Sensemaking and Wayfinding

Narratives of coherence: sensemaking and wayfinding in complex information ecologies
George Siemens
September 6, 2011
Pretoria, South Africa

Fragmentation of information
Coherence formation challenged by:
limits of human cognition
growth of information quantity

Existing coherence forming systems
Books
Newspapers
TV news programs
Magazines
(anything that is structured and that the end user can’t speak into and alter)

Information grounds
“focuses on people’s information behavior in informal social settings”
Counts and Fisher, 2010

Fragmentation of information requires that we weave together elements into some type of coherent framework
Youtube
Blogs
Twitter
Facebook
TEDtalks
Kahn Academy
Online news/information sites
Traditional coherence frameworks

“the rise of millions of fragmented discussions across the world tend instead to lead to fragmentation of audiences into isolated publics”
Habermas 2006

Coherence is an orientation about the meaning and value of information elements based on how they are connected, structured, and related
Antonovsky 1993

Coherence expression(sensegiving)
Artifacts
Narratives

Artifacts of sensemaking

Organizing course
content
DolorsCapdet

Image of course structure created by course participant
http://x28newblog.blog.uni-heidelberg.de/2008/09/06/cck08-first-impressions/

Language games
Storytelling
Debate, dialogue
Descriptions
Clarification
Metaphors
Analogies
Examples
Resonance
Narratives of sensemaking

Language/externalization reduces the “occult character” of mental images.
Wittgenstein
Language gives birth to thought
Vygotsky

What is sensemaking?

An effort “to create order and make retrospective sense of what occurs”
Weick1993

“a motivated, continuous effort to understand connections . . . in order to anticipate their trajectories and act effectively”
Klein et al. 2006

“Sensemaking is about labelling and categorizing to stabilize the streaming of experience”
Weicket al. 2005

Cynefin
Framework
Dave Snowden

Domains of Sensemaking

Participatory sensemaking:
“the coordination of intentional activity in interaction, whereby individual sense-making processes are affected and new domains of social sense-making can be generated that were not available to each individual on her own”
De Jaegher and Di Paolo 2007

What is wayfinding?

“the process that takes place when people orient themselves and navigate through space”
Raubaland Winter 2002

“is the cognitive element of navigation … it does not involve movement of any kind but only the tactical and strategic parts that guide movement.”
Darken and Peterson 2002

Adapted from:Darken and Peterson (2001).

Sensemaking Wayfinding Information Model

change.mooc.ca(Starts September 12, 2011)
Twitter: gsiemens
www.elearnspace.org/blog
Learning Analytics & Knowledge 2012:
Vancouver
http://lak12.sites.olt.ubc.ca/

http://www.connectivism.ca	11167
http://www.elearnspace.org	2027
http://www.scoop.it	733
http://janienbenaets.wordpress.com	498
http://www.caosordenadorelativo.com	225
http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com	215
http://tannisteaches.wordpress.com	72
http://translate.googleusercontent.com	56
http://workingonmyrewrite.blogspot.com	54
http://www.sociedadytecnologia.org	13
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com	12
http://t.co	10
http://207.46.192.232	9
http://twitter.com	8
http://www.connectivism.ca.	6
http://www.diigo.com	4
http://us-w1.rockmelt.com	1
https://twitter.com	1
http://66.230.199.238	1
http://lingro.com	1
http://localhost	1
http://darcynorman.net	1
http://alexa.castellan.de	1

Sensemaking and Wayfinding

by gsiemens on Sep 06, 2011

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