Big Rock (Beer? Candy Mountain? Yes to both, please!)

To be perfectly honest, this course has been a complete blur. I started a new job as an ESL instructor just as the course began. I have found myself constantly scrambling just to try to barely keep pace with everything as we have gone along. This has been an incredibly frustrating experience for me, because I vastly prefer to be completely on top of things.

In a way, this experience is a metaphor for everything we have been reading, doing, and thinking about. In the same way that the course has presented huge streams of data, seeming to move at an incredible pace, so goes the world of "integrating educational technology". The pace of change--in educational theory, technological development, and everything surrounding them--is dizzying. The sheer volume of information is daunting, and growing exponentially. Links lead to more links, and a person can get overwhelmed rather quickly!

Meanwhile, we've been doing all of this through a brand-new platform (D2L, replacing Blackboard) within an environment which didn't even exist a few short years ago (online education). So we've been functioning "within" technology, even as we have been discussing its place and role in education. We have experienced both the power and shortcomings/limitations of this mode of learning as it is presently understood and constructed.

Furthermore, we've dabbled with a few other forms of technology--not the least of them being these blogs themselves. I have mixed feelings about the use of blogs as "technological tools in education". These feelings come both from this experience as well as my own efforts to "use" them as a teacher. First, blogging is generally thought of as a personal undertaking. There seems to be something "forced" and "unnatural" about "using" them as educational tools--especially when they are to be written more formally (with citations, etc) than personally/naturally. Second, this "artificial" use of blogs seems to fail where blogs are supposed to succeed--i.e., in their "interactivity".

Both here and with my own attempts to use blogs as a tool, I have found that the "dialogue" blogs theoretically encourage doesn't really materialize. When people choose to read, follow, and comment on blogs because of personal interest, the dialogue/conversation happens naturally and organically. When people are required to write and respond to blogs, the process is artificial, and loses the very naturalness and authenticity that defines the medium. Even though I have my students do personal writing, it is still an artificially-created entity, and invariably falls flat.

We have also dabbled with Twitter. I have already written extensively about some of my thoughts with respect to this undertaking. What I have just written about blogging also holds true for my thoughts and experiences with the Twitter project. But even more than that, I have found that I have had one other significant issue. Twitter is, by definition and practice, a "social" medium. It is a platform which I have previously used purely for personal, recreational interaction. Again, forcing it to become a "work-related" platform has been a frustrating experience.

At first, I tried to integrate it into my "normal" Twitter account. I found that so unsatisfactory that I felt compelled to create a separate "work" account. But logging into and using it was "work". I found that I deeply resented this intrusion into a medium which had previously been purely for fun. This made me think of a much bigger issue--the "creep" of work into every moment of our lives. We are all now constantly "on the clock". We check our work email--and often end up working as a result--at all hours of day and night. This is disturbing and unacceptable. We cannot allow "work" to permeate our entire existences. There are times and places (both physical and virtual) which must remain sacrosanct.

Ultimately, then, I have mixed feelings about "integrating educational technology". Perhaps it boils down to a matter of design or intended use. Technology which is designed or intended to be "educational" or used for educational purposes (LinoIt being a great example) functions beautifully. But attempts to fold, bend, or mutilate technology which was not designed or intended for education seem much less successful. It is laudable that educators are trying to be creative and interested in technology. But where I find educators sometimes rather overeager and somewhat naive is in the area of the "philosophy of technology"--understanding technology from the inside out; understanding how its design is both intentional and limiting.

I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that "technology" is driving a revolution at least as massive as the invention of the printing press and the Industrial Revolution. The technological revolution has profound impacts for absolutely every aspect of society--including education. Everyone involved with education--academics, policy makers, administrators, teachers, and all other stakeholders--must do everything humanly possible to truly understand the technological revolution and ensure that the education system is fully integrated within it.

And that is my final point and "takeaway" from this course. So far, we have it backwards. It is not a matter of integrating technology into education, but rather one of integrating education into technology--into an entirely new social paradigm. Rather than trying to shoehorn bits and pieces of technology into the world of education as we know it, we need to imagine an entirely new world of education, and how it can integrate seamlessly within the technological revolution.

More thoughts about Twitter

Yesterday (November 22), there was a two-page article in the Globe and Mail about Twitter. The company's new goal is to become a major player in the world of "big data". As the article says, "every Twitter user is a data geyser". There's not a word about educational use of the platform--or any of the other supposed social benefits of Twitter (the apocryphal "role" it has supposedly played in the "Arab Spring" and so on). Twitter sees users as nothing more or less than data points/streams to be commodified.

