Is blogging changing?

This was going to be a different post. I was going to look at the blogs that I follow and the different ways that I follow them. However, as I began to review (and purge the links as I usually do on an annual basis) the blogs I read, I realized that blogging has really changed this year.

In fact, I still have a core group of blogs that I read on a regular basis. But their style, patterns of posting, and even the way they link to other posts, blogs, and readers has (for the most part) changed drastically.

I see blog posts now following one of three trends:

• Blogs are more informative, reflective, and formal. Michael Hanley's posts have always fit this format. But I noticed this year that Tony Karrer's eLearning Technology become less spontanious and pondering. As a result, blogs appear to be more of a learning tool or marketing tool for an organization. It also seems to be replacing more traditional publishing venues to get research or articles out in a more timely manner. Taking a page from Andy Coverdale and Gina Minks, I have begun to blog my own dissertation research process and results.
  
• I am feeling that I am coming into the middle of a conversation (or the end of a conversation) that was started somewhere else (such as twitter or facebook). It appears that blogging is the reflective or summary of those conversations. Karyn Romeis still has a very conversational style, but she will refer to other conversations she has had on facebook. Harold Jarche will refer to others at aggregated blog sites where he is collaborating with colleagues. As a result, I don't feel that there is as much "conversation" on blogs as there used to be. In addition, I have noticed that Michael, Harold, Karyn, and Tony all have easy access to Twitter on their sites. Ken Allan has moved into a different rhelm this year: 2nd life. His posts often include graphics taken from 2nd Life. In fact, some blogs that I have been reading for the last couple of years either took hyatises or have not had posts in months.
• One thing I have noticed is a decrease in the number of comments. I'm not sure if this is because the conversation has moved to other venues or if the authors are not responding as much. It seems, though, that blogging is still being used to start conversation, but not necessarily on the blogs. There are other technologies being used for the "community". I am always surprised that there are not more comments on Nancy White's Full Circle Associates' blog or Jon Husband's Wirearchy. After all, these blogs are about community and network building!

So what do you think blogging will end up looking like in the next year? Are bloggers that don't tweet at a disadvantage? Is blogging even passe at this point?

By the way, since I listed most of the other blogs that I read on a regular basis, I think I should include the others that are on my igoogle or reader:

Visual's speak: Chrisine Martell writes a nice "creativity" blog
Lucacept: Jenny Luca is a librarian in an Austrian school
Growing Changing Learning Creating: Tom Haskins' blog reminds me of mine...it's all over the place but always thought provoking.
Digital Perspectives: I just love Kathreen's photo blog. But she's been a bit quiet at the end of this year! I hope she starts up again because her photos always make me feel good.

Should feedback be anonymous?

Imagine this evaluation for a student:

John is one of the laziest students I have ever had. He sat in the back of the class and slept through most of my presentations. When I called on him, he simply answered, "I don't know." Not only is he lazy, but he's stupid.

Compare this to one of the comments I received on my teacher evaluation.

The instructor did not know anything about the topic. When I asked her a question in class, she wasn't able to answer it so I could understand it.

In both cases, the feedback is not really useful. In the first case, an instructor would be slammed if they wrote this type of comment on a student report card, if they were even asked for feedback on the student (it does not happen at the university level). In both cases, it would be important to have more information on both the writer and the person being evaluated. What is their relationship? How long have they known each other? How well was the student doing in the class? This would at least give some context.

More importantly, however, is that the person receiving the feedback would be able to critique the feedback and determine if it was justified or not.

Who is responsible for learning?

