Mopsos

It is surprising, and somewhat comforting, to realize that John Seely Brown’s
presentation "Learning, Working and Playing in the Digital Age" made back in 1999 is still to be meditated.

(It reminds me of Dali's answer to a question by a journalist:
Q- "What's new, Salvador Dali?" A- "Velasquez!!!")

I have extracted a few quotes that I find particularly interesting. Still a lot to meditate here.

"My belief is that the Web/internet phenomenon is basically as fundamental to society as electrification and is subject to many of the same diffusion and absorption dynamics as electrification"

JSB reminds us that it took 50 years to electrify America, and that the usage pattern of electricity changed over time. Web sites still imitate paper publications pretty much like early movies imitated theater. It still is especially true for corporate websites, made by marketing and communication staff, who were initially trained for paper-based communication.

"One of the unusual things about the web is that it enables us to leverage the small efforts of the many with the large efforts of the few"

Exactly. That’s why it is the medium of choice for communities of practice, which are in essence social learning structures where a few active members take ownership of time-consuming tasks for organizing community activities, while the majority essentially watches and listens, making occasional contributions now and then.

"What I want to suggest, though, is that the new literacy, the one beyond
just text and image, is one of information navigation. I believe that the real
literacy of tomorrow will have more to do with being able to be your own
private, personal reference librarian, one that knows how to navigate through
the incredible, confusing, complex information spaces and feel comfortable and
located in doing that. So navigation will be a new form of literacy if not the
main form of literacy for the 21st century."

Where to find the required expertise to complete any project is becoming much more important now. You can no longer rely only on the personal relationships developed within the social and political boundaries of a corporate setting, and that includes the usual trusted partners. It's too much risk and way too slow.

"learning-to-be might be best thought about as enculturating into a community of practice, a community of physicians, lawyers, writers, readers, etc. Enculturation lies at the heart of learning."

"[let me reflect] on a very profound shift that I believe is happening—a shift between using technology to support the individual and using technology to support relationships. This shift will be very important because with it we will discover new ways, new tools and new social protocols for helping us help each other, which is really the very essence of social learning. It is also the essence of lifelong learning, a form of learning that learning ecologies could dramatically facilitate. And being able to create learning ecologies in a region is a first step to constructing a culture of learning, more generally."

JSB has this knack of seeing into the future. Those are indeed key dynamics. I also think he and Paul Duguid have very important insights into the ecology of documents, the importance of annotation, capturing feedback, commentary and conversation on-line.

Their articulation of practice vs. process and the social nature of learning reiforce the importance of relationships for trust and knowledge building.

Thanks for sharing

Posted by: Denham at September 20, 2003 08:35 PM

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