Confessions of an elearning skeptic

In my researching this week I came across an interesting paper by Nick Bostrom, the Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University.  The paper, entitled “Are you living in a computer simulation“, puts forward the argument that there is a good possibility that we are already living in a matrix-like computer simulated reality! So forget Second Life, you’re already living it!  There is a wealth of other thought-provoking reading on Nick’s web site, www.nickbostrom.com.  Enjoy, though it might freak you out a bit!

Continuing on from my previous post: Reflecting on learning community design (one), I now turn my attention to how my reading of the Wenger Article will affect the way I go about designing my own community.  The key considerations I take from the Wenger article are:

(1) That it is vital that I consider the perspective of the participants because this prespective(s) will have a distinct affect on how they interact with the community and, as a result, what learning actually occurs.

(2) It is vital that the participants in the community engage with that community.  This engagement needs to be encouraged through the creation of value in the mind of the participant, both that they value the learning that is occurring and that their knowledge and expertise is valued by the other participants.

(3) That any chosen design must support the flow of information to all participants that could benefit from it.  This includes ensuring that separate discussion on the same topic cannot occur without some form of linkage between them.

(4) The learners must be able to shape the direction of the community and that this ability must be fairly shared between experienced participants and those who are less experienced.  Structures that allow ‘experts’ to dominate will have a tendancy to focus too much on the preservation of knowledge, to the detriment of the challenge of this knowedge and the creation of new knowledge.  On the opposite side, neither should the community be dominated soley by ‘novices’ as this will have a tendency to bog the community down.  A good design will spread the experts evenly across it and provide a good mix of experts and novices.

(5) A good design should give all users equal power in relation to the ability to contibute and to create new groups, forums etc.

(6) A good design should encourge the community members to be members of other communtities and should faciliate access to information from outside the community.  By doing this it will avoid the community becoming too isolated from the broader world and ensure that ideas can flow from outside.