I don’t really remember how I got there, but I ended up at memepool, the brainchild of del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter and Jeff Smith. Posted on January 5th, 2006, was an entry which read:

The popularity of 50 Cent has given rise to spin-offs that range from Jewish Hip-Hop to 80s Pop mixups.

Hey, I’m always on the look out for more quality Jewish Hip Hop, so I followed the link to the website of Aviad Cohen, aka 50 Shekel (the shekel is the standard of currency in Israel, hence the connection to 50 Cent). His splash page looked earnestly Jewish, almost too much so. Clicking on the enter site link, it became quite obvious that Aviad-Cohen-50-Shekel is a Jew for Jesus. I don’t really want to get into a discussion on Jewish identity, and I have a fairly liberal perspective, but I have a distrust of proselytizing ministers who claim to have a direct mandate from God (and, by the way, ask for prayers and money to support his mission and to buy, among other things, a video iPod).

It seems very likely that pjammer didn’t even follow the “enter site” link. The photo of Aviad in a “Jesus/King of Kings” graphic tee or the link to Jesus-Is-Savior (”get schooled quick”) would have sent up a few red flags to even the most unknowledgeable goy.

To get on track with the underlying moral (as looking back at my writing, many of my posts have at least one), it seems that memepool is concerned with getting “memes” out, linking out to, being linked to. This is what I’d attribute to the Google Effect — with its relevence-based search ranking, using measures of link and traffic intensity — and it has had a measurable influence on the blogosphere (check out Francine’s 4 months of blogging… for a very nicely written and honest retrospective of blogging as a practice tightly intertwined with the ego).

What are memes, these things with which memepool is so concerned? A meme is defined by Wiktionary as, “a unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.” I had mentioned memes earlier in passing, without really delving much deeper. Jason Godesky of the Anthropik Network describes memetics with an example that just makes sense:

The term was first introduced by Richard Dawkins in his 1978 classic, The Selfish Gene, where Dawkins ended with a discussion of humanity’s ability to adapt culturally. Cultural adaptation works many times faster than biological adaptation; a man can sew a sweater in far less time than it will take natural selection to make his great-great-grandchildren hairier. This cultural adaptation has given humanity an adaptiveness and evolutionary fitness rivaled in the animal kingdom only by cockroaches.

So we pass on memes because culture is adaptable in a more efficient and far-flung manner than biology (unless you’re a fruitfly). Most of the time, these memes are passed either laterally or down the generations tacitly through modeling. Unless one stops and thinks about it, the average person really doesn’t have a cogent reason for wearing sweaters in the winter (at least, we in New England wear sweaters in the winter — for now). Other memes are spread intentionally and explicitly, like those on memepool. While I have no evidence to back this up, it seems that the more explicit the meme in a time of relative stability, i.e., when adaptation doesn’t need to occur, the less likely the meme has to do with survival. Following this thought through, the explicit transmission of “junk memes” leads to an apparent trivialization of cultural adaptation.

If we consider the analogue of junk memes in DNA, junk genes mean that scientists don’t know what they do. The same could be said, really, for these junk memes.

For 2006’s World Question Center, The Edge posed, “What is your dangerous idea?” This question elicited some interesting responses, but the two I was drawn to the most were listed on pages 7 and 8. Harvard’s Daniel Gilbert wrote:

Dangerous does not mean exciting or bold. It means likely to cause great harm. The most dangerous idea is the only dangerous idea: The idea that ideas can be dangerous.

Similarly, physicist and computer scientist W. Daniel Hillis wrote,

I don’t share my most dangerous ideas. Ideas are the most powerful forces that we can unleash upon the world, and they should not be let loose without careful consideration of their consequences. Some ideas are dangerous because they are false, like an idea that one race of humans is more worthy that another, or that one religion has monopoly on the truth. False ideas like these spread like wildfire, and have caused immeasurable harm. They still do. Such false ideas should obviously not be spread or encouraged, but there are also plenty of trues idea that should not be spread: ideas about how to cause terror and pain and chaos, ideas of how to better convince people of things that are not true.