As you can probably tell, I received student feedback for my fall courses this semester. In addition to this feedback, which I like to evaluate and help direct me in preparing for my current courses, I also received direction at the one school on what our syllabus should include. These included such items as:

• school vision and learning goals,
• university vision and learning goals
• attendance policies
• policies for making up tests
• policies for late assignments
• accommodations for students with disabilities
• teaching methods
• classroom atmosphere
• work load expectations
• academic integrity
• grading policies
• Cell phone use

And this is only a partial list! I started to think, who's responsibility is it to learn? Shouldn't the student be accountable for knowing school wide policies and shouldn't the administration make sure students know things such as school mission, accommodations for students with disabilities, academic integrity, and workload expectations? My syllabus is currently 9 pages long. Last semester, when a student complained that something I asked them to do was not in the syllabus, I went straight to it and showed them the assignment. However, could I really fault her for not seeing it on pg. 5 of an 8 page syllabus?

There are two reasons for this level of detail in a syllabus:

1. As opposed to when I started teaching in college (and was one of the few to have a syllabus of more than 1 page, some teachers not even having a syllabus), the syllabus IS a contract (isn't even considered LIKE a contract) which can be used in a court of law.
2. New federal laws and guidelines passed in 2008 (NCLB for higher ed) requires that students be given this information. Rather than the administration spending time and money doing this in orientations (many times not required or students may be unable to attend), they incorporate it into the classroom. While this ensures a student will be informed of their rights, it also puts legal responsibility on the instructor, and gives the instructor even more administrative work to do (so why aren't instructors paid twice the salaries of top administrators?).

Student learning outcomes

This can have very disturbing outcomes for how we are preparing students for the workplace and student work ethics. As students are given detailed instructions on how to learn, and expect only to be assessed on those "standards", they will not stretch beyond what is given them. Why should they?

Likewise, assessing the "softer" skills will be more difficult and could result in a law suit. This means that all creativity will be knocked out of the students. Expect to see creativity in the workplace from those WITHOUT education. The entrepreneurs of tomorrow will probably be the drop-outs of today because the educational system has not supported the expansion of ideas.

Interestingly enough, I see our society becoming more like those of eastern Europe during communist rule. While working in Hungary, I found that the most successful workers were those that were used to doing what they were told to do, always deferring to the person above them (as they would get the blame). The entrepreneurs in Hungary were those that had been unsuccessful in school and the civil service.

Anonymity in evaluations

This brings me back to the question in my title. In the former system, universities implemented student questionnaires to get a feeling for how students perceived their learning. As most courses were not standardized, one measure for effectiveness was student satisfaction. However, if a student did not feel that evaluation was "objective" and their grade might be affected by giving frank feedback, most schools made these evaluations anonymous. Of course, back when these were first implemented, students were not used to giving teachers feedback. Instructors were still perceived as "gods" and students were reluctant to give critical feedback.

Additionally, most of the evaluations were hand written (as were assignments). A good teacher could still determine who wrote what, if they were engaged with their students. I often was able to contextualize the comments based on who the student was who wrote it. Because I received the comments long after grades were due, even if I was unprofessional enough, I couldn't change the student's grade. I received some valuable feedback through these evaluations, especially if I was able to figure out who the student was. In some cases, I was also able to disregard the comments, knowing that a certain student would never like my teaching style.

Now we come to the age of computerized evaluations. First, this means that students self-select if they will fill out the questionnaire. When it was given in the class (the teacher leaving the classroom, but college staff administering the evaluation), more students were apt to participate, even if they were indifferent. With the evaluations being online, the indifferent student will be less likely to take the time out to fill it out. Second, there is no context anymore with the evaluations. I am given a summary of the results and a summary of the comments. So did the student hate everything about my class or just the fact that they had to take the class (they would have hated it regardless of the teacher--typical for public speaking classes). These disembodied comments make it difficult for me to determine what I could have done better. Finally, these evaluations are now used to justify the hiring or retention of faculty member, the "effectiveness" of a college, and even strategic planning.

However, my students have never felt intimidated to express their displeasure in my class. I often hear complaints about how my assignments are "subjective" (I think the word they are really looking for is complex), they have too much work to do (even though I have had to outline my work expectations at the beginning of the course, and this does not change), and how other classmates aren't as smart, hardworking, etc... So why should they worry about putting their name to a course evaluation? Especially if the instructor will not see the evaluation until after final grades have been given?

