ISBN-13: 978-0262133265

I think for fields that involve thinking, the on-line community can provide mentorship at least and possibly apprenticeship. It’s certainly worked for me. Without CompuServe and all of it’s descendants, there is no way I would be a programmer today.

I think the mentor/apprentice model falls apart a bit once you get into the physical arts. I’m learning to spin wool. I read everything I could on-line, joined discussion forums, you name it and I tried it. It was not until I sat in a room of spinners and had them physically move my hands into the right positions that I began to actually spin yarn.

I think in the physical arts, one might be able to use the web as a way to maintain contact with others and combine this with periodic face-to-face sessions to resolve technical issues, learn new techniques, or just see how people do the day-to-day grunt work of their profession.

This may become less of an issue as more people are connected to higher bandwidth pipes with real time high def audio/video. In those cases, dispersed groups could ‘meet’, talk (not chat), and show (via video) techniques. Maybe.

Have you thought about virtual communities, ala Second Life, as a model? Alan Lepofsky of IBM had an interesting ‘meeting’ with people he stumbled across at the SL IBM building. http://www.alanlepofsky.net/alepofsky/alanblog.nsf

Good stuff all.

Doug

It’s not aimed as master-level learning, since it’s aimed at highschool and lower levels.

An observation that equally applies to Jim Russell. Which is why I think we are fellow travelers.

“I suspect you at least sense a connection, but you don’t let the audience in on the thread that ties all your examples together.”

Good point. I know that all this stuff is connected, but I’m not yet able to show clearly how and why that’s so.

“You and the audience were struggling to find some common ground”

Yep. It was a friendly and enjoyable struggle though!

“I think you could give one talk on information barter in an online environment. And you could give another talk on types of knowledge exchange in an online environment.”

I think I need to leave the former to the experts, and focus on the latter where I actually am some kind of expert.

I didn’t hear you cover the last few slides concerning Benkler and his book. I was looking forward to that part of your presentation and I suggest that you start your talk with whatever Benkler concepts resonate with your ideas. I couldn’t pick out the framework you used to organize your story and perhaps Benkler could be of some help in that regard.

I understand apprenticeship as a means to reproduce expertise, a long and involved process of knowledge transfer. I think your example of mastering software programming in an online environment is a good example of a novel form of apprenticeship. However, most of your examples I would categorize as enabling amateurs, not reproducing expertise. The relationship with the mentor is less intense and time-consuming. To tie in another part of your presentation, enabling amateurs is all about reducing the amount of tacit knowledge you need to transfer. An apprenticeship is about ensuring the exchange of as much tacit knowledge as possible (and thus the importance of transparency).

The audience engaged you in a discussion about the economics of barter. I wish I could have understood more of the questions, but I enjoyed the exchange. How do the economic experts enable you, the economic amateur? Talking across different areas of expertise is notoriously difficult. You and the audience were struggling to find some common ground. I think we need to consider various strategies that might best enhance the necessary exchange. I also think that a number of the examples you provide are the kind of best practices we might be seeking.

I heard at least two distinct talks. I think you could give one talk on information barter in an online environment. And you could give another talk on types of knowledge exchange in an online environment.

All of that said, there’s also the idea of discipline, and it may be that we’re spoiling people by leading them to expect that every instance of what my old German prof called “sitzen und schwitzen” (sit and sweat) will be wrapped within a compelling narrative with lots of eye candy and level-ups. But now I’m playing devil’s advocate with myself. I know that intrinsic motivation can be communicated by a compelling narrative, and while I may not end up choosing the discipline of the tailor or the window-leader, I will at least have a vivid idea of what it feels like to choose that discipline, and why one might want to.

It wasn’t recorded but there’s one similar to it here:

http://www.si.umich.edu/stiet/researchseminar/Fall%202006/Udell.html

For web people, if you can find a clever geek with lots of patience, you can
help them with donkey work (documentation? etc) whilst picking their brains,
just as the butchers and bakers apprenticals used to do.

Patient masters are the hard part, not willing apprentices!

Nice thoughts Jon.
Is your Cambs presentation available please?
I would be very interested.

regards DaveP

If we imagine a person initially enters a forum or mailing list, etc to solve a problem with a school project or a hobby, perhaps to get a recommendation on where to find an online video of x, the result is different than say checking a video out of a library.

That’s because since many of these communities are full service operations, they involve both the exchange of both technical knowledge (how to tailor a jacket) and social knowledge (how nice it is to tailor a jacket on a Sunday morning with your music playing and the sun streaming in).

Of course it may be argued that most students just raid these communities for the info they need, and never stay around to talk or listen, but at least at the high school level maybe that’s something the system could get better at encouraging.