Free speech, free will, and will you say no?

Three issues have made national headlines in the US this month: the bullying problem that has resulted in adolescent suicides, the question of free speech currently being decided by the US Supreme Court, and, today, the case of the University of Notre Dame student videographer who was killed while taping the ND football team's practice in 60 mph (90kph)winds.

On the surface, it appears that these have nothing in common. However, looking deeper into it, they all have a common thread: civil discourse and communication.

In the case of bullying, the problem has become worse due to social media. Don't get me wrong, I am a strong advocate of social media. However, it also has the potential to create an environment in which bullying (either intentional or unintentional) occurs. There are two parts to bullying that many in the media fail to recognize: the bully and the person being bullied. In some cases, the person receiving a message may ignore the message; may feel hurt and confront the "bully"; may feel hurt and internalize the hurt, keeping it secret until they can't stand the pain and take their own life; or work in creating a social atmosphere in which perceived bullying is socially unacceptable. The other half is often over looked, however. It is assumed that the bully KNOWS that he or she is bullying. But sometimes it is just that the bully does not know how to engage in civil discourse. Name calling, teasing, put downs are all images they see on TV, in sports, and on the internet. Often, I will read something written to my kids on facebook and be outraged, my perception being that this is bullying. However, they do not perceive it in the same way. This divide between what is appropriate and what is not appropriate to say is magnified when someone misinterprets the intention of another person.

So does this mean that some people need to "toughen up" and that bullying is not taking place? No, it means that the way to overcome "bullying" is to create an environment in which there are clear communication standards and rules so there is not a divide between perception between people. And if there is a difference, there is a way to resolve the problem before it is unmanageable.

Another aspect of civil discourse has to do with taking responsibility for what you say. In the US, freedom of speech is a basic right. However, over the years, some citizens have wanted the right to speak without having to pay the price should what they say be hurtful, cause pain, cause damages to a person's reputation, job, or business, or be inaccurate, an outright lie, or a distortion of the truth. Just as someone has a right to free speech, the listener has the right to be upset, angry, or not agree with the speaker. Likewise, the listener then has the right to speak back.

There are those in our country who use the label "politically correct" as an insult, thus limiting the voice (and right of free speech) of the listener. A person who self proclaimed as being "not politically correct", is often saying, "I don't want to hear your anger because I have already told you I am not concerned with other opinions than my own." Related to this are those that must place blame or, in essence, say "whatever" or (the phrase I HATE, agree to disagree...in other words, I'm right and will not listen or try to understand your position). The current Supreme Court case is case in point. A group's protest outside of the funeral of a soldier killed in action (the protest was allowed as a right of free speech) resulted in psychological problems for the father. He sued group. This is not a question of free speech; the group was granted it. It is a question as to whether those that exercise free speech must be accountable. There are many more examples of this including the firing of Dr. Laura, a talk show host.

So what we need to do is go back to the notion that with freedoms, come responsibility for what you say. It is not enough to say, "I hear you. I take full responsibility." (Although this is a good first step). Rather, we need to teach children AND adults that what they say may have repercussions for which the speaker must take responsibility for. In other words, freedom of speech does not mean freedom of speaking before you think or considering the impact of your words on those that may hear or read them.

Finally, the death of the Notre Dame student yesterday is especially worrisome to me as I see my children develop into adults. In this current economy, many people feel powerless to say no to something that instinctively they feel they must. When a person in power asks them to do something, they feel that they do not have a voice to contradict someone that has power over their school, job, or even community. As a result, they may post their misgivings on facebook, or complain to coworkers/classmates about their environment, but they never tell the person in power that they have misgivings, and ultimately "no". This is a conversation I have had for a long time with my students. The fact is, our educational system rewards those that will do what they are asked. The best students, the best athletes, the best children are those that are "respectful" and those that "conform". For many, "respectful" is synonymous with agreeable.

But there is a difference. It is important that we teach our children to be civil, but to also disagree (respectfully) especially if their instincts are telling them what they are being asked to do is not right. Heaven knows, if the student had just listened to his instincts (his tweets indicated he was scared) he might be living today.

