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Barn raising
Concept
Planning
Design discrepancies
Reflection in practice
Outcomes
Concept
I reflected on some of the significant learning which I gained from the web2.0 conference. ( See appendix - significant learning)
"2) By the time the session “early life of a wiki” came along, there was already a lot going on at the conference and at first I overlooked it. The case history of the NVC wiki day didn’t appear directly relevant. Reading the transcript of the telephone chat, I noted that the wiki launch made use of multiple channels and that the invitation called it a barn raising and turned it into an event. I began to become a little bit intrigued and later mentioned the term to Linda, who remembered that there was something about barn raising on the meatball wiki. So the combination of online reading and offline conversation about another space reinforced the pattern and motivated me to look into it further. I then shared the connection by posting the meatball wiki link to CP2 where it was met with further encouragement. The concept of Barn Raising has since become an important supplement to my exhibition strategy and the meatball wiki community a significant node in my network."
This builds upon my initial discovery:
"I’ve just twigged this idea of holding a barn raising party for launching a wiki. The story was told in the CPsquare web2.0 conference about the launch of the NVC wiki last month. It reminds me a little of the origins of traditional Breton step dancing, which was a kind of house warming party through which the new inhabitants get welcomed to the village and they get their brand new earthen floor nicely compacted as well.
The idea of barn raising to launch a wiki is actually documented on the meatball community wiki:
BarnRaising occurs when a community actively decides to come to the same place at the same time to help achieve some specific goal.
It’s pretty much impossible for one person to raise a barn. The main part of the process is taking two framed walls that have been built lying on the ground and raising them to vertical. Thus BarnRaising demands collaboration in a way that other activities do not.
then you have a big party with everyone who’s around. That’s where the social aspect of it comes from. Lift some walls, rejoice and dance.
So now I’m planning to host a barn raising party myself to launch the DAR wiki in March. Instead of just an online exhibition with feedback, I’ll put the word out that it’s a barn raising event and generate a sense of occasion for getting a new collaborative wiki off the ground."
Planning
Not having any precedent to take advantage of, I devised my own plan:
"I'm developing a plan for organising a barn raising for the DAR wiki. So far I have
1) Set a date - provisionally March 1st, but could be a week or so later.
2) Plan to provide multiple means of communication. This plan needs to be flexible, depending on the preferences of my guests but I'm thinking of concentrating on one asynchronous mailing list, one synchronous text chat and one voice channel. Plus open up a page on the wiki for preparation, where the details for these and other channels can be updated.
3) Let people know about it
Who/where
Tell some of my friends, colleagues, and tout around all the email lists, groups and wikis which are related. A list of these to be maintained on the prep page as well, so open to suggestions there.
When
7 days in advance, and during.
4) Prepare the wiki front-page
One possibility is to blank what's there already, so that the existing pages are just some raw material for the barn raisers to work with.
So this proto-plan can form the first iteration of the barnraising page now. http://distributedresearch.net/wiki/index.php/Barn_raising"
Design discrepancies
As I said to the seated audience at Wiki Wednesday, "I have no idea what is going to happen"
The idea that simultaneity can be crucial to building a resource and community in an online environment is not one that I am wedded to, but having a specific event and date to build publicity around seemed worthwhile. The discussion at meatball wiki revealed some very different ideas about what an online barn raising might entail. Their idea seemed to be that a lot of helping hands might turn up and the role of the coordinator is to do lots of preparation and then be in a position to tell everybody exactly what needs doing. My concept, following the principles of participatory action research was more along the lines of a collective brainstorming to help design the barn and to organise the barnraising itself, a kind of 'open space' event.
Reflection in practice
But once the event kicked off it quickly became apparent that I had overestimated both the number of people who would turn up and their willingness or ability to communicate and contribute to the DARwiki. A quick reappraisal and rapid introduction of a new strategy were called for, hence a message to the DAR mailing list and wiki which
1) Explained my appraisal and reflection
2) Detailed actions I had taken
3) Introduced an ice breaker exercise
Outcomes
"Activities undertaken during the initial days:
developing the barnraising page, planning
new page added: Reflection
5 untagged pages now tagged
5 new categories created
* latest taglist now contains 21 categories
Four dichotomies uploaded
ice breaker added
Four people so far responded on the talk page
**Coffee Shop created**
More publicity posted
"Wanted Pages" created
8 new pages created since Friday
6 new user accounts added
sidebar tweaked
TASKS currently on the barnraising page:
suggested tasks for individuals
* Have a go at the Ice_Breaker task.
* visit the exhibition "
By turning the barn raising around from having a large unlimited scope into becoming a supplementary feedback mechanism for the online exhibition I was able to overcome the problems encountered by having the Four Dichotomies artefact on a page where there is no obvious way to respond.
The proposal from Giorgio Bertini which was left as a comment on exhibition also proved crucial to developments:
"I appreciate the openness of Andy and his project. Though, I assume we are invited to an Emergent project, more than a barn raising, where the barn owner invites others for support on his project, I would like to propose this DAR wiki to be a Action Research Coffee Shop, an encounter place for Jean McNiff’s “Critical Friends and Validation Group for Professional Learning”, for colleagues working on Action Research projects to present them, exposing the projects to others critiques and suggestions"
I felt that he had correctly pointed out the limitations of the barn raising metaphor, which exemplifies a community action on behalf of the barn owner rather than on behalf of the community. What I envisage for a wiki would be more closely analogous to a kind of 'church building' although religious connotations would prevent the use of such a phrase.
So the Action Research Coffee Shop may prove to be a lasting outcome if the benefit of peer review can indeed be brought into play on a fully public site.
