Article in NY Times on Facebook’s new Graph Search tool. Since it sort of creates “connections” between people…it might be a tool that undergirds some of the “structure” of a SLC.
I suppose the core concept is that people generate data points as they live their lives, and these can be amassed, stored, and analyzed. Part of what people do is connect with other people, and those connections are themselves part of a data structure. So far so good, but after that it gets a bit speculative.
We are familiar with some of the various kinds of structures that, when data is input, can reveal a meaningful relationship. The NSA is discerning and creating those relationships in just this sort of “big data” way.
Similarly, those seeking to create a structure of collaborative and supportive learning, using newly derived and”revealed” connections, are in the same discipline… even if the class size is relatively small… if they are plugged into the cloud.
What comes first, the structure, upon which we hang data points to derive meaning.. or the data points, which reveal a structure that creates meaning? Or is that a chicken/egg question?
Where’s Marshall McLuhan when we need him?….to try to explain what is after all a sort of feedback loop with strong elements of reflexivity, like most media. And perhaps a new kind of way to “connect” brains… in this case, one that we hope to develop for learning purposes, and to help form a quality SLC.
What would be the most appropriate way to define this discipline? It seems to create kinds of intelligence that might not have existed before, or that only a few people knew how to intuit and use……one that might turn out to be a core of the effective learning construct, or workplace construct, of the future.
There’s also that aspect of the alien at play here, as often is the case with the new that disrupts our previous comfort with our environment. How well are we going to understand the connections that algorithms make? Can we adapt to a world where the computer makes connections and offers us choices that we don’t know how they were derived?
If Siri says the best way to meet a soft-skill challenge is with a particular choice, will we agree? If the algorithm seems to suggest a certain way to “play or work” collaboratively, will that be best for humans in reality? How can we know what the computers might be guiding us toward becoming?
Well, it’s not as if we are starting from a utopia that we are putting at risk. Life is risk, si?