Learning Tools

I was first introduced to the idea of static vs. dynamic by a young chess player. He had been the Armenian Junior Champion before coming to the United States when he was twenty. He was giving me chess lessons and was attempting to explain the difference between strategy and tactics. Tactics are the forced moves that occur when it is pretty clear that when I do this, then my opponent is going to do that, and so on. But, strategy is much more subtle than that; it requires an understanding of time, space, and material. In static positions, players can each continue to move according to their own strategic plans, but in dynamic positions, tactics hold sway and choices grow limited as the players interact according to the requirements of the position. Consequences grow clear as the dynamic tactics reach their conclusion, and it is once again time to assess the overall strategic plan that each player is working toward. Static situations build until a burst of dynamic activity occurs, and then the situation is once again static, ready for the tensions to build.

When I think of dynamic activities in an online context, I think of tools such as instant messaging and video chats that require immediate responses from the participants. Unlike email and discussion boards that can be accessed when I am ready to do so. I can look at an email and think to myself, “I think this is one that is going to require me to do something; I think I will come back to this one.”

This places tools like GoogleDocs in an interesting static vs. dynamic role; GoogleDocs makes for a great dynamic collaborative tool as each person altering a document can see the shifts in the text and can make additional changes in a free flowing, dynamic way, but it is also a tool that can seem very static if participants move slowly to contribute to a communal product.

Blogs and wikis require me as a reader to access a site voluntarily, and again, like email and discussion boards, I can always come back to them whenever it is more convenient to do so. While these tools open the door for greater communication, they are not nearly as dynamic for communication and collaboration as Webinars, video and instant messaging.