Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Team Knowledge Development(2): Years ago, a vision, now a free reality. Summary: I praise the free knowledge-making possibilities now available on the web. Some would have said, did, in fact say, that team knowledge development could be strongly advanced by the combination of weblogs and wikis. It's now a free reality.(draft 3/19/07). This will be the first draft.. less subtlety than I'd like. At the very least it's a place-marker for what I consider to be a worthwhile "philosophy, technology and the times" entry. While keeping my original title for the sake of continuity I find "Team Knowledge Development" to be too obscure. The phrase conjures up sports and hi-tech think tanks... that is too small a venue. The possibilities are far huger than that!! Why? Think: do we need more knowledge (def. that which allows you to satisfy basic needs in a constantly changing, always demanding environment)? Yes. Where can it come from: any one of the 6 billion entities that call themselves human. So anything that advances the ability to adjust and adapt and shape for humanity is needed. Sure. No argument, one might say! But, I am also arguing that computers linked via the internet and these free knowledge-making venues , if generally and broadly available and applied, offer us the chance to accelerate the development of useful individual and social behavior. Individual and group and community, for that matter, knowledge construction is becoming accessible to those who access to the internet via the 100 dollar computer, the internet, and, of course, some kick-off training to develop the taste for it (there is always a need) and a starter set of skills. The taste and the starter set may be more of a challenge than the technology. But, once developed, will have I think, HUGE potential repercussions. Take 1 group blog on blogger.com and a wiki from wikispaces or from an inexpensive open-source provider (see, for example, www.siteground.com - 4.95 per month) and you have either a free or very inexpensive group knowledge-making environment. Three years ago it was an operational reality in well-heeled think tanks or online classrooms like Blackboard and Moodle. This was utilization in one --even unrecognized as a "knowledge-making venue" because doing so in the guise of traditional teaching-- of a far broader list of potential individual and social knowledge-making activities. Research as a general knowledge-making activity was by-and-large untouched. This year, while it isn't commonplace, it is possible for all and sundry and has developers and forward-looking venture capitalists recognizing the possibilities. Now we have to create the social processing that allows us to do what the tools now allow. The following is a connectivity weblog entry from early December of 2003. Summary: I illustrate and explain a small group knowledge-making model. I do this in order to distinguish communicative contexts for weblogging. The general weblogging case --well described by Dave Pollard in a recent entry (See also my response and links here)-- is different from the situation in which weblogging is part of an individual or group research (knowledge-making) activity. My sense is that, since new knowledge development requires extensive introspective note taking, research journaling and, often, the testing of successive hypotheses, a wiki is better suited to the process. I've left the external communication role (of more finished pieces of research work) to the weblog. Details below and in notes linked to below. In my above-referenced  entry I noted: …if the issue really is expanding individual and collective knowledge, then the inter-blogger steps are a "surface" process which is an overlay on another, less accessible phenomenon, namely, a group's acquisition of new (at least to its members) and goal-related knowledge. IMHO the explanation of the blogging process in this context would be better served if some explanation of essential knowledge-making actions were folded into, or at least linked to from within, the discussion of sequential blogging behavior. I followed this expressed concern with notetaking concerning the differences between general case blogging and blogging in the context of research/knowledge-making. For my set of notes using Dave Pollard's blogging steps but expressed from the point of view of an individual writing an in-house blog for a working research/knowledge-making group look here. Those notes led to my construction of this entry's diagram which I offer for your consideration and evaluation. It, too, is drawn from the within-research-group perspective.Explanation of the research and publication process follows beneath the diagram. Most research group endeavors have a life cycle--preceding from formation and ending with either a mature knowledge product or a partial version of the planned-for knowledge product, (or, in the extreme worst case, nothing that was intended nor even any unintended side product that has value). The within-group processes I describe below are aimed somewhere in the middle of the life of the research group. At the base of the diagram you will see 5 R-S pairs. Those represent 5 researcher pairings with a research(knowledge-making) "situation". Each