Incompletely and inaccurately labeling 50 Shekel as Jewish — rather than as a Jew for Jesus — probably isn’t going to start a war, cause widespread suffering, or the like; however, a seemingly innocuous meme has the potential to be dangerous in some yet unknown way. The danger will probably only be apparent in retrospect. So, in conclusion, isn’t it important to be mindful of the information and memes we explicitly pass on, and aware of its’ potential to bring about good as well as its’ potential to be dangerous?

If we aren’t mindful of this binary potentiality as memetic receivers and transmitters, as learners and teachers, someone else probably already is, and is willing to use this awareness not for the survival of the many, but for the benefit of the few.

What is “object centred sociality?” Why do you guys invent word combinations like this? It gives you a kick? A literate feeling? Makes you more knowledgeable? Excludes others? What is it? Why cant you academics and pretenders just S I M P L I F Y!!!???!!! People like you and the others who subscribe to such stuff are responsible for the elitism we see everywhere. Knowledge held captive by groups of people who just cant [sic] explain or let go before charging rent or fees.

Once I got over the personal nature of the comment (”academic” hurt, dude, it hurt), I realized that there are two issues at play here: the use of “jargon” and the nature of snap judgements.

In my “verbal” life — as opposed to my “written” one (I’ve come to realize that this blog provides me with an intellectual outlet that is difficult to obtain without going back to graduate school) — I poke fun of eduspeak and jargon almost as much as the next person (for some laughs, visit the Education Jargon Generator). To be more accurate, I’m no big fan of buzzwords; at least jargon has a definition buried in the Free Dictionary which reads, “The specialized or technical language of a trade, profession, or similar group” (granted, it is 3 of 4). In interactions, there is often an unavoidable need for technical terminology which allow us to draw boundaries within complexity and to describe concepts and ideas. If Anymouse read the entire series of postings and tracked back through the links (which I am assuming Anymouse did not), Anymouse would have garnered, I hope, a fairly full understanding of object-centered sociality. If you consider this “rent or fees,” Anymouse, I am happy to accept payment in full. Which segues into….

….The second issue, that of impatience in the learning process and making snap judgements on little information. Adrian Savage writes a nicely crafted critique of quick thinking. He describes to a simple experiment designed by Guy Claxton which,

…proved rapid thinking prevented people [from] reaching the correct conclusions. Even when forced to wait before giving an answer, those who still got it wrong were found to have used the extra time thinking about unrelated matters. They relied on their immediate conclusion and saw no need to waste more time questioning it. Those who used to time to realize the correct answer, didn’t spend more effort on the problem itself either. But by thinking about the nature of the problem and what its purpose was, they realized they had underestimated its complexity and so to reevaluate their answer.

Some issues, ideas, concepts, thoughts are complex and necessitate deep and thorough thinking. The issues surrounding the use and nature of Wikipedia is one such topic. It cannot — should not — be distilled so far down that it can be groked at a glance.

So as I end this post, I actually feel better about the work I am doing here at Smelly Knowledge. I am fulfilling the stated mission of this blog, to advocate for the idea that,

…the “getting of knowledge,” the quest for understanding, and the formation of learning communities and communities of practice, should be “smelly”: complex, difficult at times, deep, and meaningful.

Sometimes it takes criticism to be reminded of such things. And to Anymouse, I ask that rather than closing off an opportunity for dialogue, let’s continue. I think we have much to learn about the world from each other if we are only open to it. My e-mail address is jfprice924@gmail.com.

• Artichoke posted a response positing, “‘What does it do?’ takes precedence… over what it might mean.”
• Stephan Downes writes, “…I read the value of Wikipedia differently…. Wikipedia’s article selection also varies – while editors and reviewers ensure objectivity, they also narrow the bounds of what is considered [relevant]. Wikipedia carrie[s] no such constraint.” Point well taken. Also informative and well taken is the comment left by an anonymous visitor.
• Albert Ip wrote a very thoughtful and thorough analysis that is more a synthesis of his thinking on the issue of Wikipedia as a source of information.

Also worth reading, in my opinion, is a post I found after posting at Penny Arcade.

