Affinity+Space+Assignment+8741

 According to Gee (2007), an **affinity site** is a social space on the web where people sharing a common interest come together in a sort of community. They have the opportunity to participate on the site, designing, suggesting, responding, and generating new material. The lines between a new member and experienced members are blurred, and anyone can become a person of status by his or her contributions. Many sites feature applications that call on a narrow expertise, such as writing or art, which contribute to the overall effectiveness of the site. In his chapter, "Affinity Spaces," from his book //Good Video Games and Good Learning//, Gee discusses at length the on-line version of the game Age of Mythology, describing how members of the group interact with one another to draw new maps, suggest successful strategies, solve problems, and even create new applications from components programed into the game. Applying this concept of shared learning to our schools, he suggests that classrooms are tied to the old ways ("//old ethos//" to borrow from Lankshear and Knobel), wherein a student is awarded for his //individual knowledge//, learning mostly on his own, and producing products mostly alone. In contrast, the use of affinity spaces can foster //distributed knowledge//, with several students pooling their research and enthusiasm on a topic to produce a more thorough product through collaboration (//new ethos//).

Joining an affinity space is surprisingly easy, though some I am now part of are user-friendly, and some less so. The Canton branch of [|Freecycle] seems to have codes such as "PPU" which are indecipherable, although the service seems to be welcome in our throw-away society. Too busy with my studies, I have yet to connect with another member of the group in an actual transaction. Another space I joined is [|Goodreads], which lets you make a shelf of the books you have read and review them if you like. I can't figure out how to add what I am currently reading, as though anybody would be impressed with my textbooks, but I'm pretty proud of the 56 books I have there so far. You are supposed to invite your friends to join, so perhaps when I have students again, a few of them will want to do that. Right now, sadly I have "0 friends." I'm glad that's not true in my un-virtual life.

In the interests of more serious participation, I joined [|Seedlings], a place where experts in Web 2.0 help out those of us who are not yet expert but who would like to be. All the participants seem to be teachers or educational technology leaders, and they have been discussing this summer attending the NECC, where apparently some of them intend to actually meet. I found them one evening surfing for some information about Web 2.0 and what it might look like; they had a very informative webinar that had taken place two days before, that I was able to access. Another ning I joined is Jim Burke's [|English Companion] where I am currently participating in a book group discussing //Holding On to Good Ideas in a Time// //of Bad Ones// by Tom Newkirk//.// In both of these nings, there are podcasts and forums, blogs and ramblings, pictures and videos; it is interesting to see how these spaces fit into Gee's eleven characteristics. But first, here are two truly poor cell-phone-type videos where Newkirk is sort of eulogizing Donald Graves at NCTE in 2007, except that he is simply reading, and not very well, his paper. There is even a close-by person blowing his or her stuffy nose in the middle of the first one, sounding like a lonely cow. I can't imagine being such a poor presenter after all those years of practice, although I suppose it's not Tom's fault that his recording fan has a cold. media type="youtube" key="GhH3iMfYEhE" height="344" width="425"media type="youtube" key="xh88gXFUCzE" height="344" width="425"

Getting down to the business of an affinity space, considering Seedlings and English Companion: 1. Common endeavor, not race, class, gender or disability, is primary. True for both sites. We put on pictures of ourselves, or we don't. We tell a little about ourselves, but we don't have to. Real names, or not. Newcomers are welcomed by a note from the "leaders" of the sites, and then not badgered, apparently. I have not posted on Seedlings; have posted twice on EC with no replies yet. I may turn out to be more of a listener than a participant in these professional spaces. 2. Newbies and masters and everyone else share common space. Again, true for both sites. There is no distinguishing characteristic between the words typed by a veteran and those typed by a pre-service teacher. In the case of the Newkirk book study, however, the author has decided to post questions for discussion at the beginning of each week in order for us to have some ideas to chew over as we read the book. Amazing that we can "talk" to him in New Hampshire and to each other from all over. 3. Some portals are strong generators. Each space has groups that one can join, according to one's interests. Shakespeare has his own group on EC (but he doesn't say much there), along with poetry, writing, and other facets of Language Arts instruction. Seedlings has topics that are introduced by people seeking more information. 4. Content organization is transformed by interactional organization. True of both sites, each allowing posts of participants' videos, blogs, pictures of children and dogs, and other downloads. Contrary to the static nature of my school's webpage, for example, which hasn't been changed (still) since before graduation May 23rd, these nings are continually evolving, sharing material and generating expertise, due to contributors' content, interests, and activities. Each of them has a column down the right side "advertising" who has recently posted to whom. 5, 6, and 7. Encourages intensive, extensive, individual, distributed, and dispersed knowledge. Both sites focus on one particular aspect of teaching practice but do so in an inclusive way: Seedlings is concerned primarily with the use of technology in classrooms, so it leads its members to practicing with applications on Web 2.0 which may not be within one's comfort zone. One can answer a query by another member, lending opinion and expertise (//individual, extensive knowledge//), and pool one's view with those of other respondents to form //distributed knowledge//. I practiced dispersed knowledge when I responded on English Companion to Newkirk's second book prompt with links to the latest Reading First analysis published last month on the website of the [|MDRC], and also with a [|response] to the analysis by educational researcher Stephen Krashen, which he wrote only ten days ago. The web is a very timely instrument for staying abreast of the controversy which is discussed in Newkirk's book. 8, 9, and 10. Both these sites allow for differing forms and routes to participation, and present different routes to status. At Seedlings, contributors can offer advice on a sticky point of technology or policy in the classroom while also asking questions of their own. The information flow is both ways, and is much more thorough and helpful because it comes from a variety of people in a variety of classroom settings. As Newkirk and others point out, so much of excellent teaching practice comes from the situation in which we find ourselves; pooling experience from many people in many geographic areas makes the network that much stronger. A teacher confined by a policy in Nebraska may be advised by a teacher not so confined in Arkansas, and may find that advice to be exactly what is needed. At EC, status seems to be conferred by the number of posts and the variety of responses. One gentleman seems to have nothing much else to do this summer, and comments on practically every topic, generating replies to his thinking through his blog (he actually wrote and posted a birthday poem to his 9-year-old, in which he reminded his son that he is now too old to suck his thumb. The poor kid probably won't speak to his dad for 20 years. Some retired lady from Fresno said she loved it). Another was asked to comment, told that his ideas always seem to be good ones. Many of the members of EC are university professors and researchers, directors of National Writing Projects, and stand in other respected positions by virtue of their employment more than by what they say on the ning. 11. Leadership is porous and leaders are resources. The tech experts on Seedlings invite our input, as do the leaders on EC. Both communities have a core of people who decided that the space would be beneficial, and who put up discussion spaces, invite big dogs like Newkirk, and who keep the place tidy, as Jim Burke puts it. But I can start a discussion about adolescent literacy if I want to, and gather information from all sorts of people from all over. Having the opportunity to belong to a community of people somewhat like me is a new idea, and I am interested to see what else can transpire.


 * For classroom practice**, I have set up this wiki for my drama students, but have yet to invite them, not wanting my semester complicated by further student communications other than my Wordpress blog about summer reading. It is my intention that my students build on what I already have here, adding content in the form of history, websites, opinion, productions they have seen, and making connections to students of drama at other schools. We are limited only by our imaginations as we learn to deal in the new ethos.