pioneering alternate forms of collaboration: technologies that support and sideline #rhizomatic...

@jeffreykeefer @rjhogue

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

Presented by:

Jeffrey M. Keefer (@jeffreykeefer)

Rebecca J. Hogue (@rjhogue)


PurposeThis 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 StudyThe 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 MatrixCollaboration Name/Person Name Rebecca Maha Keith AK Jeffrey Ron LenPaper (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 YesHow the Community Became More Than the Curriculum: Participant Experiences in #rhizo14 Sent for review Yes Yes No No No No NoPaper (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 YesConference 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 DocsOur current work-in-progress focuses on Google Docs, which is a central component in our academic collaborations


MethodologyActor-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 Narrative1. 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.


Story of a Google Doc – A Semi-Fictional Narrative


Story of a Google Doc – A Semi-Fictional Narrative

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.


Story of a Google Doc – A Semi-Fictional Narrative6. 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)


Discussion1. 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?

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