Social+Gestures

//Social Gestures Beget Social Objects// ||
 * =Social Gestures, Social Objects, Social Markers= ||
 * media type="custom" key="851399" ||
 * **[|Hugh MacLeod,]** Gaping Void cartoonist
 * Read more** about the challenges to a Futures Orientated Learning Technology Curriculum

The concepts and practices that MacLeod talks about in the above video are pivotal to the redesign of the [|Learning Technology Curriculum], particularly the Domain - Communicating through Presentation, Publication or Performance [LT-P]. MacLeod acknowledges, and puts into practice the understanding that online communication has moved beyond sending out messages, selling an idea that comes from me to you. Basically this type of transmission is ultimately one way. In a Web 2.0 world, presentations, publications and performances are now Social Objects – they are exchangeable. MacLeod gives the examples of FlickeR and Blogosphere. FlickeR is a way to share photos, the photostream become Social Object. In the Blogosphere, sharing thoughts, what I am thinking is not just kept it to myself, I share my thoughts and these are added to and so on – ideas become Social Objects. The implications for LT-P are around the concepts of “audience”, “purpose”, “interact” and “creatively enhances presentation, performance or communication of information”. The way to think about these “redesigned” concepts is through relationships. A move away from, what I am transmitting, selling, to the relationships between people. How do we talk to each other in an online global/local world where people are hyper-connected? MacLeod posits that we relate through genuine social gestures. From the standpoint of social behaviourist George H. Mead (1972) social objects signify evolving themes that arise from people values. These themes emerge from interactions that are organised around communication, power and evaluation. Stacey (2005) extrapolates these ideas further as aspects of Complex Responsive Processes. Social Objects are not necessarily important in themselves; it is more their value as a sign of the interactions which denote participation in an evolving communicative network. // “The generalisation will never be particularised in exactly the same way and the nonlinear nature of human interactions means that these small differences could be amplified into completely different generalisations. In this way, social objects and cult values evolve” // (Stacey 2005: 7)