has researcher's assignment has two aspects: first is to "getting a good answer" to a research question and second is to make it accessible, via explanation, to other members of the research team. Each researcher's notes, problems, results and explanations are detailed in her/his respective wiki. As part of participating in the research team each researcher comments upon, offer suggestions for, evaluate, etc. , the work of two other team members--via the evaluated member's wiki. Those processes are signified signified by the dashed arrows from each researcher to two other team members' wiki documents (those documents are W1, W2, W3, etc.). Such cross-communication can help to assure that the researcher will be developing her/his findings and explanations in ways that are compatible with the larger knowledge question which all are addressing with their particular research projects. There is one other (the sixth) team member: the Reporter/Coordinator(RC). S/he will also be reading/evaluating the wiki's from the perspective of the larger knowledge-making situation of which the separate researcher situations are each distinct parts. S/he will also be reading from the perspective of an explication of the total product to a public. In the early project stages the research coodinator/reporter documents impresssions of progress in the in-house summary document which is the group wiki (GW). For non-group members summary snippets are issued via the group weblog (GWL); its purpose is to document progress and/or to justify solicitations of material support from a suprasystem or from a granting agency. Informational support might come via weblog comments from collaborating groups in a larger enterprise (e.g., a containing suprasystem) or from the broader public made up of knowledge consumers and competing research enterprises. Any responses from those outside sources will be fed back into the group wiki as a means of challenging/updating within-group work. A last observation: the dashed line surrounding the group is meant to indicate that the boundary is voluntary. All members voluntarily limit their communications to fit within the bounds of the research mission. This self-limitation will occur for some portion of their time as dictated by their interests and the commitment made to the group. In the best of research groups this self-limitation is in fact empowerment. (See my entry about knowledge-making in bounded groups) [Note 1: I have expanded the number of tools used to two: wiki and weblog. When a publication is to show it's edit history and to allow text intrusions ranging from paragraph level editing by multiple editors to page-level comments, I've chosen a wiki. When the document itself is to remain intact but is be accessible to attached commentary and for linking, I've chosen a weblog. It is possible to follow the design using weblogs alone (replace all wikis with weblogs).The wiki, however, affords a far more nuanced set of possibilities.] [Note 2: Larger knowledge-making enterprises could be approached by using the illustrated group design as a module and by adding necessary organizationalinfrastructure and process] [Note 3: If we replace the researcher and group wiki's with in house circulation of a weekly progress update--- on paper, and if we replace the group weblog with newsletter publications and/or journal articles -- again, on paper , then we still have a "plan". How much better off are we , at this level of analysis, because we HAVE inserted Wiki and Weblog?] 11:43:40 AM    Comments [] Team Knowledge Development: Years ago, a vision, now a free reality. Summary: I praise the free knowledge-making possibilities now available on the web. Some would have said, did, in fact say, that team knowledge development could be strongly advanced by the combination of weblogs and wikis. It's now a free reality. This will be the first draft.. less subtlety more like a placemarker. Take a group blog on blogger and a wiki from wikispaces or from an inexpensive open-source provide and you have a low cost/no cost group knowledge-making environment. Three years ago it was an operational reality in well-healed think tanks.. but not that well disseminated. Now, while it isn't commonplace, it is possible for all and sundry. Now we have to create the social processing that allows us to do what the tools now allow. The < a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0106698/2003/12/05.html#a202">following from early December of 2003. Summary: I illustrate and explain a small group knowledge-making model. I do this in order to distinguish communicative contexts for weblogging. The general weblogging case --well described by Dave Pollard in a recent entry (See also my response and links here)-- is different from the situation in which weblogging is part of an individual or group research (knowledge-making) activity. My sense is that, since new knowledge development requires extensive introspective note taking, research journaling and, often, the testing of successive hypotheses, a wiki is better suited to the process. I've left the external communication role (of more finished pieces of research work) to the weblog. Details below and in notes linked to below. In my above-referenced  entry I