American Politics: a study in frustration and poor communication

We have one more week until the general elections and I'm totally disgusted. So much so that for the first time in almost 30 years, I don't want to cast my ballot. Why? Because I don't see much difference between the extreme voices that I must vote for. If I could, I would attend the Rally to restore Sanity in Washington, DC this week.

I see this current situation as a breakdown in communication in the US society. One thing that Americans always prided themselves on was the right to debate and discuss various issues. However, the "you're either with us or against us" attitude of many politicians (on both side of the aisles) and the vilifying of anyone whose position might hurt those in power or the media (which is big business in the US) has made it possible for the discussion to be squelched in the US.

I had had great hopes at the beginning of the Obama administration. Here was an administration that was elected by communicating using new media. However, over the last two years more and more voices are being quieted as people become afraid to express their opinions.

The White House, who had online live conferences in which the average person was able to participate, changed its media strategy and these conferences are almost non-existent now. In fact, last year when the President came to our area, those on the "invitation" list were politicians and those who held local power, rather than the common man who supposedly would benefit from the programs the president was speaking about. On the White House website, there was a video that explained how the president's 10 letters from the public (which he reads daily) was chosen. The letters are filtered through his staff, who choose the letters "most representative" of the letters coming in. This filtering, however, ensures that the present will only see the views that the staff feel are relevant. Why do the staff have to filter the letters? Don't they report on the issues they read about in the letters? Think of the variety of issues (come of which may not be covered by organizations sending in mass mailings or covered in the press) if 10 letters were chosen randomly. The farmer in Kansas struggling to make it, would have the same possibility of being heard as the unemployed single mother being thrown out of her house in Florida, or the prosperous rancher in Montana, or the factory worker in Michigan.

Most importantly, however, is that the issues would not be predetermined. Those issues that many of my friends and I feel are important are not being discussed. No one talks about the widening gap in income in the US between the very rich and the middle class. No one speaks about the tripling of prices of pharmaceuticals in the last 10 years, or the monopoly that 6 oil producers have in the US which allows for the price of oil to increase even though the supply in the US is the highest it's been for a number of years. No one speaks of the two United States: one in which a person's housing, education, health care, access to services, child care, and retirement are guaranteed and the other where any of these basic rights can be taken away at any moment.

So my hope for the US is to create an environment where civil dialog was acceptable, neighbors could live next door to each other even though they had differing views on how society should function, and a person was not afraid to express their ideas on various topics. Finally, communication is two way. This means there needs to be an honest dialog between those speaking and those listening. Listening does not mean agreeing with the speaker and speaking does not mean making your ideas known without determining if your message was received the way you wanted it to. Then I would feel as if my vote was one of many in a civil democracy.

Update: Of course, today there was a live online conference and there are more planned for the next week. Let's hope they continue to do so AFTER the elections.

How mobile technology and facebook is changing how we communicate

I have noticed lately that the emails I get from my students are shorter and much more direct. I have also noticed that some of the comments on my kids' facebook seem almost cruel in their brevity, communicating something that can be misunderstood. After doing some quick analysis, I realized that those messages that stood out as being "different" were sent from mobile technology. After a little more investigation, I realized that the way in which facebook is being used is changing as more and more people have mobile devises that interact with the internet.

My nephew just got a droid. He is a teacher in his late 20's, not a teen. However, if I want to get a hold of him quickly, I have found facebook as the most effective tool. Facebook is becoming the format of choice for informal communication. As a result, companies using facebook who are formal or spamming (I'm sure it's called something else, I'm just not up to date with the jargon) may turn off potential customers (just as people don't answer the telephone at dinner time any more due to telemarketers).

As younger people get used to being informal on facebook delivered via mobile technology and as they develop their own protocols in communicating via mobile texting, they may not make the register change when sending a message via the internet (which will show up as an email)by mobile phone. This might be why recent emails I'm receiving from my students are very direct and to the point. Sometimes, it almost resembles an order; other times they provide me with very little information (including their name!).