So back to my opening comment. What would happen if students were not given individual grades for each course, but were asked to evaluate (anonymously) each student on skills such as critical thinking, class preparedness, content mastery, communication skills, ability to express themselves in text, technology, etc... Each semester, these evaluations would be aggregated for a grade, and comments would be summarized. At the end of four years, these evaluations would be sent to the school to review and decide if the student qualified for a degree. In addition, these aggregated scores would be sent to all potential employers. What kind of uproar do you believe would result? Wouldn't students want to know who graded them how and why? Why is this different for instructors?

Some predictions for the new decade

Last year, I commented on a number of blogs that I thought the future of elearning would be in mobile technology. In fact, Michael Hanley had a good post evaluating some of the new mobile elearning apps last year.

So, taking my crystal ball, what do I see the trends being in elearning, technology, and higher ed/training in general? These are based on my observations in the classroom, my own children's technology habits and what is happening in their classrooms, and my own research.

1. Mobile technology (including ebooks, smart phones, and smartbooks) will continue to grown and make learning mobile. In the US, if the transportation plans come to fruition, commuters will spend commuting time learning. This might already be happening in other parts of the world.
2. If wifi and 3g technologies are expanded enough, learners will be able to access learning tools anywhere. As a result, learning will take place outside of traditional classrooms, with less face to face time in the classroom and more individualized learning plans. However, the classroom will continue to be the location for assessment. This means there will be a shift for educators from being the source of learning to being the assessor of learning. Universities will still be the source of research (at least in the US) but the location of the research will expand as there is more incentive to work with businesses in developing research that is economically viable.
   
3. In the US (and I think other countries as well), there will be a push for universal standards at the University level to be maintained through technology based assessment tools. The current K-12 standards based education has developed a student that requires structure for learning and assessment. (Disclaimer: I don't think this will be good for education, but I feel the pressure in my own teaching these days).
4. There will be a shift from learning about various tools to learning how to use different classifications of tools to acheive results. There will also be demand to find new apps and tools through a central location. An apps search engine will probably come into popularity at some point in the next few years. For example, need to find a note taking software that can be used on a Mac for academic purposes? Go to the Apps search engine and input the parameters.
5. Video will become more important, especially subtitled video. Why subtitled? Because users can access the images and read the information without others in a room knowing they are accessing the internet/video. This currently happens with texting. Being able to have an instant subtitled video or attaching comments to the video means that the image can be shared privately in public spaces.
6. Learning, business, customer service, and societal values will be customized. Businesses and educators will need to offer options that allow choice by users. (See my earlier post).

So what are your predictions for the New Decade? Write a post and link it to this post or put the location in the comment section. I can't wait to see what others have come up with. To get it started, I'm going to tag 5 people, who I hope will tag 5 others.

Ken Allen (He already made his predictions and inspired this post)
Michael Hanley
Paul Cornies
Anita Hamilton
Sahana
Andy Cloverdale

Public vs. private learning

I currently am setting up my courses (three different ones) for next semester. As I do so, I need to determine the best tools for my students. One issue that has come up repeatedly each semester is how to maintain privacy laws (Family Education Privacy Act), but allow access to learning in a public manner.

FERPA laws require that I have tools that students are either guaranteed anonymity when they use the tool (school based secure tools) or are given the choice of how much information they reveal about themselves, including the option of not participating in a "public" forum. This leads to a number of restrictions when deciding on which tools to use and how to use them.

Last semester I used Ning. In many ways, this is a great tool for public discussions. Even the private emails and the use of the approval function for video uploads allowed for a certain amount of privacy. However, I still did not trust Ning's privacy controls enough to upload grades or receive individual assignments. As a result, this semester I decided to use Blackboard's grading and assignment features. In designing the new course, however, I remembered why I don't like Blackboard. The assignment and grade features are very time consuming and cumbersome to set up. As I've mentioned before, I miss the ease of Prometheus, which was bought by WebCT, but whose features seemed to be discarded.