noted: …if the issue really is expanding individual and collective knowledge, then the inter-blogger steps are a "surface" process which is an overlay on another, less accessible phenomenon, namely, a group's acquisition of new (at least to its members) and goal-related knowledge. IMHO the explanation of the blogging process in this context would be better served if some explanation of essential knowledge-making actions were folded into, or at least linked to from within, the discussion of sequential blogging behavior. I followed this expressed concern with notetaking concerning the differences between general case blogging and blogging in the context of research/knowledge-making. For my set of notes using Dave Pollard's blogging steps but expressed from the point of view of an individual writing an in-house blog for a working research/knowledge-making group look here. Those notes led to my construction of this entry's diagram which I offer for your consideration and evaluation. It, too, is drawn from the within-research-group perspective.Explanation of the research and publication process follows beneath the diagram. Most research group endeavors have a life cycle--preceding from formation and ending with either a mature knowledge product or a partial version of the planned-for knowledge product, (or, in the extreme worst case, nothing that was intended nor even any unintended side product that has value). The within-group processes I describe below are aimed somewhere in the middle of the life of the research group. At the base of the diagram you will see 5 R-S pairs. Those represent 5 researcher pairings with a research(knowledge-making) "situation". Each has researcher's assignment has two aspects: first is to "getting a good answer" to a research question and second is to make it accessible, via explanation, to other members of the research team. Each researcher's notes, problems, results and explanations are detailed in her/his respective wiki. As part of participating in the research team each researcher comments upon, offer suggestions for, evaluate, etc. , the work of two other team members--via the evaluated member's wiki. Those processes are signified signified by the dashed arrows from each researcher to two other team members' wiki documents (those documents are W1, W2, W3, etc.). Such cross-communication can help to assure that the researcher will be developing her/his findings and explanations in ways that are compatible with the larger knowledge question which all are addressing with their particular research projects. There is one other (the sixth) team member: the Reporter/Coordinator(RC). S/he will also be reading/evaluating the wiki's from the perspective of the larger knowledge-making situation of which the separate researcher situations are each distinct parts. S/he will also be reading from the perspective of an explication of the total product to a public. In the early project stages the research coodinator/reporter documents impresssions of progress in the in-house summary document which is the group wiki (GW). For non-group members summary snippets are issued via the group weblog (GWL); its purpose is to document progress and/or to justify solicitations of material support from a suprasystem or from a granting agency. Informational support might come via weblog comments from collaborating groups in a larger enterprise (e.g., a containing suprasystem) or from the broader public made up of knowledge consumers and competing research enterprises. Any responses from those outside sources will be fed back into the group wiki as a means of challenging/updating within-group work. A last observation: the dashed line surrounding the group is meant to indicate that the boundary is voluntary. All members voluntarily limit their communications to fit within the bounds of the research mission. This self-limitation will occur for some portion of their time as dictated by their interests and the commitment made to the group. In the best of research groups this self-limitation is in fact empowerment. (See my entry about knowledge-making in bounded groups) [Note 1: I have expanded the number of tools used to two: wiki and weblog. When a publication is to show it's edit history and to allow text intrusions ranging from paragraph level editing by multiple editors to page-level comments, I've chosen a wiki. When the document itself is to remain intact but is be accessible to attached commentary and for linking, I've chosen a weblog. It is possible to follow the design using weblogs alone (replace all wikis with weblogs).The wiki, however, affords a far more nuanced set of possibilities.] [Note 2: Larger knowledge-making enterprises could be approached by using the illustrated group design as a module and by adding necessary organizationalinfrastructure and process] [Note 3: If we replace the researcher and group wiki's with in house circulation of a weekly progress update--- on paper, and if we replace the group weblog with newsletter publications and/or journal articles -- again, on paper , then we still have a "plan". How much better off are we , at this level of analysis, because we HAVE inserted Wiki and Weblog?] 11:29:54 AM    Comments []

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