We have been at this CONNECTIVISM thing for the past 3 weeks. That is so far the length of my exposure to connectivism, connectivity and networking. Sure, I have been part of many networks,from the internet-based social networks to real-life community networks (i.e. neighborhoods, alumni, family networks, etc - which are all being represented in the internet btw), but I have never truly paid any attention to the elements and semantics of connectivity.
According to Downes in 2006, in his paper "Learning Networks and Connective Knowledge", he mentioned 3 elements of the network:
a. entities - the connected things that send and receive signals
b. connections - the links between entities (can be physical or virtual)
c. signals - the message sent between entities
The question that I want to pose in this blog is, how do we practically define connections in the virtual world?
In the real world, the answer is simple, if you are my cousin, I am almost certainly your cousin, and if you are my parent, I am most certainly your child; and socially, if you are my classmate, then I am yours too, etc.
And yet in a virtual world with superusers, ordinary users, lurkers, inactive users, how do we determine connections. For example, I may have 600 friends in my facebook account and yet, I cannot say that I am connected to all of them. Quite frankly,I do not get to see all their posts, and certainly, I do not believe that they see and real all of mine. In the same context, when I post a question in google groups and it is virtually received by everybody, am I connected to those who ignored that particular email? How about to those who read it but did not do anything about it?
Thus I submit that the 3 elements that were mentioned by Downes above should have a 4th element: FEEDBACK. It is only in feedback that we are assured that the message is received. Whether orn ot there is action may be considered a separate matter - in many cases, non-action is an action. But we have to separate this decision of the receiving entity to NOT ACT as the preferred action versus the receiving entity's inability to receive the message in the first place.Therein lies the value of FEEDBACK.
With FEEDBACK, we are assured of a connection.
3 comments:
Stephen's delineation is base level and I'm sure he's aware of that.
What you refer to is 'active listening'.
Without this, there may be reception, but no assurance of it or the accuracy of that perception.
We can go one step further or, actually several: I perceive the activity facilitated by Facebook as symptomatic of the desire of human beings to interact in a way and on a level which is normal, but usually repressed. The reasons for this are multiple, but just to illustrate, when there is no direct contact, no F2F and the associated inferences of such things as 'judgment' are alleviated somewhat, people step out of their 'usual' mode of inhibited behaviour and become normal.
This is what I see and even though I view Facebook to be an unhealthy environment to do it within, this has no bearing on the symptomology (Yes, I hide behind the fact that language is an ever-evolving phenomenon as an excuse to make words up).
Now for the next step and this relates to the work that R.D. Laing did on 'perception'.
What I describe now represents an entirely different phenomenon from where it traditionally occurs, F2F, as it does in the virtual realm, because there is a much lesser degree of 'sighted' phenomenon and usually no virtual aural perception whatsoever. What there is occurs through a different medium altogether, e.g., text and graphics for 'sighted'.
On the first level of perception, there is your perception of yourself and my perception of me.
On a second level of perception, there is your perception of me and my perception of you.
On the third level (to demonstrate how complex human interrelationships can become), there is your perception of my perception of you and my perception of your perception of me.
If you look at that carefully, you will see, associated with the aforementioned lessened qualification of judgment (along with other qualities), a totally different interrelation of the levels of perception, that greatly influence the dynamic of the network in the virtual aspect, within a totally different definition to how it does in the 'real' world.
Yes, the different levels of perception correlates to the involvement in the network. I suppose my question "Are we connected yet?" is a rhetorical question which actually dovetails to your comment, which is "At what level of perception can we say that we are connected?"
PS. Symptomology - i like that, although we have used Symptomatology as a constellation of symptoms :)
Cher Red, I think 3 components is reasonable. I look at it as the KISS concept.
Once the 3 elements are in place, the network is formed. Feedback strengthens the connections as signals are sent back and forth.
I see feedback as a sub-set of connections & signals.
Rather than "Are we connected yet?" I think the question to ask is "What level of connection do we have?"
Post a Comment