I have yet to find an easy syllabus program that fit the ease of Prometheus's. I could set up a course in a day, using the Prometheus template. I know it will take about 2-3 days per course to set up the courses on Blackboard. In addition, I want to still use the Ning and a Wiki for the interschool projects I am designing for two of the three courses I'm teaching.

All of these have made be wonder about the importance of having both public and private learning spaces. I use Private learning spaces to help motivate my students to take chances, fail, and learn from their mistakes. I use public learning spaces to help students feel a sense of responsibility for their own and others learning, help create synergy in learning, and create a sense of community in learning (rather than learning being something that is done in isolation).

So what are the differences in private and public learning spaces? How can we work with administrators to create both? How do we balance security issues with sharing of knowledge and community building?

What are you doing for the Holidays?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Prettige Kirstdaggen en Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar
Felices Navidades y Prospero año
Joyeux Noel et Bonne Année
God Jul og godt nytt år


Last year, I asked the readers at New Year's to tell me how they were celebrating the New Year. This year I decided to start earlier. I love hearing what others are doing at any point in time, but especially at Christmastime. Even as a kid, I couldn't get enough of what others were doing in other parts of the country and world.

For us, the "holidays" begin on Thanksgiving and end with the New Year (mostly the month of December). I also live in an area with a large Jewish population, so Hanukkah also plays into our region's festivities (thus, happy holidays is used more than merry christmas at this time of year).

This year, we had family visiting from Georgia (yes, they got stuck in the blizzard in Virginia on their way up), for Christmas Eve. It was fun to have little children in the house again! Then we went to 4:30 mass, where the children's choir sang. Next, we went to my sister in law's house for the traditional Italian Christmas eve dinner of pasta and Shrimp sauce (my husband's maternal grandparents were from Italy and this is one of the only family traditions that survived).

The next morning, we got up, opened our Christmas presents, called my relatives in Illinois and Florida, and had a formal breakfast (the tradition from my family). Then my husband's sister, aunt, and cousin came over for the day. This year, with one of his aunts in a nursing home and his mother home rehabiliting from broken hips, we went to his parents house to bring them dinner/open gifts, then to the nursing home to give gifts to his aunt. It made me appreciate having a healthy family and an extended family, as many in the nursing home were alone, commenting on how lucky my husband's aunt was to have such a large family. His aunt is a retired nun, with over 50 nieces, nephews, and grandnieces/nephews.

For the rest of the week, we will have dinner at our house with my family (sister and brother, nieces and nephews) and at my brother's house. My family will go to a movie matinee, as we do every year, during the week. My kids have plans with their friends from their old school and their current school to go to basketball games (many of their former classmates play on various local teams), bowling, and to parties at their friends houses. We will also probably go to the local bookstore so my kids can redeem their gift cards and choose books for their winter reading. We will also watch the various DVD's they received for Christmas, during the evenings (as NOTHING is usually on TV at night during the Christmas/New Year's week).

New Year's plans for this year are up in the air (as they normally are). Usually, our kids invite a guest over for dinner New Year's Eve. However, as they are now getting older, they don't want to do so anymore. New Year's is not a big deal for us, and we usually just spend the day taking our tree down, winding down the holiday season. My kids always find it somewhat sad once New Year's comes. New Years also tends to be very cold. This year the evenings (after tomorrow) are expected to be around 7-8 degrees F (-15 C) and the highs in the low 20's (-5 to -6 C). This is also depressing as it means the true beginning to hunkering down for the long winter.

So what do you do during the holidays? Which days are important to you? Do you even celebrate Christmas or is this just another day? What is the weather like? What are you doing during the days? What do you do in the evenings? What salutations (e.g. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year) do you use (both your own language and in English)?

