Group items tagged

see section on "dunbar's number and beyond" "More than 60 per cent of our social time is devoted to our five closest friends, with decreasing amounts given over to those in the layers beyond"

This prospectus for a network of learning hubs was composed c. 2000. What followed from it?--this invites inquiry.

"Power centers are elsewhere - in financial systems, corporations, technology, networks - that long since dispensed with borders. That being the case, loudmouthed, isolationist trumpery may just be a sideshow, an American exercise in après-moi-le-déluge escapism."

Building strength through positivity (See other webpages for courses, network, etc.)

"If we follow a path of leveraging technology to create new forms of networked learning, I think they are much more likely to end up as Friedman-inspired marketplaces than Dewey-inspired learning webs."

Caveat: written by Jonah Lehrer, whose star has fallen since it was shown that he recycled his own previous writing without noting it and he quoted people who other people, not him, had interviewed. Messages: K. Sawyer -- "Decades of research have consistently shown that brainstorming groups [who were told not to criticize anything proposed] think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas." Research by Nemeth -- Groups told that "most studies suggest that you should debate and even criticize each other's ideas" produced more ideas together and then subsequently on their own. Research by Uzzi -- (Lehrer's words) "The best Broadway shows were produced by networks with an intermediate level of social intimacy." Lehrer's take-home message -- "The fatal misconception behind brainstorming is that there is a particular script we should all follow in group interactions. The lesson of Building 20 is that when the composition of the group is right-enough people with different perspectives running into one another in unpredictable ways-the group dynamic will take care of itself. All these errant discussions add up."

"Monica Reuter's new book on creativity (Palgrave, 2015). She makes the provocative argument that creativity doesn't comes from individuals; it comes from groups, and from large networks distributed through society. Creativity is always defined by influential people in society, and its definition changes depending on the country you're in."