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To know the network, you have to be a node…

Antony Mayfield

3 responses to “To know the network, you have to be a node…”

  1. Ewan McIntosh Avatar
    Ewan McIntosh

    I’m with you on being part of the network to understand it but I’m still working with Establishment figures who see this as being a sackable offence (in education). They’re not so much digital immigrants as alien to me and the children in their charge.

    However, I’ve never bought this immigrant/native thing. I’ve been working on the thesis of the “Digital Holidaymaker”:
    http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2007/09/digital-holiday.html

  2. Antony Mayfield Avatar
    Antony Mayfield

    Thanks, Ewan. I like your holidaymaker idea – nicely sidesteps the negative connotations of tourist too…

    I appreciate and admire the fact that you are working in a highly regulated, as they’d say in finance or pharma industries. Your patience, insight and vision are reasons to be optimistic about the way that education can develop positively to embrace all the potent possibilities of life in the networks.

  3. Tamsin Bishton Avatar
    Tamsin Bishton

    I’m pleased that I can now tell people that I’m a “node”, not a “nerd”!

    Ewan – you have my sympathy – I work in a government department that has decided to block all staff access to social networks for the time being. This is only partly due to the fear that everyone logging into Facebook every 5 mins will put too much pressure on the already “delicate” IT network!

    The greater anxiety for the senior bods (and the press office) by far was when it was discovered that staff had set up their own network on Facebook. This was UNREGULATED and UNCONTROLLED. They might be saying anything about the department without getting it signed off first! There was absolutely no understanding or awareness that perhaps the fact that staff felt so positive about working for the department that they wanted to label and identify themselves in a social network in this way was a good thing. Depressing – but that’s the reality in many organisations whose agendas are largely shaped by their utter terror of what “scandal” the media will uncover next.

    What us “nodes” need to be doing is helping those who aren’t yet participating in this massive conversation to let go of their fear. But it’s going to take a while in Whitehall, I can tell you.

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