The biggest concern is that this style of writing can be brutal (for lack of a better word), lacking in any empathy. Received by the wrong person, these messages can cause hard feelings. Surprisingly, my own children seem to be immune to this (they don't seem to be as insulted as I am about things written about them on facebook). When I pointed out to them that they would probably be upset if someone said that to them face-to-face, they did not see the similarities in the intention. However, as I remind them on a regular basis, not all people are immune to the change in language, register, and communication mode, so they are often having to modify what they would write. My son got a kick out of the Saturday Night Live skit last week on the facebook filter ap "Damn, my mom's on facebook."

Standard vs. flexible: reconceptualizing the efficiency of "standardization of tools"

Yesterday I spent 2 hours in total frustration dealing with the administration of my daughter's education. Her schooling has been outstanding the last year and a half, but the administration of that schooling is complex to say the least. Her school district sends her to a regional high school that is funded by 31 different school districts. The high school is really just an alternative education program. They provide the instruction, technology, and building, but her school district provides the transportation, administration of the degree, and interface with the state (i.e. regents exams, graduation requirements, granting of the degree, health records). This is unusual for the district, our state, and the educational system in the US. So needless to say, many in the school district are not informed of my daughter's status. The result is that she was told she would need to buy a ticket to the school district's semi-formal high school dance as a guest since "she isn't a student there." This is the second year we have gone through this.

So yesterday, I decided that I would speak face to face to the administration at the high school to ensure that we were all on the same page. After, I spoke with the guidance counselor at the high school program where the actual instruction takes place. Between the two conversations, some of the problems and the sources of the problems began to finally come clear.

Standardizing processes and tools for efficiency

In the case of the school district, there is a standard system within the school district. All processes are set up to capture standard statistics required by New York state. The problem? When a situation or problem occurs that does not fit the "standard", the system is difficult to adjust. Thus, my daughter's friend was assigned to two different homerooms (the first classroom where each student goes in the morning to ensure school attendence). Last year my daughter was assigned to a home room, even though she did not go into the high school building. For 4 weeks her name was called while they looked for the errant student. For two weeks, her friend's mother was notified that her daughter was not in school.

While the administration was told repeatedly that my daughter did not attend classes in the main building and that her friend WAS in all of her other classes, they could not tell the computer. Eventually the computer program was modified. However, the school processes were tied to the computer program and standards, so until it was changed there was, in fact, administrative inefficiencies.

My daughter's program guidance counselor related how difficult it was to work with 31 different reporting systems so that all of the administrative requirements for the students in the program would be accurate when they went to graduate later this year. Having 31 different systems would have been too difficult for the program to handle. And yet, the 31 systems needed to be able to conform to the programs reporting and administrative needs.

The effect of distributed knowledge on administrative systems

The old school of management based on the assembly line had specialists so that a product (or service) could be standardized, thus creating a uniform product and quality. For this to work, however, the production line needed to be linear and sequential. Much of our educational system still focuses on this linear, sequential format for instruction. Much of our management systems also look at the linear logic in production, distribution, and monitoring of products and services.

But this model does not work any more with distributed knowledge. Karyn Romeis has a good example of how this DOES NOT work in a recent blog post. What we used to have in terms of planning, now will need to be changed to something that allows more flexibility. This also requires upper management to have faith in their workers, put resources into training, and allow users to adjust computer programs and applications to meet individual needs.

Rather than the standardized industrial model that focuses on setting and measuring standards, we need to start integrating multiple approaches to problems and development of ways to measure needs, abilities, and performance that is not quantifiable. We also need to teach students how to go outside of their own abilities where knowledge might be contained by external groups. And our tools (which the next generation has already figured out) needs to be adaptable, but within a general framework which gives us boundaries within which to work and communicate.

Distributed knowledge in the workplace

I'm still working on this idea, but both Michael Hanley and Karyn Romeis have blogged about knowledge recently so I decided to post what I currently am grappling with. There are still a lot of questions to answer.

Three types of knowledge

In analyzing the data, knowledge could be placed into three categories: tangible representation of knowledge which could be found in policies, forms, formats, curriculum, degrees or credentials, records, and other artifacts at the individual, group, departmental, organizational, and/or professional level; procedural and tacit knowledge, which would include an understanding of work processes and the knowledge created as a result of those processes; and spatial knowledge, which was created through the linking of ideas, social relationships, cognitive interaction, and/or cultural interaction. Each type of knowledge was manifested, accessed, created, and valued differently at the individual, group, and organizational level.