Toys, games, and education

I was watching a new report yesterday where they were mentioning that children all around the world would be receiving toys thanks to the generosity of donated gifts. My first thought was, "Isn't it more important that they be fed and have access to healthcare (including immunizations and medicines that will keep them alive)?" My next thought was that toys really weren't necessary, and how did we get to the point where a new toy was so important.

As usual, my brain made links that for others might be a stretch. I was reading about a new school in New York City called Quest to Learn. In the article I read, they spoke about this school being a "games-based" curriculum. Well, after researching it a bit more, I realized there was more to the curriculum than games (in fact, it is very similar to my daughter's school). However, the connection I made was the role that "play", "toys", and "games" has in our society.

It used to be that toys and games were used to help develop skills in children. When the US was basically an agrarian economy and before universal education, kids learned to read using the bible or other books a family might have (which often was limited). They would learn skills such as eye hand coordination using toys. Toys also tended to be gender specific which helped teach a child's role in society (i.e. toy soldiers for those who would grow up to "lead" and fight in wars, dolls to help develop child rearing skills).

However, as toys and games, just like everything else in the industrialized world, began to be mass produced, the role of the toy changed from a "learning tool" (after all, children began to attend schools at the same time that the economy became industrialized) to objects of leisure. Leisure time was a result of the industrial revolution, but also helped to fuel the revolution. The age of consumerism was born. The more "things" you have, the higher your status in the consumer economy. As a result, toys also became a symbol of status.

Now, how does this relate to the game based curriculum? For thousands of years, games and toys were learning tools. So why shouldn't there be an element of games in a curriculum? Games and toys help develop critical thinking skills, strategy, creativity, and problem solving skills. If integrated into a curriculum correctly, it also can be a catalyst for learning motivation, team building, and self direction/discipline.

The fear I have is not the Q2L curriculum being one that is too "fun" or not providing enough content, but rather the misuse of this curriculum by teachers and schools who do not understand the underlying principles used to create the curriculum. Namely, I have seen some teachers who use gaming as a "down-time" activity in which teachers can have a break during the day. This is not good education. In fact, I suspect the teachers at Q2L put in a lot more time preparing and facilitating learning than the average teacher.

I am also concerned that students are not learning how to be bored (work is not always exciting and it is important to learn what to do during those down times), nor are learning how to interact with each other to resolve problems (rather than interacting with the technology). This is the only misgiving I see with this new school. My daughter's school does everything in groups, but it is off set with individual assessments. Likewise, while the curriculum is project based, the class does have more traditional learning/lectures when it is necessary for students to interact with the teacher and content. These are not the teacher lecturing the students, as much as group discussion where the teacher follows the lead of the students in answering questions or giving guidance in how to approach a problem.

So perhaps the "toys" and "games" going around the world, if perceived as a way to educate children in a more non-traditional way, will be more than a symbol of status and consumerism. Of course, I still think that alleviating poverty should be our first goal and children can't eat games.

Emerging themes for collaborative writing in groups

I have completed the initial code development for my dissertation. As mentioned previously, using Charmez's (2006) process, I developed codes using action words. The next step is to take those codes and develop emerging themes (or relational statements as Charmez calls them).

I had 53 codes which were then reformulated into themes to answer each question. I have completed two questions so far. The following are the emerging areas that I will be reviewing my data for.

1. How do individuals define knowledge?

Knowledge and expertise is defined by profession/professional standards

Knowledge is possessed and can be identified

Knowledge is defined by the group/department expectations and formats

Knowledge is defined by the formats and processes developed within the work power structure.

Knowledge is created through negotiation of meanings

Expertise is used as currency: withholding, contributing, and prioritizing expertise and who to please.

Knowledge and expertise can’t be defined

2a. What process or processes does a distributed group in the workplace use to create shared meaning and understanding during collaborative writing projects?
The group prioritizes work and expertise at the individual, group, departmental, and organizational level.