I’ve noticed a disconnect between my intentions and my writing before, in which I get caught up in exploring the nature of what I write about, appending the “what to do about it” as almost an afterthought. It may be a reflection of who I am and what interests me, but I was kind of hoping that the instructional implications nestled in there — considering discussions and edit histories when reading Wikipedia articles — would generate more discussion. It’s a good reminder of the law of unintended consequences….

How much respect can you have for something you refuse to criticize?

Often in the blogosphere it seems that new ideas and practices are touted, celebrated, embraced, and sometimes even followed with a very short — or even non-existent — period of reflection and criticism. Peter Ford refers to this phenomenon as the “edu-blogging echo chamber.” To critique something, when done without malicious intent, is a call for an extended dialogue; it seems like that can only help bring about that open exchange of ideas in order to better the world at large.

The fallacy is to think that social networks are just made up of people. They’re not; social networks consist of people who are connected by a shared object.

Providing learners with the proper tools is extremely important; learners just need something sustainable to talk about. It’s like the idea of an attractor in a dynamic system.

Umberto Eco, in his book Kant and the Platypus, has a wonderful way of thinking about the objects upon which communities can be centered. Referring to them as “Dynamical Objects,” he writes,

To use an expression that is efficacious albeit not very philosophical, the Dynamical Object is Something-that-sets-to-kicking-us and says “Talk!” to us — or “Talk about me!” or again, “Take me into consideration!”

Echoing the sentiments of many of those who have written on this same topic — as Eco’s idea of the Dynamical Object infers — the “objects” that trigger this dialogue or serve to organize communities are not necessarily physical; objects can be practices as well. Flickr, a social photo-sharing site, is an extremely successful and popular online community. Is Flickr centered around the photographs themselves, around the practice of photography, or around people sharing their world as captured in photographs? Well, probably all three, depending on the particular community in the flickrverse.

What does this mean for educators, teachers, and instructional designers? Find out what gets your students going, what sets-to-kicking-them, and develop activities around those Dynamical Objects. Although it’s really difficult — but not impossible — given the current educational terrain, allow them the space and the time to organize around these objects and form communities where deep and meaningful dialogue can take place. Encourage the further synthesis of Dynamical Objects by these student communities of practice, and be on hand to help out, offer advice, point out further connections, and raise plenty of questions to keep them going.

You just might be suprised at what emerges….

Apparently, I’m not. I found this wonderful podcast, The Myth of Multi-Tasking. Merlin Mann of 43Folders posits that when one says they are multitasking, they are really just slicing their attention into smaller and smaller chunks. It is well worth listening to the podcast (it is on the short side), he talks about the self-perceived ability to multitask:

We’ve really been habituated over the years to thinking of ourselves, we should basically be these parallel processing computers and our conscience mind should be able to be in ten places at once….

There is alot of pressure to “multitask.” I’ve even been described by a former supervisor as a good multitasker. But I still feel quite overwhelmed, so Merlin’s podcast really speaks to me.

So is there any scientific basis behind Merlin’s astute observations? As a matter of fact, there is. I did a little digging and found the report Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Provides New Constraints on Theories of the Psychological Refractory Period associated with an American Psychological Society’s press release entitled We Weren’t Made to Multitask. It turns out that Merlin’s observations are actually validated by fMRI studies; as a person moves back-and-forth between tasks in a “multitasking” environment, they are “passive-queuing” the unfocused tasks rather than “active-monitoring.” The authors further discovered,

…no increase in the sort of activity that would be involved in keeping two thought processes separate when subjects had to switch faster. This suggests that there are no complicated mechanisms that allow people to perform two tasks at once. Instead, we have to perform the next task only after the last one is finished.

Could it be that even slicing our attention into tiny little slices could be detrimental to the task at hand? Likely, as the more we switch, the more we passively queue — rather than actively — engage with the task. This, I believe, has an impact as to how we approach learning and teaching, as we look for ways to encourage active learning.

But for us as people, Merlin gently reminds us,

…once you realize you can only ever do one thing at a time, an amazing thing happens. You discover that all this anxiety that has been acting as a spackle in your brain to turn all of your tasks into one ginormous task, the anxiety goes away. Suddenly, the tasks break down back into the single activities that they really are. And your brain spends more time on creative efforts instead of generating more anxiety for that monster in your head. And that can be really powerful.

