The following observation depends upon remembering the order in which the responses are presented and attributing to that order the signification of an itinerary. The collection of responses represents an epistemological path. That path can go from easy (the known and readily knowable) to more difficult (the unknown). Of course, certain sets of learners may immediately focus upon the areas they do not know well and engage in questions about the questions. This tendency to problematize the problem or the situation in which the exercise is set can be labelled as "going meta". [If you are interested, ask François to briefly discuss the work of Luria and Vygotsky in relation to cognitive dissonance, information overload and "going meta".] Whatever the path, short or long, some gap in knowledge opens up and there is an opportunity for learning.
One iteration of the exercise led to the discovery that the combination of role and setting least likely to illicit a descriptive adjective was "guide online." Remember that the recorder kept a question mark as a placeholder in the spot for that combination. Remember that that spot was in the upper right corner of the grid (table or chart). Remember that a salvager summarized the findings by declaring that all the attributes described by the adjectives covering the all the other role-setting combinations could apply to the "guide-online." Remeber that the recorder translated this declaration by emphasising certain lines on the grid to create a fourfold division similar to Johari's Window.
If you are about to conduct a WWW search for "Johari's Window", be careful. Somewhere in the many texts that discuss this fourfold grid someone introduced the possessive mark. And given the way in which information even in contexts of high literacy is transmitted by word-of-mouth the possessive has caught on. If you search for "Johari's Window you will also find many references to a musical band by that name. Better luck with dropping the possessive. And if you took Johari to be the orignator's name and checked a library catalogue you might come across the work of Harish Johari and perhaps his book on Leela: The Game of Self-Knowledge. [And if you are smiling, you understand that if this document you are reading were registered with a WWW search engine, it would intersect with the interests of many seekers.]
The Johari Window is name after Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham. Indeed, if you consult The Journal of Social Psychology, 1983, 120, you will find it spelt "JoHari" on page 289. You will not find there a listing of the four categories as "Public, Private, Blind and Unknown." Descriptions can be found online and in Luft's Group Process (2nd edition,1970) give the categories as "Open, Hidden, Blind, Unknown". These visually-based categories become a bit complicated in the dimensions of computer-mediated communication. Consider the various "tell, "shout", and "say" commands on a MUD or "whisper" and "message blocking" in chats forums or the "envelope information" function in voice mail systems.
An interesting valence diagram of the Johari Window.....
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