The group aligns goals and project vision with resources and organizational expectations.

The group develops common work and communication protocols and shared mental models.

Relationships within and outside of the group are used to compete work tasks.

The group establishes hierarchy within and outside of group.

The group defines and redefines meaning and understanding within the group.

The group identifies threats and barriers to work processes

Assessment and preparing for the 21st century

As I am trying to get finish up my grading, issues of assessment and evaluation keep coming up.

Some of the questions/problems/issues I am dealing with include:

Should we be using rubrics? Don't they limit creativity and motivation? My students will only do what is on the rubric. I am restricted to grading them only on the rubric. So some students who just do a mediocre non-creative job may get the same grade (or higher because I used the rubric) than those that used more creativity, not really doing what I outlined as expected, but addressing the problem in a whole new way.

If this is what we are training our future workers to do, we will have the "best" workers (those with the highest grade) doing only what their managers told them to do, thus stifling the possibilities and creativity of our workers.

Should we be telling our students our expectations for every assignment, giving them detailed instructions? How many times have you received detailed instructions on the job? Shouldn't we be creating the skill to negotiate "outcomes" with our superiors? Situations change, factors we can't control require us to change outcomes, and there might be a disconnect between strategists and front line workers. Companies would benefit if workers and managers began to communicate about outcomes be and open to the changing environment.

If graduates only expect to do the work that a manager has outlined for them, an organization loses incentive, ideas, and reality checks from both those at the top and those on the front line.

Should all grading be "fair"? How is "fair" defined and aren't there instances when a standardized means of evaluation is in fact "unfair"? I have students that excel in class. They are engaged, apply concepts or take ideas to new levels. But they don't "evaluate" well. Neither papers nor tests get at their level of understanding that I see in class. They do the work, but it does not translate into their grades. Is this fair? They will be great employees on day. In addition to their academic work, they are good team players, contribute to the class, have a good work ethic, act responsibly in class, and add to an overall good environment. Others that test well are over critical, stifle others ideas, create a negative environment, and really don't do much work, but are good writers and/or good test takers. I'd rather have the ones that don't grade well than those that do grade well. So how fair am I in my assessment?

So, a word of warning to all those in the training and HR departments: make sure you are using other measures to identify the ideal employees. GPA's don't really reflect a student's potential. A word of warning to educators: we need to re-evaluate how we assess in the current climate of "standardization." We may be doing our society a dis-service.

The future of the training department

Although it's a bit late, and I have my grades to finish (or because I have my grades to finish), I did want to post something as part of the ecollab's blog carnival. ECollab is a bilingual multi-author blog on enterprise collaboration.

This month's carnival was about the future of the training department. As an educator of the future users of the training department, I thought I would give my insight into some of the challenges and expectations of future workers about training and education.

1) Instant feedback: my students don't want to wait to hear how they have done. If they write a report, they expect feedback immediately, perhaps even as they are writing it. As a result, any training they receive will need to be interactive (either electronically or face to face). It will not be enough for them to post something, for example, without any feedback with an hour or two. They do have more patience if you can give them a specific date. But even then, they will put it out of their mind until that date.

2) Choices in learning: Unlike students when I started teaching almost 20 years ago, students want a choice in what they learn, how they learn it, when they learn it, and who they learn it from. This means that training departments will need to offer both formal and informal choices in a variety of mediums (online, face to face, mentoring, tutors, simulations).

3) Just in time learning: If students don't feel it is important for them to know something (at this point, for a test or a grade), they won't bother to learn it. As a result, students are used to picking and choosing what they learn based on direction from authorities and whether or not they perceive what they learn as being useful. Translated in to work related learning, employees won't go through the training if they think it is not useful to their current work unless they have some incentive (promotion, location of training, paid training). Related to this is the idea that anything they will need to know in the future, they will be able to learn quickly, so why bother learning it until it is needed. Any training will need to be situated in a person's job.

