Positionality and Quaternity: Blogging for Informal Learning

Most informal learning that occurs within blogs can be described as a dynamic between
positionality, the drive to publish for an audience, and positionality, the urge to draw in
and collect resources for careful analysis and reflection for a limited audience (oneself
and perhaps a few trusted others).

In the case of positionality, one is concerned primarily with blogging within one's own
frame of reference. revision inserted here ...It takes conscious effort to blog ideas, and
these efforts result in a tentative post drawn from a source of ideas that... is sifted based
on a pre-set, individual perspective, and relevant content is selected, evaluated and re-
purposed if suitable. The rest is unused, and remains unintegrated, unarticulated as part of
the blog post.

The drive to collect resources is fuelled by an essential self, a self directed volition, an
individual with an inner fire, a conscious, intentional line of action. Because such learners
value autonomy and self-direction, and value the ability to learn independently, they
often use blogs to engage in introspection and reflection. These personal bloggers are
interested in engaging in visioning, the cultivation of one's own gifts and talents, so that
they may grow intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually.

Positionality is balanced, however, by quaternity, which involves a need for self-

expression and sharing of gifts with others. It involves the creation of learning products
and events and dialogues and connections that share insights, engage others in dialogue,
tell stories and biographies, develop personal voices, exchange oral histories, and discuss
ideas both in disputional language (debates, forums) and in sharing, consensual language.

The interplay between positionality and quaternity leads to praxis, the process of
reflection on action. Bloggers engage in this synergy all the time, and as they capture
more and more of their own thinking processes they create a more vivid digital footprint,
which consists more and more frequently of integrated multi-modal learning objects.

The digital footprint is not just the learning object, but the entirety of the connections
made to create it, as well as the description of the individual's creator's larger context and
flow of ideas. It also involves the connections made once the initial object is published,
how it is in turn disseminated, commented upon, and re-used by the author at some future
time as a reiteration, as well as by others.

Path-making begins to occur as patterns emerge between digital footprints, as tracks more
clearly appear connecting learning objects. This can be intentionally created by individual
bloggers, as well as created spontaneously by a collection of individuals.

Path-sharing arises once tracks are clearly evident between digital footprints, and then
recorded, and routinized, by bloggers creating learning objects in concert (as autonomous
bloggers working cooperatively with one another in a spirit of reciprocity). These paths
are shared with others.