<--- back to index | Forward to connectivism ---->
Concept
Planning
Design discrepancies
Reflection in practice
Outcomes
Concept
I reflected on some of the significant learning which I gained from the web2.0 conference. ( See appendix - significant learning)
"2) By the time the session “early life of a wiki” came along, there was already a lot going on at the conference and at first I overlooked it. The case history of the NVC wiki day didn’t appear directly relevant. Reading the transcript of the telephone chat, I noted that the wiki launch made use of multiple channels and that the invitation called it a barn raising and turned it into an event. I began to become a little bit intrigued and later mentioned the term to Linda, who remembered that there was something about barn raising on the meatball wiki. So the combination of online reading and offline conversation about another space reinforced the pattern and motivated me to look into it further. I then shared the connection by posting the meatball wiki link to CP2 where it was met with further encouragement. The concept of Barn Raising has since become an important supplement to my exhibition strategy and the meatball wiki community a significant node in my network."
This builds upon my initial discovery:
"I’ve just twigged this idea of holding a barn raising party for launching a wiki. The story was told in the CPsquare web2.0 conference about the launch of the NVC wiki last month. It reminds me a little of the origins of traditional Breton step dancing, which was a kind of house warming party through which the new inhabitants get welcomed to the village and they get their brand new earthen floor nicely compacted as well.
The idea of barn raising to launch a wiki is actually documented on the meatball community wiki:
BarnRaising occurs when a community actively decides to come to the same place at the same time to help achieve some specific goal.
It’s pretty much impossible for one person to raise a barn. The main part of the process is taking two framed walls that have been built lying on the ground and raising them to vertical. Thus BarnRaising demands collaboration in a way that other activities do not.
then you have a big party with everyone who’s around. That’s where the social aspect of it comes from. Lift some walls, rejoice and dance.
So now I’m planning to host a barn raising party myself to launch the DAR wiki in March. Instead of just an online exhibition with feedback, I’ll put the word out that it’s a barn raising event and generate a sense of occasion for getting a new collaborative wiki off the ground."
Planning
Not having any precedent to take advantage of, I devised my own plan:
"I'm developing a plan for organising a barn raising for the DAR wiki. So far I have
1) Set a date - provisionally March 1st, but could be a week or so later.
2) Plan to provide multiple means of communication. This plan needs to be flexible, depending on the preferences of my guests but I'm thinking of concentrating on one asynchronous mailing list, one synchronous text chat and one voice channel. Plus open up a page on the wiki for preparation, where the details for these and other channels can be updated.
3) Let people know about it
Who/where
Tell some of my friends, colleagues, and tout around all the email lists, groups and wikis which are related. A list of these to be maintained on the prep page as well, so open to suggestions there.
When
7 days in advance, and during.
4) Prepare the wiki front-page
One possibility is to blank what's there already, so that the existing pages are just some raw material for the barn raisers to work with.
So this proto-plan can form the first iteration of the barnraising page now. http://distributedresearch.net/wiki/index.php/Barn_raising"
Design discrepancies
As I said to the seated audience at Wiki Wednesday, "I have no idea what is going to happen"
The idea that simultaneity can be crucial to building a resource and community in an online environment is not one that I am wedded to, but having a specific event and date to build publicity around seemed worthwhile. The discussion at meatball wiki revealed some very different ideas about what an online barn raising might entail. Their idea seemed to be that a lot of helping hands might turn up and the role of the coordinator is to do lots of preparation and then be in a position to tell everybody exactly what needs doing. My concept, following the principles of participatory action research was more along the lines of a collective brainstorming to help design the barn and to organise the barnraising itself, a kind of 'open space' event.
Reflection in practice
But once the event kicked off it quickly became apparent that I had overestimated both the number of people who would turn up and their willingness or ability to communicate and contribute to the DARwiki. A quick reappraisal and rapid introduction of a new strategy were called for, hence a message to the DAR mailing list and wiki which
1) Explained my appraisal and reflection
2) Detailed actions I had taken
3) Introduced an ice breaker exercise
Outcomes
"Activities undertaken during the initial days:
developing the barnraising page, planning
new page added: Reflection
5 untagged pages now tagged
5 new categories created
* latest taglist now contains 21 categories
Four dichotomies uploaded
ice breaker added
Four people so far responded on the talk page
**Coffee Shop created**
More publicity posted
"Wanted Pages" created
8 new pages created since Friday
6 new user accounts added
sidebar tweaked
TASKS currently on the barnraising page:
suggested tasks for individuals
* Have a go at the Ice_Breaker task.
* visit the exhibition "
By turning the barn raising around from having a large unlimited scope into becoming a supplementary feedback mechanism for the online exhibition I was able to overcome the problems encountered by having the Four Dichotomies artefact on a page where there is no obvious way to respond.
The proposal from Giorgio Bertini which was left as a comment on exhibition also proved crucial to developments:
"I appreciate the openness of Andy and his project. Though, I assume we are invited to an Emergent project, more than a barn raising, where the barn owner invites others for support on his project, I would like to propose this DAR wiki to be a Action Research Coffee Shop, an encounter place for Jean McNiff’s “Critical Friends and Validation Group for Professional Learning”, for colleagues working on Action Research projects to present them, exposing the projects to others critiques and suggestions"
I felt that he had correctly pointed out the limitations of the barn raising metaphor, which exemplifies a community action on behalf of the barn owner rather than on behalf of the community. What I envisage for a wiki would be more closely analogous to a kind of 'church building' although religious connotations would prevent the use of such a phrase.
So the Action Research Coffee Shop may prove to be a lasting outcome if the benefit of peer review can indeed be brought into play on a fully public site.
<--- back to index | Forward to connectivism ---->