4) Situated learning: My husband just had some standard computer training which he found irrelevant until the last class in which they were able to learn the software based on the problems the trainees were experiencing themselves. While there is societal and organizational push to standardize training, most employees won't undergo training unless it is situational. I see this a trend within organizations so that organizations will require more "targeted" training that allows for the training to be pinpointed for a specific employee. This means training departments will need to do a lot more assessment and develop a different model of training that is not standard across an organization.

5) Assessment tools: My students want tests. Why? Because they have a standard way of assessing how they have learned which they can then take with them to the workplace. More and more I am getting students who demand a detailed rubric on how they will be evaluated and assessed. In the workplace, especially as workers have greater access to informal learning, they are going to want the training department to assess their learning, rather than plan their learning. This means the focus of the training department will move from providing resources to assessing skills and knowledge, but in a way that workers accept. Coming from a background of standardized assessments, this next generation will expect the same type of testing to demonstrate their knowledge and skills. The training department will look more and more like the civil service or professional organizations (i.e. legal bar, CPA, NACATE).

Dissertation: Group defining knowledge verbally

In looking at how the participants defined four terms, knowledge, know-how, content, and design, there was an insight into their similarities and differences in their perceptions of knowledge and the knowledge creating process.

Knowledge

They defined the term “knowledge” differently. There appeared to be three different groups: those that defined knowledge as something measurable or tangible (“information”, “content”, “things that you know”), those that had difficulty defining knowledge, and those that defined knowledge as something more intangible (“with knowledge, I know how to behave in any particular situation”, “shared meaning”). Surprisingly, those that identified knowledge as something tangible felt that they were within the organization and group’s powerstructure. They also were part of the traditional training group, which had a greater influence on the project according to the second round of interviews, 3 months later.

On the other hand, those that defined knowledge as something more intangible, were the most disgruntled with the project 3 months later. In fact, one of the group members left the organization before the second interview. The two that had difficulty defining knowledge, also felt a disconnect from the group and organization throughout the project. In fact, they felt a stronger connection to their profession or department, feeling as if they were outside of the group. They also tended to be much more careful with the answers they gave during their interviews.

This would indicate that knowledge workers need to be aligned with the epistemologies of their organizations. When there are different epistemologies within an organization, for example between departments, than there might be tension within distributed groups. This tension was not obvious in the routine collaborative written project (quarterly report) in which the format and even content was dictated from outside of the organization. However, in the creation of the document that required more group interaction and ownership, the differences in epistemologies were evident.

In analyzing the documents, therefore, it is important that I look at the changes to the most important document underwent. It is also important to look at the alignment of these changes, the interpretation of these documents by the individuals in relation to the perceived value by the organization, and the perception of what this document represented to the individual, group, and organization.

Content

Unlike knowledge, the definition of content was consistent throughout the group. In most of the definitions, “information” was included. In many cases, some description of a tangible product was included. This included, “a variety of media”, “source material”, “images”, “what goes in a page”, “curriculum”, and “whatever the written material is.” Additionally, most participants included skills and knowledge or the word “know” in their definitions. In many cases, the definition also included how content was applied.

Interestingly, however, is that while content was consistently defined, and often used interchangeably with knowledge, knowledge was not consistently defined. Therefore, we can define “content” as a tangible subset of “knowledge”. While there might be differences as to what content is valuable or needed, the idea of what content is within a group does not seem to differ. This makes me wonder: if there is a difference in epistemology which leads to a breakdown in the group knowledge creation process, it might help to use a strategy in which acceptable “content” is defined and negotiated at the individual, group, and organizational level. In other words, the “what” will be defined.

Know-How

Many of the definitions were similar for know how. Often skill and process, “how to use” and experience were used. Those who defined knowledge as something that was possessed also implied that know-how was “possessed.”

