Information-Communication Science

For the last three years, I have been participating in online interactions in various online communities on www.secondlife.com and www.there.com. These are 3-D graphic environments, such as Massively Multiple Online Worlds, MMOW, that can go beyond simulating or “escaping real” life -- see a blog we set up to discuss a MMOW experience http://worldofthere.blogspot.com/

Online "games” can have a profound formative influence on users through activities involving placemaking (cf. work of Christopher Alexander), presence, and bleed-through (cf. work of Jean-Marie Schaeffer) seem conducive to the learning process. A vast domain.

To narrow down this field of inquiry, my central question is how do users go about making sense of what they read, say and do online? One line of inquiry is the  "pattern theory" approach of architect Christopher Alexander when designing "living spaces".

There is a growing group of fascinating research coming out in this domain. I need to get to publishing my online participative- observation... soon.

- ALEXANDER, Christopher. 2006. The Origins of Pattern Theory: The Future of the Theory, and the Generation of a Living World. IEEE Software. 2006. Vol. 16, No. 5. pp.71-82 http://69.89.27.211/~stephep6/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/ the-origins-of-pattern-theory-the-future-of-the-theory-and-the-generation-of-a-living-world-1999.pdf (retrieved 31.07.2208)
- SCHAEFFER, Jean-Marie. 1999. Pourquoi la fiction ? Poétique. Seuil

My job as a company adult educator and trainer does not limit itself to upskilling executives in their information and communicative skills.

I also carry on my work with adults for whom “hope” (Paolo Freire 1995) for a better future for themselves seem out of their reach. The result of this can be seen in a general feeling of apathy, inertia and disempowerment. 

To what extent information and communication technologies (ICT) can help people participate in controlling, and taking decisions about their lives with others in their community? One answer is looking how adults make sense of their co-actions, notably via ICT. This, for me, is the substratum to any viable concept of sustainable transformative empowerment.

One practical entry point into this domain is working with colleagues in Africa to explore convergences and divergences in our respective contexts. There is a wealth of creativity, linked to the urgency of many African contexts, that, it seems to me, is lacking in present day Europe with its ambivalent legacy of centuries-old traditions and nostalgia when having to respond to the issues like Life Long Learning.