I’m thinking about improvable objects at the moment. Or, rather, I’m thinking about a version of improvable objects.

Because talk is ephemeral, improvable objects are things that groups of learners use to move ideas and knowledge through time. They might be documents that they are working on, or a model they are making, or a map they are drawing.

Asynchronous dialogue is not at all ephemeral, but you still need something similar to move ideas and knowledge through time – otherwise everyone gets lost in the overwhelming mass of postings.

In the case of the conferences I’m studying, they have a project proposal form. In successive versions of this attached document, the group agrees on their research question, theoretical framework and methodology.

I’ve been trying to think of a term for this sort of object, a term which points to shared ownership and its temporal nature. I just came upon a comment by one of the course participants – this draft is a bit of a camel (a horse made by a committee!).

Maybe that’s the term I need. All asynchronous groups of learners should aim to have one or more refined camels!