[Xmca-l] Re: "Scaling up" and "Big ideas"

[Rafi Santo]

Engestrom's idea of "wildfire" activities seems like it might be relevant
to this discussion of "anti-scale", viral and/or federated models. Wildfire
activities are explicitly messy and locally contextualized, similar to peer
production/open source, characterized by "expansive swarming" around
practices/ideas, but do have a logic to them, if semi-linear, in terms of
advancing practice and knowledge.

http://www.helsinki.fi/cradle/documents/Engestrom%20Publ/Wildfire%20activities%20paper.pdf

On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 6:22 PM, Greg Mcverry <jgregmcverry@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Greg,
>
> I borrow heavily from the software development field that has been
> influencing my thinking on providing open access education.
>
> Most specifically are Mozilla's efforts to teach the web. We have a goal of
> 1,500 volunteers in 500 cities running Mozilla Web Clubs to help the next
> billion get online.
>
> This effort is especially focused on the developing world that is going
> mobile first.
>
> As a community we have been trying to establish a set of competencies and
> skills <http://webliteracy.tumblr.com/>, develop curriculum
> <https://mozilla.github.io/webmaker-curriculum/WebLiteracyBasics-I/>,
> build
> a club system <http://michellethorne.cc/2015/03/clubs-whats-next/>and a
> badging platform.
>
> So I use the term federated instead of viral on purpose. Viral is more the
> user sharing content and we are shaping content for the user to fork and
> adapt.
>
> On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 5:37 PM Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Greg,
> > I like this idea of "federated development" but am also fond of "viral
> > development". The latter has the advantage of feeling more "organic"
> > ("federation" has connotations of "bureaucracy" to me - e.g. Star Wars),
> > but on the other hand, "viral" is not exactly a catchy (!) concept in
> > positive terms (e.g., computer viruses, cold viruses...).
> > -greg
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 3:18 PM, Greg Mcverry <jgregmcverry@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > This is common in the US as well. Especially in border states with
> > Mexico.
> > > Recently  a wave of unaccompanied minors (5 and 6 years old) trying to
> > > immigrate without parents by traveling 1,000 of miles.
> > >
> > > There is some recent research in the literacy community around
> > > transnational literacies but in terms of activism you have DREAM
> > advocates
> > > and not enough....
> > >
> > > The same event sparked a wave of xenophobia that ended immigration
> reform
> > > in US.
> > >
> > > In terms of the original post fidelity and scale have always been the
> > > impossible dream of outcome based research.
> > >
> > > The same is true of education reform and development in general.
> > >
> > > Instead of fidelity I think we should try for federated development.
> > Have a
> > > shared goal but allow for the plan to be forked and localized.
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> > Assistant Professor
> > Department of Anthropology
> > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> > Brigham Young University
> > Provo, UT 84602
> > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
> >
>



-- 

Rafi Santo
Project Lead
Hive Research Lab
hiveresearchlab.org
A project of Indiana University and New York University

Indiana University - Learning Sciences