George Siemens of the Connectivismtivism blog — almost always thought provoking — just posted an item entitled “The Joys of Shallow Thinking….” The idea behind this post is to move the skills of, as one commenter puts it, “scanning and gisting” into a primary position in the learning sphere. Will Richardson, who seems to have an overall positive view of “shallow thinking,” writes,

I’ve started to feel guilty about the way I read these days. My wife gives me grief because I don’t spend as much time with books as I used to. And in some ways I miss that.

The Knowledging across life’s curriculum blog refers to a techno-determinism aspect of connectivism. I would agree with this analysis; posts proclaiming the joys of shallowness of thought would seem to support this. To remind us all that the Internet may not be ushering an age of new ways of interacting, communicating, and doing things, “…only about 10 percent connectivisme on the planet are familiar with the Internet and what it can do,” according to Taking the Internet to the People by Tony Salvador and John Sherry, two ethnographers for Intel. These two scientists describe stories people in developing countries when introduced the Internet solving immediate and necessary problems, often for their personal and economic well-being. They do not have the luxury — or the need — of scanning and gisting. They are not participating in shallow thinking; they are deeply, fully immersed, learning and doing for their own benefit, the benefit of their family, or of their community.

Instead of designing instruction (which we assume will lead to learning), we should be focusing on designing ecologies in which learners can forage for knowledge, information, and derive meaning. [...] An ecology is dynamic, rich, and continually evolving. The entire system reacts to changes – internal or external. An ecology gives the learner control – allowing her to acquire and explore areas based on self-selected objectives. The designer of the ecology may still include learning objectives, but they will be implicit rather than explicit.

Once again, I find it hard to disagree in theory with the sentiment. I wonder if “designing” a learning ecology, however, is the proper term. John Seely Brown, who I would give credit for coming up with the term and concept in a learning context, similarly discusses ecologies in terms of design.

It seems that ecologies, learning or otherwise, exist whether or not educators design them. The idea of “designing” an ecology, to me, seems like it still imbues educators with power — not necessarily the same kind of obviously explicit power inherent in a didactic classroom setting (at least to astute obsevers), yet magistral nonetheless. In some ways, the very subtle and nuanced power structure in a “designed” ecology may be more dangerous.

If, as educators, we are to start thinking about learning ecologies, it seems that the role we assume should be to recognize and participate in these ecologies and act as attractors, borrowing from dynamic systems lingo. Rather than “design,” educators should be up to the task of fostering and encouraging connections and especially recognizing the possibility of new possibilities as the process unfolds.

Another potential pitfalls of a “designed” ecology, and this is a perspective I have adopted just after reading Education and Event: Thinking Radical Pedagogy in the Era of Standardization by Daniel Cho and Tyson Lewis, is that there is a danger of expecting “truth” (whatever that means) to be contained within the system. They argue, successfully in my mind, that educators and learners should agree to together seek out “truth” in the world, thereby transforming it. A “designed” learning ecology could be seen as a “Practice Field” while a fully participatory learning ecology with educators as attractors could be seen as a “Community of Practice” (the Practice Field/Community of Practice distincition I hope to discuss in a future post).

Perhaps this whole semantic and wholly academic argument is based on the fact that as an American I’m touchy about the intersection of “design” and “ecologies” because of our national intelligent design debate….

If it’s to last, then the getting of knowledge should be, uh, tangible, it should be… smelly.
- Rupert Giles, “I Robot… You Jane,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I’ve always had a soft spot for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As I recently mentioned to someone, if Buffy’s not about human nature, I don’t know what is. I further truly believe that we in the field of education can learn much from this (syndicated) fantastical examination of the psyche.

Through the postings, I will be exploring learning and the processes of education. I tend to be rather reflective and philosophical, while keeping a grip on reality — a delicate dance that I feel is worth undertaking. I further believe, like Giles, that the “getting of knowledge,” the learning process, should be “smelly.” The comfort zones of learners should be challenged a bit, and the process should be fueled by dialogue — which is open by nature — and not necessarily by content — which tends to be closed. That is not to say, of course, that content, or rather a common framework for discussion, is not important.

And with this, I begin.