Ritual performances and collective intelligence: theoretical frameworks for analyising activity patterns in Cloudworks

This paper provides an overview of emerging activity patterns on Cloudworks, a specialised site for sharing and debating ideas as well as resources on teaching, learning and scholarship in education. It provides an overview of activities such as 'flash debates', 'blended workshops' and 'open reviews' and seeks to situate dialogic interchanges and structures of involvement within the following theoretical frameworks: a) Goffman's notions of 'face-work' and 'ritual performance�; and b) and secondly, notions of collective intelligence. The paper argues that these perspectives can offer a unique contribution to the study and analysis of sociality (Bouman et al, 2007) bounded in the context of technologically mediated networked learning, with wider implications for understanding matters of participation, self-representation, reflection and expansion in education

Yhteisöllinen tiedonrakentelu ja verkottunut asiantuntijuus Twitter-palvelussa : Case #okfest

Aims. This qualitative study explored a phenomenon of epistemic communality around a Twitter hashtag. The primary aim of the study was to explore communal epistemic production on the Twitter platform, especially in the context of a mutually shared hashtag. The study explored the peer-production of knowledge and epistemic structures in the context of a specialist domain collaborating in the open Web. The secondary aim was to explore how Twitter functions as a platform for networked expertise and as a public agora for practitioners' expert discourse. This nascent mode of cultural production leads to the development of expert cultures on Twitter and in the open Web. This creates new contexts for informal collaborative learning and cultral production potentially answering some of the competence challenges presented by the 21st century. Methods. The hashtag #okfest was launched for the 'Open Knowledge Festival' conference held in Helsinki, Finland (17–22.9.2012). The participants of the study were open knowledge practitioners who participated in the hashtag discourse of #okfest on Twitter. All public tweets containing the string '#okfest' were collected as data. Tweets were analyzed with qualitative thematic analysis exploring the epistemic contributions either included in the tweets or as hyperlinked attachments. Results and conclusions. The analysis indicated how the hashtag was appropriated to serve as a node of communal knowledge sharing beyond mere reporting from the conference. The analysis observed six themes of communal knowledge building in the hashtag space. The communal epistemic activities in #okfest were likened to the properties of a community of practice (Wenger, 1998). A network of practitioners engaging in a mutual domain creates a dynamic 'social learning system' combining social interaction with the production and dissemination of knowledge. The study yielded a novel theoretical concept of 'expert microblogging', recognized as a significant genre of cultural production in a specialist domain on Twitter and in the open Web. Finally the Twitter platform was ascertained as a site for the manifestation of cultures of networked expertise.Tavoitteet. Tämä laadullinen tutkielma tutki episteemistä yhteisöllisyyttä Twitter-palvelussa hashtag-aihetunnisteen ympärillä. Hashtag #okfest lanseerattiin Helsingissä pidetyn 'Open Knowledge Festival' –konferenssin taustakanavaksi 17–22.9.2012. Tutkielman pääasiallinen tavoite oli tutkia yhteisöllistä tiedonrakentelua Twitter-palvelussa erityisesti hashtagien ympärillä. Tutkimus kohdistui tietyn toimialan tiedolliseen vertaistuotantoon Twitterissä ja avoimessa Internetissä. Laajempi tavoite oli tutkia miten Twitter toimii alustana verkottuneelle asiantuntijuudelle ja julkisten asiantuntijayhteisöjen vuorovaikutukselle. Tämä uusi kulttuurisen tuotannon konteksti mahdollistaa verkottuneiden asiantuntijakulttuurien kehittymisen Twitterissä ja avoimessa Internetissä. Tämä luo uusia tilaisuuksia informaalille yhteisölliselle oppimiselle ja kulttuuriselle tuotannolle mahdollisesti vastaten nykyajan vaativiin osaamishaasteisiin. Menetelmät. Tutkimuksen osallistujat olivat avoimen datan ammattilaisia, jotka osallistuivat Twitterissä #okfest keskusteluun konferenssin aikana. Kaikki julkiset Twitter-viestit #okfest aihetunnisteella kerättiin aineistoksi. Viestejä analysoitiin laadullisella temaattisella analyysillä koskien niiden tiedollisia kontribuutioita joko viestiin sisältyen tai linkitettynä. Tulokset ja johtopäätökset. Tutkimustulokset osoittavat että hashtag-aihetunnisteen ympärille syntyi yhteisöllisen tiedonrakentelun ilmiö, joka oli enemmän kuin pelkkää raportointia tapahtumapaikalta. Analyysissä löytyi kuusi yhteisöllisen tiedonrakentelun teemaa jotka ilmenivät hashtag-tilassa. Yhteisöllinen tiedonrakentelu muistutti käytäntöyhteisöjen teoriaperinteen (Wenger, 1998) vuorovaikutuksen piirteitä. Asiantuntijoiden yhteisöllinen vuorovaikutus synnytti "sosiaalisen oppimisen systeemin" jossa tiedonrakentelu yhdistyi vuorovaikutukseen. Tutkimustuloksista nousi uusi käsitteellistys, asiantuntijoiden alakohtainen tiedollinen tuotanto (eng. expert microblogging). Twitter-alustalle paikantui verkottuneiden asiantuntijakulttuurien kehittyminen avoimessa verkossa

