Do we really agree? Let’s See.
by Christine Martell on January 13, 2008
in Visuals
Michele Martin and I had a long discussion over the phone yesterday. It was part of an ongoing conversation we have been having over the last few months. We have used email, wikis, IM, face-to-face, and phone. The point being, this is not a new conversation. It has been developing over time.
And the conversation is not about images, rather about the use of social media as learning professionals. It’s an interesting topic, and I would encourage you to go over to Michele’s blog for the conversation about the content.
This post is about how we each saw the image we were talking about.
It started with Michele sending me a tall pyramid. As we were talking I said I thought it was more of a spiral, and we talked about what I meant by that. From the conversation, I would have guessed we were aligned and were seeing the same things.
Michele’s Image
This morning, Michele posts this spiraling image on her blog. Wow, really? A tall skinny spiral? A tornado spiral? When I think about it, aspects of the lower levels do kind of get sucked up into the higher level areas. And bits and pieces of the top levels filter down and layer on top. I can get there, but it was surprising when I first saw it.
Christine’s Image
I was seeing a flat spiral. Different, and more so than I would have guessed.
Does this matter?
Are these differences that matter? In this context, maybe not. This was a conversation between colleagues, one where we were challenging each other to expand our thinking. But what if we had been taking action based on this conversation? Would these different perspectives matter then? Especially since we thought we had come to alignment?
How images can make a difference
If we had been able to see what we were each scribbling down while we were talking, we could have had a deeper conversation about why we were seeing these differently. Or if we really were. Or was it just the way we were sketching? I suspect from these drawings that there are areas where we could tease out more differences in our understanding, places where we each could learn more from each other.
Because we relied on just words in the moment, we limited the depth of our potential conversation because we assumed we were in agreement. And we have a tendency to search harder for the places we agree. It affirms our connection, and feels good.
This is happening all the time, all around us
Words are wonderful. But we bring all of our unique experiences and understanding to them. How many times a day do we think we are saying something that is in alignment with someone else? How many times are we sure?
Not that visuals are the answer. If you show a picture to five people they will often tell you five different things. But there is a concrete starting point in the image. You can see more of the thinking, you can ask questions. Added to the words, you might be a step closer to really understanding each other.
Hmmm. . . . looks like we need another conversation on this.
Yours is of course more of a spiral, but I also feel like it’s harder for me to understand that way. As AJ pointed out to me, what I really drew was a helix, but in some ways I think I still wanted to capture a sense of a hierarchy. Someone mentioned that they’d started blogging before they did the lower levels because they wanted to write about a vacation, but I wonder if that really captures the essence of blogging if the "lower" levels haven’t been integrated as we talked about?
I agree completely with you that the visual expands the conversation and shows us where we’re having a different vision of how this stuff ties together. You’re also making an excellent point about how the visual can help us tease out the differences in how we’re using language, too.
Christine, it’s quite striking how different your spirals are! I read Michele’s post first and I wasn’t sure that I agreed with the implied hierarchy. Your spiral, because it is flat suggests more interaction between the different levels.
Clearly visuals are an important part of communication. That’s what I really like about the program Elluminate Live!; not only can you communicate with text, audio, and video — there is also an interactive white board. When I tutor my math students on-line the whiteboard is just wonderful to use to quickly write up equations and sketches. Being able to share a whiteboard on-line is amazing!
Elluminate is not free (although in BC, Canada the ministry of education has a province wide license whereby all public school teachers can set up their own Elluminate ‘room’ that is available to them 24/7) but I see that the Elluminate people have a free version — vRoom — where up to 3 people can collaborate using the whiteboard etc. WizIQ also has a whiteboard; it sounds like it is a combination of Elluminate Live! and YouTube. I haven’t tried vRoom or WizIQ, but it sounds like they would add the visual component that may often help move our communication along.
Thanks for an enjoyable post!
Oooo, interactive whiteboard online, always wanted to try that. Thanks for the suggestion Claire.
As Michele has noted, we do need to have another conversation, so we’ll have to play with the whiteboards. This whole topic is so fascinating to me. Just how are we going to depict just what we are trying to do in this new media? Or does it matter? Maybe we just have to work on the pitch to get people to jump in and play?