Simon Fowler

:p How do you show feelings and attitudes in live online learning?

The good news is that words matter.

If you think by that I mean, “words?! pah! who cares about words?!”, then you didn’t read the sentence properly. Or you think I’m being sarcastic. Context will tell you if you’re right – context given by your knowledge of me as a person, and your knowledge of other things I’ve written. But absent those, the words mean what they say. They may be factually incorrect – maybe words don’t matter – but the sentence means what it says.

It’s commonly believed that 7% of communication is verbal; the rest is body language and tone of voice. Along with many people, I took that for granted, even though it made no intuitive sense to me, especially when thinking about learning live online.

But if you didn’t know already, the 7% is a myth; or rather, it’s a fact that’s only true in certain cases.

The original researcher, Professor Albert Mehrabian, looked at situations in which people say one thing and mean something else in a face to face situation. According to Mehrabian, the 7% holds true only when talking about feelings and attitudes. In those cases if you say one thing but indicate something else with your tone and gesture, the something else (the non-verbal 93%) will dominate the substance your communication. So the statistic seems to only matter if the non-verbal and verbal are in conflict. (See Training Zone, especially the video by Martin Shovel, shown also below).

However, this still rings true online if a facilitator says, “hey, like, yeh, this is going to be, like, yaaaawn, really fun … let’s do some really engaging interactive stuff on a whiteboard now, yaaawn”. It’s obvious, now that I think about it, that it’s the dissonance between the mode and content of speech that makes us largely ignore the content. Equally obvious is that words matter when mode and content are consistent: “You are, in fact, an idiot.”

The 7% is (mis)used to make an important point, however: Yes, words matter, but words are not always a necessary, adequate, or even feasible way to communicate. Especially when communicating feelings and attitudes.

So, here’s the question: how are feelings and attitudes communicated online, in a virtual classroom setting? What’s the real data about the relative power of mode or content in live, online communication?

And how do you show your feelings online, in an online classroom? Come on, you can tell me.

Balls and dropped balls

The First Follower project is a ball, but one of many. I realised in my last post that if I’m going to do a 30 day project it’s just going to have enhance the projects (loosely termed) to which I’m already committed. There’s only so much time in the day. I want to get better at doing and being what I already am: Christian, husband, father, brother, friend, neighbor, colleague, leader, clown etc. And a Word from our preacher last Sunday, sleep is an act of faith, confirms that the world doesn’t depend on me.

How to conceive a project that feeds and builds those aspects of me, perhaps even ties them together a little more neatly? Whatever I do, I hope it creates a little magic with what I already have.

I just hope I’m not too late with this post. The only rule Andrew Wicklander gave with the invite was, “you’ve got to blog once a week about the project”. That’s all. I thought it fair enough, and actually a genius way to keep us involved. He’s kept his word and dropped people (i.e. they can no longer get into the project website) with a sense of regret and feeling a bit of a jerk for doing so. But I don’t think he is; he’s shown great integrity in the process and importantly (for anyone who has to deal with him in life) that he’s a man of his word. I hope I’m not too late, I don’t know when the ‘week’ ends. But if I am, that’s okay. Some balls are meant to be dropped.

I want pebbles in my shower

The next 8 ideas from Andrew Dubber include a couple I love. An online tape for one person – a 45min mp3 of songs that deletes off the server as soon as it’s downloaded; and a tray of pebbles to stand on in the shower! Photo by Josh Simerman

Suddenly, just thinking about it makes me feel like I’m in Hawaii.

I’m busier than a busy thing wearing busy clothes in Busyville, so the thought of executing a project in 30 days on top of what I’m already committed to is a little daunting. So, I need to choose something that will make-faster/better whatever I’m already doing.

Andrew Wicklander, who is the First Follower of Andrew Dubbers, and who invited us to join him, has already started building idea number 5 (a 30-day calendar tool).

I’d misunderstood the goal, thinking that we’d all execute that one project together, but no, that’d be easy. We observe and help and support but WE have to come up with our own project to execute in 30 days, one of Dubber’s or one of our own.

Anyway, here are ideas 9 to 16:
09: Recordings in Concert
Acoustics and recorded music: People to turn up to a concert hall, sit down, and listen to a record. Listening experience would be curated and explained track by track by the person or people responsible for the recording. Then, after the concert, everyone would be handed a CD copy of the music they’ve just heard.
10: Vinyl scanner: exactly what it sounds like, convert vinyl to mp3 file with a flatbed scanner.
11: Photo Stack-and-Scan: It’s a photo scanner. It scans standard, everyday ordinary prints. You stack them in a box at the back of the machine. You press Go. You leave for work.
12: A Box of Cool: A subscription-based, home-delivered regular package full of things that are undeniably ‘cool’. (e.g. a high quality print magazine that you may not have come across before; a 180g vinyl reissue of an underappreciated recording like Leroy Vinnegar’s Glass of Water; a DVD of a film you probably haven’t seen, but should; a miniature taster bottle of a single malt scotch…)
13: Karaoke-Tube Celebstar Idol: Sing -> Mix -> YouTube
14: I Made You A Tape: Two 30- or 45-minute ‘tapes’ (i.e. several songs on one mp3), with liner notes, for one person. ‘Tape’ & original songs are deleted off the server when downloaded by the person. It only exists for them.
15: Newspaper download codes: < what it sounds like
16: Pebble Splash: It’s a tray. It has pebbles in it. You put it in the shower. You stand on it!