In any event, I think we should champion face to face even as we promote online. It is much harder to build a bond of trust purely online, at least that’s my experience. But this particular thread, as example, has some interest to it and it couldn’t happen any other way.

Time to switch gears and watch some baseball.

Cheers.

That’s exactly right. Which is why I was talking about it helping me making ‘appropriate’ choices, ones based on the context. And. I’d offer, in the situation you describe, not one or the other but both – I alienated a huge number of folks in my life before I realized that not everyone had or enjoyed ‘intellectual’ arguments, which isn’t to say that I don’t still have them but I regularly balance it in any situation with the emotional impact what I am saying is having (and how important it is in the end to say it, a lot of times realizing “not at all.”)

Wish you’d come to the Northern Voice next year, this is the kind of thing best talked about over a beer

And your second point is absolutely right; I was not meaning to imply that the affordances of asynchronicity that the network provides aren’t important nor that face to face conversation is the only way to learn. Only that sitting there I was again struck by the richness of that experience that it feels we are largely not touching in many of our current efforts.

People say that, but it doesn’t mean a lot. because when it’s a both/and as in A and B, the question becomes, ‘when A?’ and ‘when B’?

For groups and networks, for example, I have argued that group affiliation is emotive, while network affiliation is intellectual. Both are vague terms that I have an obligation to define, but I can set that aside for the nonce.

So, pick a situation: talking philosophy around the table, for example. Your buddy, P, makes a statement. Do you (a) defend it, because you have an emotional affiliation with a (ie., you belong to the same group, are the same nationality, etc).

Or do you fee free to oppose it, on intellectual grounds? Given such a situation of conflict (which very frequently happens) which prevails, group or network?

Note that we’re back to the original question. Which is why I say that the original statement doesn’t mean a lot.

I believe there is a substantial amount of research to show this is the real benefit from college, why the residential experience is so important, and why the quality of faculty may matter less than the quality of the other students. I’d be curious to learn whether you think most of these conversations are coming out of some course obligation or if they are happening entirely outside of courses.

Also, wearing my social science hat, I’d make the point that sitting in the coffee shop you are observing those conversations that do happen and not seeing at all those conversations that can’t happen because folks schedules don’t overlap enough (unless there are a lot of students sitting alone doing IM, but at least here those students seem to get their drink to go).

I guess we can’ be on the happy edge of every tech curve at once. So we get cool mp3 players, twinkies, television and PCs that fit in our carry-ons but stilted conversations and only the most minimal movement toward achieving any kind of real tech mediated presence…

I’m not social, so it’s hard for me. And it is with no small amount of irony that I realize that the biggest piece that fell into place for me – the whole ‘groups’ vs ‘networks’ thing – fell into place during one of the crappiest days.

A long bus trip by myself and a new city helped me see it in a different perspective. But still.

There’s totally a lesson there, but I’m not going to find it today…