Been mulling over a comment by Nancy White that Beth Kanter picked up on. Nancy's ad hoc remark in Learning, Capturing and Sharing Conference Artifacts suggested that . . .
In the end, the key around these practices is that when we engage all or part of the group in the production of our "learning artifacts" -- we all learn more AND we make some of that learning available to others. The act of production is an act of meaning making.
What makes my alarm go off in reaction to these ideas is not the idea that Web2.0 tools are creating artifacts. I am ready to concede, given Wikipedia's notion of artifact that something crafted by human hands, which is of note in relation to the chronicle of what's happened, that we've got some "stuff". The challenge comes from two assumptions that I'm not quite ready to buy into.
The first supposition is that as various means are used to capture the proceedings of an event, (Nancy mentions: Chat/IRC, Videocasts, VOIPcasts, Podcasts, and Visual Facilitation), the performance of encapsulating and depicting is in itself learning. You could argue that the person who is collecting and synthesizing has acquired some information. Using tools and a process, the words, ideas, experience, sounds, etc., that are conveyed and shared within a context, are made available to a virtual audience. The more engaged the "recorder" is and the greater degree of processing needed to summarize, use metaphors, create analogies, connect to other facts (in the present moment and from the past), the richer that person's experience. The learning is not in that moment in which these actions are taking. That's simply because learning is a process that happens when the information shifts from short-term to long-term memory and results in changed beliefs and behaviors.
That's all for now . . . I'll get to assumption two tomorrow.
Comments