Spatial knowledge is the most valuable for knowledge based organizations. Knowledge can be part of the network internal to the group, external to the group, within the profession, internal to the organization and external to the organization.

However, spatial knowledge is difficult to quantify, control, and capture. Spatial knowledge is created through creative practices (writing, design, problem solving) rather than through the imposition of formats or processes. The imposition of formats helps to create organizational boundaries and impose organizational expectations that may lead to a change culture. But there will be no cultural change if the individuals do not perceive ownership to a document, work artifact or product, or process. In other words, they will confom to the imposed format, process, and/or culture, but they will not claim ownership to it.

This creates a tension between values imposed through authority and personal values. As the AIM model theorizes (Skitka, L., 2003), a group member has three choices: 1) live with the imposed values while maintaining personal values, try to change imposed values, or leave the environment (in the case of this study, quit) in order to maintain individual or group values. In this study, a fourth option developed, create a parallel structure so both individual/group values are maintained, while fulfilling the requirements of the imposed culture.

Implications

1) 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 rather than knowledge is defined and negotiated at the individual, group, and organizational level. (What are the other components of “knowledge” which might need to be negotiated initially or will affect the collaborative writing process? Start the collaborative writing process with a common “content”.)

2)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? Is this why knowledge management is unable to capture group implicit knowledge? Is the continuation of the communication a way to develop collective know-how which is important to the group and not to the power structure? Because it is more difficult to measure, is it possible that collective know-how is in fact knowledge that is not important to those in power or within a group, but is important to the individual?

3) Who owns the knowledge? This is especially important in a distributed group in which knowledge is culled from multiple sources (profession, personal experience, the group, the department, the organization, and other stackholders). What if no one takes ownership? What happens to the work process, the end product, group dynamics, organizational culture? This can be seen in corporations where everyone, yet no one owns the knowledge.

Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked problems in design thinking. Design Issues, 8(2), 5-21.

Skitka, L. (2003). Of different minds: An accessible identity model of justice reasoning. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7(4), 286-297.

New technology demands for the 21st century classroom

Let me begin by defining the 21st century classroom. It is not the stagnent classroom of my childhood or university. Rather it crosses grades, generations, locations, and cultures. And yet, walk into any classroom today and it will physically look like the classroom my father sat in over 70 years ago.

Education today is life long, formal and informal, and dynamic. Likewise, educational technology is constantly changing from one tool to another based on teaching goals and needs, access to tools, government privacy policy, societal norms both in terms of social norms and acceptance of technology, and infrastructure.

Over the last year I have seen a movement from a computer based technology environment to mobile technology. In fact, I predicted this as one of the major trends in education last year. My students use their cell phones now in new ways not even thought of 2 years ago. With that in mind, I forsee the following technologies being used in the classroom within the next two years:

1) mobile technology. This may take a few forms: ipads, e-readers, cell phones, pda's, and mini-lap tops. The implication for teaching is that students will have access to the internet whether a teacher wants them to or not. I suggest that teachers focus on the use of the internet with the understanding that it is here to stay.

2) Interactive aps. As mobile technology allows for more interactivity including the ability to scan, gps's, and internet access the interacts with software. The implications are that there can be greater individualized learning plans and pin pointed learning. It also creates the opportunity for greater levels of cheating, academic dishonesty, and learning outside of the established curriculum. This could also be a nightmare for teachers who would be expected to provide a greater level of individualized learning plans requiring a constant retooling of their skills. In terms of the educational system, administrators will need to be able to provide their faculty with the resources to upgrade their skills, parents training to understand the tools their children are using in schools, and students with responsibilities and expectations for the use of technology.

3) E-readers. I heard a report on the news yesterday that the youth of today are much more likely to use an ereader than the older generations. In fact, Fisher Price now has an ereader for tottlers. The implication for the classroom (and publishers) is that there will be more choice in sources, using chapters from multiple resources. These resources will need to include multi-media sources including videos, audio, and interactive reading. Students will be able to highlight, download highlighted sections, and reformulate them to create new meaning. This is going to require a deeper level of learning and interactivity with the written and spoken word. Focus will be on organization rather than content per se. And teachers will not be able to rely on a text to meet an individual student's need. This means teachers and instructors will need to understand how to design learning, above and beyond a cookbook style of design.

