Nov.24, 2008 SIG-Collaborative Learning Communities - Meeting Notes
From ASTDps Wiki
The Collaborative Learning Communities SIG held its second meeting on Monday, November 24.
Members Present: Mike Katagiri, Asma Thorve, Gordon Storey, Preeti Bhat, Mark Miller, and Scott Melanson.
Next Meeting: Wednesday, December 17
The purpose of this meeting was to discuss ways our SIG can help the Puget Sound Chapter more effectively utilize the social networking tools on the Chapter website. Mark gave us a tour of the website, focusing on networking tools, how they have (and have not) been put to use by Chapter members, and what networking needs each tool is designed to meet.
We looked at blogs, wikis, and discussion forums.
We also talked about networking tools outside of our site as well, such as chat rooms and "micro blogs" such as Twitter.
While the group agreed that all of these tools are powerful and have the potential to make our Chapter a much more dynamic and interactive group of professionals, it is clear from the usage history for each tool that even those members who are aware of the tools and what they can do are not yet putting them to their full use. This is despite the fact that in the recent Chapter survey, many people expressed a desire to use the site to communicate and share ideas generally.
We wondered what is preventing members from starting and/or continuing to use the networking tools. One reason, which Mark brought up, was that many people are hesitant to participate in a wiki, which invites participants to actually change a published article or list. Yet another, as Gordon and Scott pointed out, could be a reluctance to "toss" ideas into a public forum (in an wiki, blog, discussion, etc.) without drafting or any kind of formal review; this mey be especially true for those of us who come from an academic background.
Another reason could be that members are already networking using other popular sites such as LinkedIn and FaceBook, making our site redundant in some ways. Asma and Preeti suggested that if members started linking their blogs, etc. to the ASTDps site. Mark would like to see the opposite happen, as well!
Whatever the reason for members' reluctance to use our website to connect with other members, we, as a SIG, have decided to lead by example and dedicate ourselves to blogging, posting to discussion forums, and creating wikis--and to responding to each other. In this way, we can demonstrate to the membership as a whole how ideas can be shared and connections established online.
Mike asked that each of us explain which networking tool we would most likely use, and that we each make a commitment to put each of those tools to use. We all agreed to "walk our talk."
For our next meeting, on December 17, Scott would like to open a discussion that moves beyond the "how" collaborating electronically, into an exploration of why we, as human beings, have an innate need to collaborate and, more specifically, learn collaboratively. Scott firmly believes that if we can tap into the passion people have for working on ideas as communities, then moving collaboration online will be that much easier.
