In the Telegram-group of our MetaCAugs group there is some discussion going on about the affordances of messaging apps such as Telegram. What is the best way to have deeper, structured discussions? We have synchronous (e.g. Zoom) and asynchronous (Telegram, wikis, forums…) tools, but which tool is best for what? When would we use a forum, a wiki, a blog, a federated wiki, a mindmap? Maybe these conversations are picking up now so many more people need to work and study online.
I often wonder whether there is a crowding-out effect of messaging tools. These tools seem to activate brain processes which are immensely gratified by a fast stimulus-response pattern. So when you enable messaging for a group and let’s say a forum, people will tend to flock to the messaging system and neglect the other communication tools.
The messaging provides fast and easy dopamine spikes, the forums tend to insist structurally to more elaborate thinking and writing, so the dopamine effects are postponed and our brains don’t like that.
Reflecting on what I use in my personal learning environment:
First step:
- Feedly to capture rss-feeds
- Twitter lists
- Google alerts on keywords
- Newsletters
Second Step:
- Put interesting materials on Diigo, tagging them
- Putting notes, materials on Roam Research (which is my alternative for Evernote and Notion)
- Putting a selection on TheBrain
- Using mindmaps about specific topics
Third Step:
- Write columns
- Make proposals in the newsroom for new topics
- Do suggestions at MetaCAugs for new topics
Using Roam Research is new for me. It’s not based on creating maps, but on network relations between notes and bidirectional links. One could say it’s a new paradigm in note-taking even though there are similarities with TheBrain.
- Discussions on messaging and forums, during zoom discussions
Hi Roland, I don’t have much to add to the conversation (yet) but I appreciate you sharing these processes and reflections.
Great thoughts @Roland. I feel, or what I’ve noticed… is that each tool is a bridge to another. As long as the links, on-ramps to each are visible, then the communication can naturally shift from one medium to another. I don’t necessarily get the dopamine from single thread text chats like Telegram. If it’s chat based I’d rather there be channels for different kinds of conversation.
When I do respond it’s usually thought out over a period of time that might be a few hours to days after the initial conversation started, so organized discussion like this is probably where I would contribute more myself. I’m enjoying using Discord myself, but am looking into self-hosted solutions. Again with bridges if we each had a community we host/participate in it we would be great to creatie that bridge both ways for people to travel. I’ve linked some OpenLearning/MetaCAugs stuff in my personal channels.
Hope this helps the discussion along 
Please keep us posted about the self-hosted solutions! I think Robert Best is working on those bridges?
1 Like