While each defined know how differently, they all seemed to share a common understanding that know how was not easily measured, had to do with a process or skill which helped to create know-how, and was informal learning. It also seemed that many of the definitions included how know-how was applied. Some of these included:

“Application of both what to do and knowing how to use it, mainly in an efficient way.” (R.).
“I guess I know…I’m going to use as…I know the know-hows of web development, know-hows of graphic design.” (D.)
“…, know how get things done even if it’s delegating.” (S.)
“I guess that’s knowledge that translates….into an ability to do something.” (P.)
“…intuitive gut navigation.” (H.)

While content seemed static, know-how seemed more action oriented. Know-how also appears to be an individual concept. When defining know-how, the participants tended to use the first person. No one used a collective pronoun in their definitions.

This brings up questions as to the role of “know-how” in the group collaborative process. If it is considered an individual attribute, can a group have “know-how”? Is there such a thing as collective “know-how”? Would it be developed or used in the same way as individual know how?

Design

After the first series of interviews, I noticed that many of the participants used the term “design”, but each in a slightly different way. As a result, a definition of design was included in the second interview. In fact, the definition of design had very little in common from speaker to speaker. In addition, it seemed the most difficult term for the participants to define, most having long pauses before they answered.

Those from the training department tended to perceive design as a definitive construct using terms such as “strategies”,“content”, “framework”, and “curriculum.” Design was a more situated term to define for those in the elearning department, grounded in the creative and meaning making process. For example, “Design is the…planful…elegance and pattern…which gives…definition and meaning.” (R.). Not only is there some situated aspect to design, but those in the elearning department identify a sense of agency in their definitions.

Such a divergence in the understanding of what “design” is could lead to difference in understanding during the creation of a collaborative document, especially when there is no structure to the document, such as the second document studied. The first writing project, using a clearly defined structure was, “Well, the quarterly report’s always a by-product of individual contributions.” (R., group interview). On the other hand, the second collaborative project studied was a document created by the group to help identify the various aspects of the elearning project. In discussing this document in a group interview, the difficulty in creating an agreed upon product was obvious:

R: Well, what formally…I think the … for the classroom trainers, they have a document. Module 1 contains X number of elements. Module 2 contains X number of elements. Eh…for me, there’s a sort of isomorphic mapping of those content elements onto a schema that reflects those same strains and tho…and that same order. Uh…And I’ll give you a copy of this map which talks about where those elements are…

Later:

P: There’s a certain way to do that in the classroom. So, um… I think that’s…I don’t know if you can…say right now what your product is going to be. It’s going to be some type of elearning product.
R: Right. I mean…
P: But what it’s going to look like and how it’s…how it’s going to work is not…really isn’t there yet.
R: It isn’t really there... I mean, we have an idea…

Those in the training department seem to perceive design in what Buchanan (1992) refers to as the “categories” of design: “Categories have fixed meanings that are accepted within the framework of a theory or a philosophy, and serve as the basis for analyzing what already exist (p. 12).” The elearning department looks at the possibilities of design, however. This is what Buchanan refers to as “placement” of design. “Placements have boundaries to shape and constrain meaning, but are not rigidly fixed and determinate. The boundary of a placement gives a context or orientation to thinking, but the application to a specific situation can generate a new perception of that situation and, hence, a new possibility to be tested. Therefore, placements are sources of new ideas and possibilities when applied to problems in concrete circumstances (p. 13).”

It appears that coming to the collaborative writing process from these two different approaches affects the knowledge creation and collaborative process.


Conclusion

In this project, it would appear that the source of conflict over epistemology was not a shared understanding of what content was (information, tangible) or know-how (intangible), but rather a shared understanding of design (what is as opposed to what can be created). This appears to be an overlooked aspect of the collaborative writing process.

Reference:

Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked Problems in Design Thinking. Design Issues, Vol. 8, No. 2 Accessed: 11/12/2009