Liquid Learning

In the zone

I asked myself a simple question. If I used the following phrases to describe how one might feel when  deeply involved in the process of learning, would I agree or disagree with this set of characteristics?

The learner, or I, am feeling:

• Physically relaxed
• Mentally calm
• Focused
• Alert
• Confident
• In control
• Positive
• Feeling enjoyment
• Feeling effortless
• On "automatic"
• Focussed on the present moment

On the surface these are descriptors present a positive sense of the emotional state that any learning process might aspire to create, yet they do not reflect my own experiences of learning. Or at least they do not reflect my own understanding of want it should feel like to be learning, in other words my own internal conscious reflection on whether I am actively involved in the learning process. I showed this list to a colleague and our immediate reaction was to come up with an almost oppositional list of our subjective sense of what we feel when we think we are learning:

• Anxious
• Uncomfortable
• Lacking in confidence
• Agitated
• Consciously exerting effort
• Painful
• Taking risks
• Seeking distraction

... and so on. Enjoyment did not not figure in this new list.

The first list is in fact a description of an athlete's inner state when performing at their peak. It was built by Donald Christiansen, a sports psychology consultant at the University of Washington, and conveys the moment when an athlete is "in the zone". What does this rather crude juxtaposition uncover? Well, yes we may see performance in learning and performance sports differently but also it is something about the nature of each in that the discourse of the process of learning (and the inner emotional indicators) seems to be one of suffering. For me it also provided some insight into the qualitative difference between formal and informal education processes. If I were to ask the same questions of informal learning then I think the characteristics of being 'in the zone' are far more pertinent. Finally, it seems key to address these issues if we see such descriptions of 'states of learning' as desirable goals for educational practice when motivation to learn is recognised as a major factor in academic performance. The engagement with and deployment of emerging technologies such as social software is one way forward. These are tools that can be used to provide informal spaces within formal educational settings and perhaps bring back emotional commitment and a sense of enjoyment to our own personal understandings of the process of learning.

[Photo credits: Running Man, Stanley Park, Vancouver taken by 'Bo2country'] 

Addendum

The affective state of being 'in the zone' finds resonance in the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and in particular his seminal book 'Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience'. Here he outlines his theory that people are most happy when they are in a state of flow which might be described as being completely immersed in the activity at hand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

Digital anthropolgy

Not quite the post I was expecting to be making at 2am (what? not in Second Life?) in the morning but I could not resist making a link to YouTube ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE

... an aesthetically pleasing and beautifully visualized take on Web 2.0 technologies from text to hypertext to Web 2.0 and the democratic paradigm of user content production . All put together by Michael Wesch, assistant professor of anthropology at Kansas State University.

Just-in-time social networks

I have just been having an interesting exchange with David Wilcox about the use of lightweight networking tools that can be set up quickly and easily with minimum fuss and disruption (and from an educational institution perspective - staying under the radar of IT Services departments).  I think we are talking about the 'just-in-time' social networking solution that may be for that meeting, conference or seminar day. A collaborative and social way to capture ideas and artifacts.

This led me to ponder further on my own interest in the sustainability of social groupings and mapping communities as they rise and fall (perhaps 'wane' is a better word here). This raises for me the question of why collaborate? Why contribute? There seems to be something of a pattern here from past ... assumptions around community or group behaviours in that we naturally expect others around us to feel the desire share themselves. The course discussion board tool is a sobering reminder that actually this is often not the case. Classically the educationally situated discussion forum would fail miserably unless driven by the tutor and even then would experience a very short life-cycle. For me, uncovering a selfish motive for contributing is key and for this we need to enable channels for hooking our personal spaces into these varied and ad hoc community spaces. In other words ... I want to post to my blog/portfolio but push it to your site as well. Post once but publish many.

BBC news clips on social software

As if to prove the continued rise of and fascination with social software tools the BBC has posted a couple of interesting news clips about social networking.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/

Social Networking:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/5391258.stm

Virtual Communities:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/5392906.stm

The article on virtual communities includes an interview with Howard Rheingold - seen by many as the father of social networking. I was particularly taken by the following comment on Weblo:

"This week saw the launch of Weblo, a new concept which aims to provide a carbon copy of the real world by allowing members to buy, manage and trade virtual assets as diverse as celebrities and landmarks, making real money all the while. "

The gap between virtual and real is becoming ever more blurry and the opening up of 'new worlds' within which one can manage an alternative virtual life that hooks into the 'real' in such a fundamental way as money feels like the final step in the collapse of the dichotomy between being online and offline.

Evolving definitions: social software

As [W]web 2.0 has come to represent more of a marketing term than a set of technologies the meaning of social software also seems to be evolving and shifting - one only has to track the additions on wikipedia which are constantly expanding the term.

I have always quite liked:

"Where normal software links to the inner workings of a computer or other network, social software links people to the inner workings of each other’s thoughts feelings and opinions" (Coates and Butterfield, 2002)

... or others might see something in a more recent appraisal of social software from the 'Devil's dictionary' as commented on by Clay Shirky:

"Any arbitrary collection of algorithms, protocols and metadata that allows friendless agoraphobics to pretend otherwise."

One approach to grasping the term is to trace a history of social software, for example see the evolutionary trail that Christopher Allen uncovers starting with a device called a 'memex' conceived in the 1940s.  Yet in many ways one can take simply take the term at face value and perhaps see it not as a hard category but more as zeitgeist - a reflective phrase which merely reflects the current changes in the way that we understand our interactions and connections through the the medium of the Internet. As Tom Coates acknowledges in the subject line of his approach to describing social software ... it is a 'working' definition.