Learning in sets
These notes are part of a series for the book.
Outline
- Defining the set
- The benefits of anonymity
- Identity and the set: Tribal underpinnings
- Cooperative learning: Freedom in sets
- Transactional distance and control in sets
- Learning in sets
- Breadth versus depth
- Categories of things
- Categories and taxonomies
- Folksonomies
- Tools for sets
- Risks of set-based learning
- The trouble with tags
- Sets in the online classroom
- Conclusion
Notes
In a more general sense, a set can be things as well as people — for example, a set of dishes or a set of writings. As a social form, sets are made up of individuals who share an attribute, interest, or location. For example, a set might be people who live in Houston, or people who drive a Ford. In learning, a set might be people with a specific degree, or people with a shared scholastic interest.
To make best use of a set, you must interact with the other people in it, but that interaction can be limited to the topic instead of more personal interaction. For example, a Wikipedia page may have multiple editors. Each editor is interested in the topic but they may not interact with each other outside of their edits to the page. They may not even know each other’s names. Another example is when people search a hashtag on Twitter. People who use and search for the same hashtag have a shared interest in the topic, but not necessarily an interest in each other.
A group is a set. A net is a set. But not all sets are groups or nets.
Sets often use technology, but sets are people not the technology they use. Set-oriented technology includes Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest.
See also: I think there may be some interesting overlap between sets and Andriessen’s (2005) taxonomy of communities.
Categorization
Sets make use of categories and categorization. In traditional learning (in groups), a teacher helps learners identify the relevant categories, and experts do the categorizing of artifacts. Some categorizations are hierarchical, drilling down to specific topics (for example, books might be organized by fiction, then mysteries, then those written by Agatha Christie). But especially with digital artifacts, one can categorize with facets, which makes it easier to find artifacts that sit at the intersection of multiple interests.
Tagging artifacts is a way of reifying them, and tagging them helps the learner make sense of the artifact. The aggregate effect of tagging is a folksonomy.
Anonymity and identity
Learning in sets means you can have anonymity, which is good when you want to know about something you are embarrassed to ask. Here’s how the three social forms compare: In a group (such as a class), a teacher helps you feel confident and connected. In a net, nobody has this role, and disclosure feels riskier. In a set, there is less risk because you can be anonymous (and so, for example, people are more likely to edit content on Wikipedia without worrying that they will seem rude). However, being anonymous also means you are not building social capital while participating, and that reduces the motivation to participate for some people.
Sometimes, being part of a set means that we make positive assumptions about others in our set, and treat those outside the set as an Other. The authors use the word “tribe” to describe how membership in a set affects issues of identity. Tribal sets also boost confidence in their members — it feels less risky to share with people in your tribe (but it can be more difficult to buck the crowd).
Learning in sets
Learning in sets is good for when you need to look something up, the just-in-time learning that can happen looking things up on Wikipedia, Twitter, Q&A sites, etc. Some people subscribe to topic-based forums (like Slashdot or Reddit) for set learning, to keep current in their areas of interest.
Although sets can be tribal, they also can offer the widest variety in perspectives. This can be good for the learner, but it does require the person to be able to evaluate the differing points of view. The learner can’t make use of everything online: There are lies, information unhelpful or irrelevant to the their context, mistaken information, and distorted and biased information.
Technology
Tools used for sets usually are also used for nets and sometimes for groups:
- Forums, which can develop into communities, but also can be accessed by people without ties to the community
- Anonymous commenting on websites offers a ‘fine dividing line between the anonymous set orientation of these and the networked mode of engagement, and many combine the two’ (Dron and Anderson, 2014, p. 182)
- Tags and hashtags used on sites encourage sets
- Social interest sites (like Pinterest and YouTube channels), media-sharing sites (like Khan Academy, Flickr, and Wikipedia), location-based sites (like Four Square and Yelp), and crowdsource sites (like Stack Overload and Quora) support sets
Interesting note: ‘It is a very notable feature of most surviving Q&A sites that the rewards are intrinsic, and often provided for completely altruistic reasons, with no hope of even social capital being accrued’ (Dron and Anderson, 2014, p. 188).