What is Collaboration?

What is Collaboration?

Collaborating in A Social Era by Oscar Berg
(Completely inspired by this image created by Ocar Berg)



"We are working collaboratively"

"We are planning collaboratively"

"We are teaching collaboratively" 


So what is collaboration?

I think it may be something to do with building and creating with others 
that what you could not have done on your own.

I think it may be something to do with the collision of ideas. 
The colliding of things that create the conditions for 'sparks'.
For things to happen.
(A friend said isn't it some thing like a Guy Faulks party!)

I think it might be working in the present with others to anticipate 
 the future in a transformative way.

Thats its a deliberate and purposeful move away from 'good sharing'.

It's individual and social behaviour that is associated with systems and networks.

I think its something that takes deliberate action that requires certain conditions for it to occur. I'm really interested in what those conditions are.


I'm still thinking this through....



I was quite captured by the image below. 

Collaborating in A Social Era by Oscar Berg
(Completely inspired by this image created by Ocar Berg)

Metaphor: Fire

"And this is the red, orange, yellow flicker beat

Sparking up my heart

And this is the red, orange, yellow flicker beat-beat-beat-beat"

Lorde

Ideas are like fire, 

Smouldering...

Igniting...

Bursting into flames...

Smoking...

I'm wondering where are the ideas that are smouldering?

The ones we don't see or hear but we sense they are happening.

On the day Lorde released her Song Yelow Flcker Beat, was the day I met with a couple of educators. We were talking about writing an interim report anchored in our understanding of working with Complexity.

I said, I have this crazy idea... 
How about we use the metaphor of fire and use lines in Lorde's song from Yellow Flicker Beat. I explained that I was thinking fire was like ideas... some times igniting.. some times smouldering and some how we need to work with the certainty and uncertainty  that fire brings.

I suggested that  each of us use lyrics from Lorde's song where ever they have meaning for us in our reports.  The intention would be that the metaphor fire would be what brought our different ideas together. 

Since this time, I have started to notice,

People gather around ideas in the same way we gather around a fire. Some times the ideas are too big and we watch from a distance. Sometimes the idea is comfortable to poke and prod with a stick and then 'pop' a spark jumps out!

I've been thinking about metaphors for Knowledge Building, Knowledge Creating. Working in complex spaces, how to work with certainty and uncertainty in the classroom, What transformation looks like, disruption, being disrupted.

Metaphors are important as they help me to explain to others what something looks and feels like.

What metaphors are you using?



So I'm starting a collection. (Do you have examples / stories to add?)

Fire Stories - Stories by the fire

1. Ally Bull  tells me she attend a  Pasifika Educators Leadership workshop where the metaphor of fire was prominent. 

2. The metaphor Fire was picked up my Rose Hipkins (from NZCER) as she mentioned that the NZ curriculum  was like a slow burner.