Pioneering alternate forms of collaboration: Technologies that support and sideline #rhizomatic learning

Pioneering alternate forms of
collaboration: Technologies
that support and sideline
#rhizomatic learning
Presented by:
Jeffrey M. Keefer
(@jeffreykeefer)
Rebecca J. Hogue
(@rjhogue)
@jeffreykeefer @rjhogue

Purpose
This exploratory study will explore the ways various subgroups of the
#rhizo14 & #rhizo15 communities gathered and collaborated across
countries, continents, cultures, and institutions to brainstorm and
develop research.

@rjhogue
@jeffreykeefer
#rhizo15

Scope of Study
The study began with an attempt at mapping of collaborations between
each of the authors.
Collaborative technologies (e.g., Google Docs, Google Hangouts, Email,
and Twitter) were then used to further explore the technologies that
enabled or disabled our collaborations.
Not all attempts at using technologies were successful = Dissonance!
This collaboration itself became a collaborative lens included in the
study.

Collaboration Matrix
Collaboration Name/Person Name Rebecca Maha Keith AK Jeffrey Ron Len
Paper (WIP): Writing as a swarm: How Google Docs are enabling
new forms of collaborative writing Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Paper: What Is It Like to Learn and Participate in Rhizomatic
MOOCs? A Collaborative Autoethnography of #rhizo14 Sent for review Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes
How the Community Became More Than the Curriculum: Participant
Experiences in #rhizo14 Sent for review Yes Yes No No No No No
Paper (Hybrid Pedagogy): Writing the Unreadable Untext: a
Collaborative Autoethnography of #rhizo14 Published Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No
Conference Presentation (#et4online): #rhizo14 Collaborative
Autoethnography - challenges and joyes of unwriting the untext Presented Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No
Conference Presentation (Alt-C): A herd of freely associating,
autonomous cats: how a Facebook group helped turn a bunch of
cMOOC participants into a learning community Accepted Yes Yes No No No No Yes
Conference Presentation (WIP - SMSociety): Emerging Technologies
that drive online collaboration Presented Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Conference Presentation (WIP - dLRN): Pioneering alternate forms
of collaboration: Technologies that support and sideline #rhizomatic
learning Accepted Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
interview with Dave Cormier for JPD (published) Published No Yes No No No No No

Google Docs
Our current work-in-progress focuses on Google Docs, which is a central
component in our academic collaborations

Methodology
Actor-Network Theory (ANT) is a research strategy that treats
everything in the natural and social world as continuously generated
effects of the networked connections in which they exist.
ANT is useful to examine the multiplicity of ties within networks and
attempt to make sense of the “difficult ambivalences, messy objects,
multiple overlapping worlds and apparent contradictions that are
embedded in so many educational issues” (Fenwick and Edwards, 2010).
We use ANT to dissect and describing how different technologies
influenced our collaborations and our community.

Story of a Google Doc
– A Semi-Fictional Narrative
1. AK writes a blog post that speaks to Rebecca.
2. On her Mac, Rebecca creates a Google Doc, adds some text to
contextualize the idea, and includes the text from AK's blog post.
3. Len jumps in with his
thoughts on how this might
be presented.

4. Maha, using her phone while commuting to/from work, adds her thoughts
to the conversation.
The mobile app doesn't show the comments in the same way - they are
not part of the document
but rather an
interruption in the
flow of it.

5. Simon tries to use his tablet to access the doc but it hides comments
till one is clicked on, which makes it no good for swarm writing
where the comments are important.

6. Jeffrey at times misses strands as alerts or
notifications are inconsistent, creating a discussion
on notifications in the margins.
This is just a brief overview of the complex interactions.

Swarm Writing
– A Collaborative Process
It has been called "rhizomatic collaborative writing" (Hamon et al,
2015).
Involves multiple authors collaborating and working together, like a
Swarm, on creating a single document.
Multiple writers in different countries and timezones, using this method
while working on tasks that have not been readily defined in the
literature, benefit most from free, cloud-based tools.
While collaborative (like a wiki), it is messy, and thus allows for (invites?)
unexpected bouts of creativity and shifts in direction.

Collaboration and Cooperation
- Different modes of working together
Collaboration is often elicited and expected, though it can be challenging
when cooperation is a goal without a clear road map or strategy.
This often leads to Divide and Conquer:
I will write this section . . .
. . . and you write that one . . .
. . . and who does the rest?!
Swarm writing promotes a blurring of boundaries, with cooperation
coming as part of a group, rather than a pile of individual authors.

Enablers
- Check your Ego at the Door
… allows our words to be re-written many times, such
that we can identify facets of the ideas in the text, but
the words no longer belong to an individual ...
... they belong to the swarm!

Leadership and Authorship
Order
Different leaders for different projects
Leaders role is to ‘herd the cats’ and also ensure that all voices that
want to contribute have a chance to
After the leader, there is no authorship precedence – we talk about who
needs to be where on the author order
Crossing disciplines, authorship order means something different (e.g.
last author in sciences is a prestigious position that goes to the leader of
the lab)

Challenges
- Costs
Costs vary by collaborator - especially with international collaborations
and unaffiliated / unfunded collaborators
Philosophical differences among authors over willingness to pay for
collaboration tools

Challenges
- Bandwidth
For the most part, Google Docs performs well in low bandwidth
situations
Other tools, especially those with video, are challenging to some co-
authors – serving to silence rather than enable collaborations
In addition, not everyone is setup for (or comfortable with) voice / video
communication

Challenges
- Language
We are all strong English speakers / writers.
We are aware of how Google Docs (asynchronous and written medium)
helps to enable English as a foreign language speakers.
“We feel the enthusiasm for audiovisual synchronicity often comes
without sufficient discernment, and without deliberative consideration”
(Bali & Meier, 2014).
This is an area we will be exploring further …

Challenges
- Navigating new processes and spaces
We are collaborating in different ways
External forces (conference deadlines)
Messiness of swarm interfacing with individual needs/requirements
Pragmatic issues (need for presentation to be in PPT on a stick – not in
Prezi)

Challenges
- When a team member wants to leave?
Contributions cannot be measured or attributed – as knowledge is
created and owned by the swarm – this needs to be made explicit at the
beginning – as someone’s thoughts cause others to think .. The thoughts
of the swarm are morphed by the individual contributions
However, representations can be remove – contributions can be made
invisible on request
Ideas cannot be removed, only identity can

What’s Next?
Tools:
◦ Email
◦ Google Hangouts
◦ Twitter
◦ Facebook Messenger
◦ Doodle
◦ Prezi
Processes:
Language requirements
Transitions (from swarm
writing to presenting)
Transitions (from swarm
writing to article submission)

Discussion
1. Have you ever experienced this phenomenon that we have termed
"Swarm Writing?”
2. What benefits or challenges do you envision?
3. How is your version of swarm writing different from what we have
described?
4. What next steps can you consider for us to continue to develop this
work?
5. How do you manage conflict or when a person wants to be removed
from the collaboration?

Pioneering alternate forms of collaboration: Technologies that support and sideline #rhizomatic learning

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