to another.
Perhaps that is what this very assignment was to encourage us to learn (especially before disengagement)?
Jeffrey:
I appreciate your willingness to share your sense of disorientation. I also wonder how to structure the initial exercises or activities to minimize this disorientation. Some disorientation is inevitable but some might be avoided. I won’t go into detail here (since I tend to go on and on) but I would be interested to work out one or two possible activities with you that might minimize the initial disorientation.
Hm, good surfacing about motivation and goals. And wild hairdo, Jeffrey! (giggling)
On an unrelated note, the comments in your blog format are very elegant with the names at the top and the curlicue around the comment number. Coolio.
(and yes, it is the end of the day and I’m goofy.)
Jeffrey, I’m here to provide more evidence that we’re visiting and reading 🙂 I also notice you have a mybloglog widget but you probably don’t see us folks who are glued to our own readers. And hey, because of that I hadn’t realized how beautiful your blog is!
Hi Jeffery,
Thank you for sharing your reflections. Were we supposed to become our own community? I have wondered about this too. I think that a genuine community takes time to develop. Also, it’s difficult to implement the expert-novice component of community when many of us are so disoriented and overwhelmed! I’m hoping that after the dust has settled a bit (after the workshop), things will become clearer and we will have developed enough of a community or at least a network of people that can continue to help us on this wild journey.
Hope
sorry about the typo in your name!
Jeffrey, I’m reading you here there and everywhere! This time I came in via the links Nancy put together in WebCrossing.
Hi Jeffrey, This really is a beautiful and very functional blog and i appreciate the work that I know you put into making it so. Your post caused me pause to remember my first CP2 Workshop. I kept waiting for the syllabus, the instructions, a manual or something and I remember feeling a bit frustrated and lost. I worked at a University and had to always produce such things felt very strange to take a different approach – yet I have found it very valuable. Hard to describe in words but very valuable.