Narratives of coherence: sensemaking and wayfinding in complex information ecologies
George SiemensSeptember 6, 2011
Pretoria, South Africa
Fragmentation of information
Coherence formation challenged by: 1. limits of human cognition2. growth of information quantity
Existing coherence forming systems
BooksNewspapersTV news programsMagazines
(anything that is structured and that the end user can’t speak into and alter)
Information grounds “focuses on people’s information behavior in informal social settings”
Counts and Fisher, 2010
Fragmentation of information requires that we weave together elements into some type of coherent framework
YoutubeBlogsTwitterFacebookTEDtalksKahn AcademyOnline news/information sitesTraditional coherence frameworks
“the rise of millions of fragmented discussions across the world tend instead to lead to fragmentation of audiences into isolated publics”
Habermas 2006
Coherence is an orientation about the meaning and value of information elements based on how they are connected, structured, and related
Antonovsky 1993
Coherence expression(sensegiving)
ArtifactsNarratives
Artifacts of sensemaking
Organizing course content
Dolors Capdet
http://x28newblog.blog.uni-heidelberg.de/2008/09/06/cck08-first-impressions/
Image of course structure created by course participant
Language games
Storytelling
Debate, dialogue
Descriptions
Clarification
Metaphors
Analogies
Examples
Resonance
Narratives of sensemaking
Language/externalization reduces the “occult character” of mental images.
Wittgenstein
Language gives birth to thoughtVygotsky
What is sensemaking?
An effort “to create order and make retrospective sense of what occurs”
Weick 1993
“a motivated, continuous effort to understand connections . . . in order to anticipate their trajectories and act effectively”
Klein et al. 2006
“Sensemaking is about labelling and categorizing to stabilize the streaming of experience”
Weick et al. 2005
Cynefin FrameworkDave Snowden
Domains of Sensemaking
Participatory sensemaking:“the coordination of intentional activity in interaction, whereby individual sense-making processes are affected and new domains of social sense-making can be generated that were not available to each individual on her own”
De Jaegher and Di Paolo 2007
What is wayfinding?
“the process that takes place when people orient themselves and navigate through space”
Raubal and Winter 2002
“is the cognitive element of navigation … it does not involve movement of any kind but only the tactical and strategic parts that guide movement.”
Darken and Peterson 2002
Adapted from:Darken and Peterson (2001).
Sensemaking Wayfinding Information Model
change.mooc.ca (Starts September 12, 2011)
Twitter: gsiemens
www.elearnspace.org/blog
Learning Analytics & Knowledge 2012: Vancouver
http://lak12.sites.olt.ubc.ca/