http://muralmosaic.com/adam.html

Spinuzzi cites Bateson’s example of the blind man with a cane (p. 84) tapping along, trying to determine where his boundaries are.  I feel a little like that blind man today, blindly tapping away, trying to discover how actor-network theory affects the assemblages that I am part of.  I’m trying to find the curbs that define my boundaries and mark where areas of unknown dangers begin.

All semester, I have been looking at the readings through two lenses: writer and teacher.  This week, that is relatively easy.

Writer

ANT says that no writer stands alone; we are part of a larger assemblage of actors, technologies, and artifacts.  As I examine the role of author in technical communication, the truth of that statement becomes very clear.  We don’t write in a vacuum.  We are part of a community of people and ideas, adding to a rhizomatic body of knowledge, and my contribution as a writer is to add a piece to the mosaic here and there.

Hopefully it is a brightly colored piece that sparkles when light shines on it, but it is merely a piece in a large collaborative creation.  There is no way to separate my work from the assemblage of influences that shaped it.  Nor would I want to do that; I want to build on the work of others, not blaze my own paths.  I realize that I need to add new insight and accomplishments to the field, but work that has no network is never seen and has little relevance.

Teacher

A classroom is obviously a network, whether it is online or in a single physical location.  I am an actor (all definitions apply here) who combines with my students, texts, papers, and technology to form an assemblage.  We interact with writers, genres, and texts to create new knowledge from the collective experience of those who have gone before us, combined with our own experiences.

Constructivism

I am fascinated by learning theory and can’t help but see it everywhere.  Constructivism is a theory that says that all knowledge is constructed by the learner, especially through social interactions.  In a classroom, the learners interact to construct knowledge, which becomes a conglomerate created by shared experience and expertise.  This sounds suspiciously like activity networks, doesn't it?

In many ways, Spinuzzi is re-wording much of what Piaget said fifty years ago.  He looks at the way we interact to create ideas and artifacts.   His ideas incorporate much more than learning, however.  He has found a way to deconstruct the way we link innovation, ideas, community, and discovery together. He says, “novel solutions come from the expertise of the overlapping activities, in a multifaceted and multidirectional fashion.” (p. 80).  I like it.  A lot.