Drawing a blank: I seem to be suffering writer’s cramp this past week or so, maybe due to ongoing work and school requirements sapping my ‘creativity’. I started with a good title, but the content below is rather lacking. I will publish anyway, maybe someone will find a use or maybe my creative juices will flow again. After all, this is just a blog…
Consider this my paper #3 for CCK08. Not my best effort, but I am losing interest. The forums have collapsed, elluminate/ustream sessions attract the same core group of mostly credit learners being spoken at by the course organizers. About the only thing of interest to me now is a few blogs that a dedicated handful are maintaining, plus the wiki project that Roy is starting up at:
http://web2learningtheory.wikispaces.com/
On with the show…
Well, I guess the human race is to be saved by the study of bugs. Whether this study be that regarding actor-network theory (ANT) or the bug variant of D. Snowden, it seems the human race can not but benefit from watching ANTs build a mound, haul food or what have you. Let’s have a look at how this might be done…
Quotes from:
http://www.cognitive-edge.com/ceresources/articles/37_Intranet_as_complex_ecology_final_.pdf
“Ant nests are examples of complex systems”
“Most intranet designers would benefit from reading a book on insect behaviour…”
Comments:
If ant nests are a complex system, then how simple must a simple one be. I see ant nests as rather simple, populated by life forms of insignificant brain power, producing, what, a sand nest for propagation and food consumption?
Well, if the production of intranets is to be founded on insect behaviour, that speaks volumes to me of the value of the intranet.
One last comment:
Human communes and enterprises, founded on behavioural studies including that of insects, reminds me of Walden 2.
November 17, 2008 at 4:44 am |
[...] I read Ailsa‘a contemplation of appreciative and iterative change (inspired by Nancy White) and her discussion of agile development. (Dave Cormier wrote this week about communities and linked to Nancy too.) Rita wrote about groups, networks and collectives and shared news of the ECEL conference in Cyprus. Ariel has been visiting a virtual worlds in education conference and his notes are here. Ken posted this week on analogies and followed up with a second post. [...]
November 19, 2008 at 3:15 am |
small exploratory creatures with a myopic fascination for everything in their path:
In Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory), Latour remarked how the ANT acronym ‘was perfectly fit for a blind, myopic, workaholic, trail-sniffing, and collective traveler’ (the ant) – qualitative hallmarks of actor-network epistemology.