Thanks Sylvia, Jennie, Roy, Simone
Wonderful topic. I can't be with you this afternoon, so wanted to share one thought about emergence and what it takes to cultivate emergent knowledge. I'm not sure cultivate is the right word, but haven't a better one at the moment. I think of a term that Harrison Owen, the creator of Open Space, uses to describe how he gets ready for an Open Space event --as the facilitator of the event. He meditates. He envisions the people arriving from all the different directions they will be coming from. During the event, he wanders around and picks up coffee cups and puts tape on posters that are beginning to fall from the walls. In other words, he opens the space, and then he holds it. I believe these things could be translated to an online world, and someone probably has, but that is how I remember Harrison describing it.
I think holding the space is a good term to think about preparing or designing for emergent learning. I read something like it in the book by Nonaka and Takeuchi, The Knowledge Creating Company. There the authors talk about the Japanese concept of ba. Ba is similar in that it describes a space where people meet and something happens. (Here is a link and I see that ba has all kinds of aspects I didn't know about. I don't happen to agree with the one about tacit knowledge - I think there is tacit knowledge which can't be made explicit.)
At any rate, when I think of emergent knowledge, I like to think of the space where it happens - like that little three year old teaching herself to knit - beautiful! I think sometimes we create it by not getting in the way too much. And this is trickier in an online world where not getting in the way can mean no one even knows you are there!
It has something to do with attention, though. With people knowing that someone is waiting, wants to see what will happen next, cares that you have something to say. To me, those are important parts of the picture of emergent learning.
Again, thanks and I will be thinking of you all being together while I am in my meeting this afternoon - creating BA for you.