Comments for Participation in x2.0 requires literate thinking

Comment from James Dellow on 2007-03-09

2007-03-09T09:02:56Z

Jack - I disagree that participation in the "computer-mediated world is about writing". I think that's just a limitation of the current environment - look at ideas like Storycast http://chieftech.blogspot.com/2005/06/storycast-from-hp-storytelling-with.html. Also, social bookmarking means productive participation can be extended beyond the core 1% without the need to write anything. Or if we go to sites like Swivel http://www.swivel.com/, then participation is something different altogether.

Comment from jackvinson on 2007-03-09

2007-03-09T14:52:32Z

James - You are right, of course. I was tempted to add a bunch of these counter-examples to my post, but I didn't want to dilute the concern. As it stands today, most of the technologies that we are employing within the for communication and knowledge sharing are text-based. There are great advances in everything from podcasts to Second Life (virtual, talking avatars) to the examples you cite. But the majority of the communications are still in the written word.

Comment from Christina Pikas on 2007-03-11

2007-03-11T15:30:45Z

I was sure you were going to talk about visual communication instead of oral :) I think some chemists are just starting to work out reasonable ways to represent chemical structures on their blogs and we're starting to see better ways of sharing data so that it can be manipulated and visualized.

Comment from jackvinson on 2007-03-12

2007-03-12T13:40:39Z

Christina - There are many kinds of thinking, and this is a good point about people's natural inclinations. If you talk in chemical structures (drawings), it's hard to do that in a medium that doesn't make it easy to incorporate those drawings. I should know with my history in chemical engineering.

Fortunately, many of these barriers are being overcome: text, audio, video, images, graphics (even mind maps) can be used in the online world. I think Jim's original point is that there are people who are more comfortable in a mode that keeps them out of the "literate" web.