4) Multi-media. Music, video, animation, and games are all part of the new generation. Not only will teachers and instructors need to know how to integrate these into their teaching, they will need to learn how to use these modialities in their evaluation of student learning. This is probably the biggest stretch for k-12 teachers, where the "test" or "exam" is the preferred mode of evaluation and assessment. However, higher ed and professional education will need to start developing new formats and means of assessing learning using these new modialities.

We need to start preparing educators for the 21st century changes in education. At the university level, there needs to be a new way of preparing and developing professors. Content knowledge is no longer sufficient. Of course, my biggest concern is that universities will have a check list approach to hiring, excluding those of an advanced age (like myself) who would be perceived as not having understanding or knowledge of the 21st technology learning tools.

The discussion about US education

Recently, there has been a national discussion of education in the US within our media. NBC and the Oprah Winfrey Show both had programs about education in the last two weeks. The final verdict: tenure is the reason our schools are failing and the responsibility of education is in the teachers' hands alone (they must be accountable for failing schools).

I look at part of this as a result of the charter school movement and a movement to break up teachers unions to bring down costs of education. After watching programs on NBC and the Oprah Winfrey school, I think it is important that misinformation that was spouted by such experts as Bill Gates and Mayor Bloomberg (both businessmen first) need to be addressed.

1) Tenure is NOT automatically given to teachers, as both of these men contended on TV. First, tenure requirements vary from state to state and even school district to school district. In New York State, a board of education needs to grant tenure to a teacher. Some school districts won't look at tenure until someone has worked for 4 years. Others will grant tenure after a year. Many of us know of teachers that have not been granted tenure, sometimes even for just political reasons. The purpose of the tenure system is to ensure academic integrity. I find it ironic that Oprah's program discussed with horror the difficulty of firing a teacher who was incompetent (who was eventually fired once she went through a set out process, but that took about a year) while about 10 years ago she had a program about a teacher who was forced to change a failing grade to students who had blatantly plagiarized. The threat of being fired because someone in power has his or her own agenda means that a teacher could be forced to teach something that might be scientifically unbased. This happened to teachers who refused to teach a curriculum they believed was religiously based rather than scientifically based. Because of tenure, these teachers had the ability to keep their jobs and fight a small group of powerful people in their community.

2) Charter schools vary from state to state. I am actually a supporter of charter schools, as long as they must follow the same rules as the public schools and they offer something different to a population that cannot be met in a traditional public school. There is research that some states have a very effective charter school system that has improved the overall state education system (Wisconsin and Oregon). However, I do not believe that ANY company should be profiting from the government (charter schools should be non-for-profit). Also, charter schools should not have a religious or political agenda (they need to follow the same rules as a traditional public school). On Oprah, charter schools were touted as THE cure for education. However, I see this as throwing out the baby with the bath water. There are some good schools and some bad. We need a variety of models that will fit different communities, cultures, resources, and values.

3) The fact is that a smaller class size will result in more effective learning. Likewise, students who do not live in poverty and/or have literate parents do better in school. The current No Child Left Behind "accountability" focus on standardized testing in which a teacher is responsible if a child does not pass a test is an inaccurate measure of effectiveness.

In a report by Al Roker on Elementary Schools, the school that was highlighted had the average class increase from 20 students per class a decade ago to 32 students per class today. I know of a kindergarten teacher (1st year of school in New York State) who is expected to teach 25 5-6 year olds (usually with no previous education such as pre-school or even at home help from parents) how to read by the end of this school year. All without help in the classroom. Last year she was successful as she only had 16 students.

We need to look at student improvement from their starting point to their ending point (rather than measuring them against students from more privileged backgrounds). We need to put resources into the needs of the school based on their community, not a standard formula. And we need to find new ways (besides testing) to measure student performance.

4) We are not China, Switzerland, Japan, or South Africa. What works in their countries might work here in the US, but perhaps not. We need to develop an educational system that works with our communities, culture, and values. To do this, we need to move away from the industrial military complex attitude towards education that we are developing workers. When I went to school, schools were developing citizens that could make informed decisions. However, even as a student that began to change and we were told that education was to prepare us for a job of the future. This streamlining was used in France up until the 60's at which time Europe began to see that education was more than creating workers.

