I have something on my chest I want to share with this list.
It is about a tendency I have noticed within me in connection to this
list, in particular the way I browse through the messages. I am skipping a
lot of it. It feels for me more and more as if I have read before most of
the stuff that comes up; the words may have changed but the topics and
content remain more or less the same. Am I mistaken?
I also notice that I have less and less to contribute to most of the
ongoing discussions, because I feel that I only would repeat myself too.
And what would be the point of that if everything already can de dug up
from the LO archive? I also want to avoid that I become a teacher instead
of a learner.
What might cause this, I wonder.
Since a couple of months the LO-list digest doesn't appear on a daily
bases in my mailbox. I know this is something we agreed on after
discussing it. But I can't help to think that since then things started
to change. Now after a couple of months I am not sure anymore that it was
a good decision. Take for instance the amount of active contributors. It
seems as if the amount of active contributors is becoming less and less
and there is a lot less exchange with 'newbies' and if there is an
exchange it is often among some 'stayers', who have been part of this list
for more than two years. I myself subscribed back in february 1996. If I
-directly from my memory- 'score' the names that frequently pop up then it
is:
At De Lange,
Winfried Dressler,
ACampona
Jan Lelie
Leo Minnigh,
Eugene Taurman
Gavin Ritz
Robert Bacall
What happened to Isaac Williams? Ben Compton? Art Kleiner? Steve Eskow?
Scott Simmermann?
How come most students only appear to ask for help with their
dissertations or papers and than seem to vanish?
I know this list has grown over the years, so there must be a couple of
hundred lurkers here (no offense!). Does none of them has something
valuable to contribute or are they scared off by the sky high levels of
often rather theoretical and abstract content. I remember in school that I
only dared to raise questions during classes if the content was appealing
to me. If the topic was way above my head or if the teacher was very sure
about his insights, what was there to ask??? Where is the learning??
On the ITFORUM I found the following text that might be a possibillity to
make more people particpate in this list and at the same time stay
focussed on not too many subjects. The text below is snipped from a paper
by Marie Jasinski and Dr Sivasailam "Thiagi" Thiagarajan. Email:
thiagi@thiagi.com Web site: http://www.thiagi.com
-----------
....... e-mail games can be used for encouraging participation in a
variety of benchmarking and idea-sharing activities. For example, most of
our games have been played in a professional development context in the
LearnScope Virtual Learning Community at
http://www.learnscope.anta.gov.au. LearnScope is an Australian national
professional development program aimed to encourage teachers and trainers
in the vocational education and training sector to utilise online
technologies to achieve more flexible learning. Games have also been
played with members of the American Society for Training and Development
and the North American Simulation and Gaming Association.
Here is an example of an e-mail game we have played with these groups.
Game 1: Depolarizer
Depolarizer is a role play game using e-mail and a bulletin board. An
open-ended question is posed; for example, Do lurkers learn? Through a
six round series lasting about a week, players explore this issue from
both a personal perspective and also from a designated role. Depolarizer
is based on the philosophy that many issues that we treat as problems to
be solved are actually polarities to be managed. The game begins by
having players think about their opinions regarding a selected polarizing
issue (in this case, whether lurkers do learn). By informing the players
about the range of positions, we increase their awareness of the spread of
opinions around the issue. By having players randomly role-play extremes,
we encourage them to think about different points of view. By reviewing
extremely polarized comments, we help players make more informed
decisions. The game seems to encourage players at extremes to get closer
to the average. We may not change anyone's opinion, but we increase their
level of awareness about alternative points of view by playing the
Depolarizer game.
Is this something to consider for the LO-list?
-- Mr. Winfried M. Deijmann - Zutphen - The Netherlands Artist, Consultant and Facilitator for Organizational Learning, Leadership and Action Learning Events <deijmann@dialoog.net> Phone + Fax: +31-(0)575-522076 personal websites: international: <http://dialoog.net/deijmann> Dutch:<http://dialoog.net/deijmann/pinforma.html>Corporate website: HORIZONGROEP - BUNNIK - HOLLAND: <http://www.horizongroep.nl> corporate email: <deijmann@horizongroep.nl>
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