Collective Intelligence for Knowledge Building and Research in Communities of Practice and Virtual Learning Environments: A Project Experience

There is little evidence about how collective intelligence, social networks, and communities of practice work in maternal health projects. In this paper, we discuss the approaches towards collective intelligence in a project by focusing on the virtual and web-based environments communities of practice and social network approach. This paper builds upon a research project IS0907 COST action and focuses on the communities of practice, social media within organization and team projects, and how through these networks and communities collective intelligence is building. Also, the current investigation stands as an example of COST IS0907 team and the relationship built between countries and communities of practice through working groups, manage knowledge transfer, and improve research collaboration and partnerships. This article aims to present the working environment developed to facilitate collective intelligence role in knowledge building and how communities of practice can enrich collaboration, in maternal health project settings, both educational and effective health research and knowledge building

Paradigms in the study of creativity: introducing the perspective of cultural psychology

This article identifies three paradigms in creativity theory and research in psychology. The He-paradigm, focused on the solitary genius, has been followed, mainly after the 1950s, by the I-paradigm, equally individualistic in nature but attributing creativity to each and every individual. Extending this view, the We-paradigm incorporates what became known as the social psychology of creativity. The cultural psychology of creativity builds upon this last theoretical approach while being critical of some of its assumptions. This relatively new perspective, using the conceptual and methodological framework of cultural psychology, investigates the sociocultural roots and dynamics of all our creative acts and employs a tetradic framework of self – community – new artifact – existing artifacts in its conceptualization of creativity. The theoretical basis of the cultural psychology approach is analyzed as well as some of its main implications for both the understanding and study of creativity

From audiences to publics : convergence culture and the Harry Potter phenomenon

In the mid-nineties, changing business and communication models influenced the way in which cultural industries operated. The spheres of public and private, production and distribution, ownership and access had to be reconsidered and were characterised by convergence culture, a commercial and creative environment based on active participation that offers support for creating and sharing interpretations and original works. Convergence culture has relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic participation and fosters a sense of community growing around people’s common interests and ideologies. It is also a product of the relationship between communication technologies, the cultural communities that grow around them, and the activities they support.peer-reviewe

Activity theory: A framework for analysing intercultural academic activity

This article suggests that Activity Theory (AT) can be applied as a holistic framework to analyse the complex sociocultural issues that arise when academics wish to engage in collaborative activity across institutional and cultural boundaries. Attention will initially focus on how Activity Theory, first formulated in the 1930s by Leont’ev (1978), and subsequently developed into a second generation by Engeström (1987), can help to analyse and illuminate the inherent complexity within any one community of practice. A more elaborate model of AT (Engeström, 2001) is currently being developed and applied to analyse and illuminate collaborative activity across institutional boundaries, so as to transform discourse communities into speech communities of practice through expansive learning. It is suggested that this ‘third generation’ model can be further refined to analyse specific contact zones, within and between activity systems, as a precursor to undertaking collaborative activity. It is suggested that, when discourse communities deriving from different culturally diverse traditions seek to work together, such an a priori analysis would enable potential areas for miscommunication and misconstrual to be identified and possibly resolved before collaborative activity actually commences

Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture

Many teens today who use the Internet are actively involved in participatory cultures—joining online communities (Facebook, message boards, game clans), producing creative work in new forms (digital sampling, modding, fan videomaking, fan fiction), working in teams to complete tasks and develop new knowledge (as in Wikipedia), and shaping the flow of media (as in blogging or podcasting). A growing body of scholarship suggests potential benefits of these activities, including opportunities for peer-to-peer learning, development of skills useful in the modern workplace, and a more empowered conception of citizenship. Some argue that young people pick up these key skills and competencies on their own by interacting with popular culture; but the problems of unequal access, lack of media transparency, and the breakdown of traditional forms of socialization and professional training suggest a role for policy and pedagogical intervention.This report aims to shift the conversation about the "digital divide" from questions about access to technology to questions about access to opportunities for involvement in participatory culture and how to provide all young people with the chance to develop the cultural competencies and social skills needed. Fostering these skills, the authors argue, requires a systemic approach to media education; schools, afterschool programs, and parents all have distinctive roles to play.The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learnin

Investigation 7. Instrumental genesis in technology mediated learning : From double stimulation to expansive knowledge practices

The purpose of the present paper is to examine the sociocultural foundations of technology-mediated collaborative learning. Toward that end, we discuss the role of artifacts in knowledge-creating inquiry, relying on the theoretical ideas of Carl Bereiter, Merlin Donald, Pierre Rabardel, Keith Sawyer, and L. S. Vygotsky. We argue that epistemic mediation triggers expanded inquiry and plays a crucial role in knowledge creation; such mediation involves using CSCL technologies to create epistemic artifacts for crystallizing cognitive processes, remediating subsequent activity, and building an evolving body of knowledge. Productive integration of CSCL technologies as instruments of learning and instruction is a developmental process: it requires iterative efforts across extended periods of time. Going through such a process of instrumental genesis requires transforming a cognitive-cultural operating system of activity, thus “reformatting” the brain and the mind. Because of the required profound personal and social transformations, one sees that innovative knowledge-building practices emerge, socially, through extended expansive learning cycles.Peer reviewe