The current focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) has wiped out what made the US successful: creativity. A colleague of mine from Hong Kong was disappointed in her University Program in the US because there was no creativity allowed. My daughter's school, which was designed with STEM in mind, ended up being more important as a school that allows students with creative minds to succeed in STEM courses. A project based curriculum based on group work develops communication, problem solving, and creative skills for students that normally would have difficulty in learning math and science. What is interesting is that students that were especially gifted in math and science, in fact left the school or had the hardest time to adapt to this style of learning.

The fact is the US is loosing its place in the world because of lack of innovation. Innovation comes from creativity, not fitting a static mold set out by standards.

5) Finally, education is a joint process between the administrators, teachers, students, community, and parents. All are equally important and responsible. Until we use a model of community education building rather than competitive education, we will not have an effective educational system in the US.

I applaud the media for at least discussing education in the US. I just wish they would present a more informed and balanced discussion. The fact is that in some places, the educational system is working. In others, people are working hard to improve the process (but with mixed results) and in still other places the system has broken down. The biggest mistake we could make is to fix that which is working well, not giving those working on change the time and resources to succeed, and trying the same old policies in those areas where those policies have not worked and probably will never work.

New Collaborative Virtual Spaces: Sending a forwarding address

Over the last few years, I have collaborated with a number of people that I either have never met face to face or who live too far away to meet on a regular basis face to face. I moved from listservs to discussion boards to blogs and now to facebook. What I have noticed is an initial period in which I participate as a spectator (i.e. a member of the listserv receiving updates but not posting), then I move on as an active member. I then begin to build a trusting relationship in which I feel there are good conversations and a safe area to disagree and resolve intellectual disagreements.

My experience fits fairly closely with online community research (See Ruth Brown's research, for example). However, after a while, a new technology will come online and members of the community (not all) will begin to emigrate to the new format, leaving the one community to help develop and become part of a new community. As this happens, however, suddenly, a virtual colleague is now missing with no forwarding address.

I often wonder, where are they? Where did everyone go? How do I contact them again and stay in touch? what makes things even more difficult is that different members will gravitate to different technologies (and thus different communities). It is impossible to stay in touch with all new technologies, so we choose those technologies that meet our needs at that time.

I think that there needs to be a protocol for disbanding a community and/or migrating it to a new technology. In the snailmail, we have a forwarding address. It might be good if we began to use the same mechanisms as we leave communities. Perhaps someone will develop a directory in which the most commonly accessed addresses are listed for an individual. I currently do this by googling people's names. However, if there was an interactive directory that you could use to identify where people are posting and where you are most apt to contact them, it would be helpful to follow your community through cyberspace.

Dissertation: Analysis of the Impact of the Environment on the Group

In order to understand the interaction between the distributed group, individual group members, and the organization and its departments within this study, it is important to understand the various working environments and perceived power structures.

There were numerous environments that an individual might have to work with as a member of the project under study. In addition, there were multiple layers of authority and vested interests (share-holders) that influenced individual members and the group itself at any given time.

From an ethnomethological stand point, this group influenced and was influenced by the complex environment that a distributed group creates. Distributed groups create multi-layered power structures, multiple cultures which workers need to traverse, and intricate social relationships, both internal and external to the group. These complexities are both created through the new power structures, work processes, and cultures that are established when bringing together group members from various departments and locations. However, distributed groups also create complexity for the departments and organizations where they are located as group members try to align goals, work processes, priorities, and even the image of the group and departments where they work. As a result, a distributed group may be working within a much more dynamic environment than that of a single department within a common location.

In looking at this group, some conclusions about the impact of this more complex environment on the group could be drawn:

• There were differing interpretations of perceived authority within the group, the departments, the project, and the organization especially when there was no clear authority structure imposed on the group.

