Simple Subject Sunday: WORDS Have Meaning!

Do you believe that words have power through the meaning they convey? If you agree, I think you understand the power of learning.

After noticing that unfriend, was selected by the New Oxford American Dictionary as the 2009 word of the year, I decided that I need to put my oar in the water to row the learning boat to a more conciliatory island. What should we call people with whom we work, learn and share in our professional social networks?

For instance, I know the default word choice for associate is called "friend" on .nings, yet it seems to me the term "friend", has become such an overused term nowadays, it doesn't always accurately portray the professional relationships of those who are learning and working together online.

A few years ago, when I first joined Classroom2.0, I always referred to the people that I "friended" as colleagues, as did several other people in that network. As time went on, Steve Hargadon change the term "friend" to COLLEAGUE. I was very happy with that decision. I felt that "colleague" more accurately described our professional/learning relationships. Many people had mentioned that they were hesitant to agree to be "friends" with another person on CR2.0, but they would become "colleagues". Some of us ARE friends, but most are colleagues because we work together in groups or teams that are not related to our age, gender or other defining concepts.

After seeing many learning networks use the word "friend", as I see on personal networks like MySpace and FaceBook, I would like to suggest that teachers, parents and other community members who interact online with students,  MUST consider investigating the use of some other word.


What kind of a message are we sending to students if we want them to participate in these online networks, but we make then run gauntlets like friending people they may barely know or even tolerate at school? Or worse, what kind of message are we sending if these students are not friended or unfriended?

I'm hoping that you will agree, and consider using another word, besides friend, on your networks. A friend is a person that you build a relationship with, not someone you just met....online or in the World of Matter. Personally, I like the word COLLEAGUE, but I would suggest that you might use VisuWords to find a better synonym.

Thanks in advance for considering this idea!

Choosiness & Cooperativeness Historically Linked

This is a scientific abstract from a research group studying the effect of choosing to be associated with people who cooperate and the ways that this cooperation can encourage others to choose them.

From their research, it seems that there is some evolutionary, positive attribute for this social phenomena. It appears to glue groups, as small as a pair and as large as civilizations.

It's too bad that Nature magazine couldn't have been more COOPERATIVE and released this research as a free web article, then more of us would have access to it and could CHOOSE to learn more about Nature and its peer reviewed research mission.

clipped from www.nature.com The coevolution of choosiness and cooperation Correspondence to: Lutz Fromhage3 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to L.F. (Email: lutzfromhage@web.de). Explaining the rise and maintenance of cooperation is central to our understanding of biological systems1, 2 and human societies3, 4. When an individual's cooperativeness is used by other individuals as a choice criterion, there can be competition to be more generous than others, a situation called competitive altruism5. evolution of cooperation between non-relatives can then be driven by a positive feedback between increasing levels of cooperativeness and choosiness6 in a situation where individuals have the opportunity to engage in repeated pairwise interactions, the equilibrium degree of cooperativeness depends critically on the amount of behavioural variation that is being maintained in the population by processes such as mutation. important role of lifespan in the evolution of cooperation.