Headshift points to Ton who talks about Lurkers as potential bridges in social networks:
"The most obvious characteristic of a lurker is that he's at the fringe of a group, listening and observing. Being at the fringe may seem like a bad place from the core, but in fact is a good position to build bridges to other groups, and be aware of other groups in the vicinity. In a face to face setting like a pub or a meeting of some kind, a lurker is visible, often shortly introduced after which the focus of attention shifts to the established group members again."
Which got me thinking, especially as I've just penned a plan using email which attempts to explain that in learning through email groups lurking isn't such a bad thing. Guess what's working through my mind is the possibility that not only is it not a bad thing because of the active personal interaction with the emails flying about and exposure / observation of discussion but that, in fact, learners who aren't so engaged in that discussion may also be so because they are coming from a different 'angle' and that angle can be enable the formation of other learning networks... well, if that learner has a blog which they keep I guess it can...
1:49:42 PM 
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