• According to the group, there was very little perceived cultural change within departments and the professions that group members identified with. However, the group’s culture appeared to fluctuate to align with the perceived power structure’s culture. Some group members were able to adapt; but for others, they either left the organization or tried to change the culture within the perceived power structure to meet their own comfort level. This was dependent upon their perception of their own empowerment and importance within the group, their department, and the training and home organizations.

• The greater percentage of the group member’s time that was dedicated to the project, the greater perception that they had a vested interest in the project and its outcome. This also lead to those with a vested interest feeling more entitled to contribute to the project, which then lead to them having a greater role with in the group’s power structure. In other words, those that did not have additional duties outside of the project, believed that they should have the greatest influence on the project direction and decisions.

• The complexity of the environment made it difficult for group members and the management team to determine who exactly was part of the group (intragroup identification) and what an individual member’s role was within the group. Related to the previous point, those with the greater percentage of time dedicated to the project were closely identified with the Healthcare Counseling group. However, other factors such as acceptance by the group members, recognition by the management team and departmental power structure, and perceived expertise within an area the group and individual members identified as important also had an impact on whether others within the group recognized someone as a member or not. Those that individual members recognized as being part of the group, were included in project work processes and communications. Although, not everyone recognized by individual members was recognized by the group as a whole as being part of the group.

• The power structures, both internal and external to the group, were dynamic and not static. As a result, there was continuous realignment of goals, work processes, perceptions and expectations to maintain balance both within and outside the group. This sometimes required changes in the group culture, channels of communication, project formats and tools, and management (power) structures.

• The writing projects were both informed by and influenced communication, work processes group identity and member roles, and project goals and standards. The formats, physical layout, and virtual tools created both physical and psychological boundaries within which the group functioned. At times, these boundaries had to be renegotiated, either intragroup or between external power structures (stakeholders, departments, management). There were four strategies that were used: 1) accept a boundary (process, expectations, format, standard, etc…) as it was imposed on the group without any changes or comment, 2) adopt a process or format from one of the departments as is or making minimal changes to align with the group’s beliefs and processes, 3) maintain multiple processes or formats as long as they could be compatible with boundaries imposed externally, modifying those that were outside of the imposed boundaries, or 4) create new formats and processes from scratch to fit within the boundaries imposed externally. The strategy used depended on time constraints, the degree of perceived difference outside of the group, the level of ownership both to the project and the work task/product, the support (or lack) by the group members and/or power structure, the affect on personal, professional, or departmental image, and level of personal investment to certain aspects of the project.

• Related to this was the consistent tension between work processes established at the various levels of the power structures within the work environment. These tensions were often resolved either by 1) collaboration, 2) compromise, 3) subversion, or 4) withdrawal from the organization or project.

Start of a new semester

Well, last month was especially busy as we start looking for colleges for next year for my son and he registered to take a couple of college courses while he is in high school. I'll blog about that experience later.

Today, though, was the first day of classes for me. I'm excited as I'm trying out 3 new things:

1) I've created a facebook group in place of the Ning. Since Ning went commercial and I don't have time to test out the new mechanisms for educators, I decided to try facebook. Many of my students are already on facebook, so I thought I'd give it a try. They can upload their video assignments, ask questions about the class, and/or get updated information about the class. The only thing I have been unable to figure out is how to upload documents (I think I'll end up just emailing them).

2) I've decided to include a real audience for my students. For their group presentation assignment, they will either go into an actual classroom and give a presentation on college life or they will create a vodcast which will then be viewed by a real life class.

3) I have included the original Shirley Sherrod speech to view as one of the class assignments. For those that may be unfamiliar with her, she was the Department of Agriculture employee who was fired (or asked to resign) because of an "inflammatory speech." A section of the speech was uploaded as a clip on a conservative blog and the clip, which was taken out of context from the entire speech, accused Ms. Sherrod of discrimination. However, when you watch the entire speech, Ms. Sherrod's message was the complete opposite, advocating reaching out and giving support across races so that the poor of our country can be lifted out of poverty. In fact, it is a very inspirational speech in which she breaks many stereotypes (i.e. all people of color are powerless, all poor people are people of color, if you are white, you have access to power and privilege). My objective in using this speech is to discuss how to craft a speech without having portions lifted to be used against the speaker and/or give an unintended message. I feel this is especially important in the electronic age of sound bites.