Twitter has always thought of itself--and tried to function--as a "global water cooler"; the place where you talk about your favorite TV show, sports team, and so on. It still seems to function as such, but Twitter apparently faces a growing divergence between veteran, "hard-core" users and their more recent, casual counterparts. Such a bifurcation doesn't bode well for Twitter as a "conversational" medium. It suggests that it may well become more of broadcast/consumption platform, in which most users are passive consumers of content produced by a small minority of producers, with Twitter as the classic middleman or "entrepreneur" (from the French for "enterprise", but more specifically "entre" (between) + "preneur" (getter)--the classic bourgeois middleman inserting himself between producer and consumer), making money by selling users (and their data) to advertisers.

Twitter now has a clearly defined business model, which is unmistakably moving away from individual users and toward advertisers and developers. This would suggest that senior leadership at Twitter cares not a single iota about the social and interpersonal aspects of the medium. Senior leadership isn't interested in how people use Twitter. They make absolutely no mention of the supposed human dimension of the medium--be it social, political, educational, or anything else. They're not interested in the functionality of the platform. All they're interested in is mining and selling data.

To me, this suggests that Twitter is anything but socially conscious. In fact, it is quite the contrary--yet another threat to personal privacy--if such a notion even exists or matters any more. Every time anyone uses Twitter--no matter what they may THINK they're using it for, they are simply becoming a more and more accurately refined data point/stream, to be packaged and sold.

The Curated Life in a Mean World

I continue to think very hard about social media, and whether they truly have a place in education, now or in the future. I keep trying to be persuaded by all the arguments which seem to think they do, but I still can't convince myself.

I was very interested to read "The Enlightenment Meets Twitter" (Krutka & Milton, 2013). I have, for some time, followed several Twitter accounts such as "Real Time WW II Tweets", "Samuel Pepys", and so on. A couple of years ago, as the result of a residency ("In(ter)ventions: Literary Practice at the Edge") at the Banff Centre in their Literary Arts department, I almost embarked on a Twitter-based experimental literature/performance art project myself. (The basis of the idea was to tweet the entirely of "Don Quixote" exactly 140 characters at a time, and then to engage in a variety of "meta" practices around this "quixotic" endeavour. It never got off the ground, even though I'm still fascinated by the potential of the project.)

Most of these accounts are, in fact, some sort of "conceptual art" project. They not only produce tweets, but they interrogate Twitter as a medium. They themselves ask questions about Twitter, and implicitly invite followers to do the same. For example, the Samuel Pepys account is an exploration of transposing/transferring Pepys' famous diary entries into/onto the Twitter platform. Pepys was an incredible and inveterate diarist. Many of his diary entries were essentially 17th Century "tweets". In transposing his (anachronistic) diary entries into tweets, the project invites followers/readers to contemplate Twitter as the modern equivalent of a diary. The project does not "pretend to be Pepys". It does not answer questions in character. It simply posts diary entries as tweets, on the same day of the calendar as they were originally written.

I tremendously enjoy following the account--even occasionally retweeting some of the tweets, which can sometimes seem remarkably apropos across the centuries! But the account constantly reminds of what Twitter is. It is, and always will be, a microblogging platform. It is indeed in many ways the modern equivalent of the diary--nothing more, and nothing less.

Twitter CAN be an interesting platform to explore in various artistic ways--like the Pepys account. There have been many conceptual art projects which have explored and interrogated the medium. But I continue to struggle with attempts to make it into something it isn't by nature--to "use" it for a variety of purposes--"commercial", "educational", or otherwise. They all seem forced and contrived, and never fully successful.

The project described in "The Enlightenment Meets Twitter" is a case in point. While there is much that is laudable about the project, it ultimately fails, in my opinion. Having students adopt the "persona" of historical figures on Twitter is highly problematic to me. I suppose I can see some educational benefits to the students, but I have profound issues with making these accounts public--at least without some sort of clear indication on the accounts that they were indeed student projects. They raise fascinating issues about online identity construction, but they remain problematic to me.

What I actually find quite fascinating about social media is their curatorial nature. People cultivate and tend to their Twitter, Facebook, and especially Vine and Instragram accounts in an attempt to curate personal collections--virtual "cabinets of wonder". For an interesting discussion of this, see Alexandra Molotrow's recent article in in Globe and Mail.

Just a few days ago, columnist Andrew Coyne, who had been a heavy Twitter user, abruptly announced he was "quitting" Twitter and deleted his account. It made national news. Part of his reasoning was the "meanness" of Twitter, other social media, and the internet in general (such as "comments" sections, let alone the vile murk of various corners of Reddit and 4Chan). Utopian rhetoric about social media invariably ignores this profound reality. For every Arab Spring, there are countless FHRITPs. More and more people are doing just as Coyne has done, and quitting social media entirely, increasingly citing "Mean World Syndrome".

Social media are just that--media which exist for social interaction. No amount of wishful thinking can or will force these square pegs into roundish holes for which they were not designed, created, or intended. The world is littered with failed attempts to create "social media for the workplace" (Yammer, anyone?), "social media for education" (Edmodo?), and so on. They're always marketed as "Facebook for work", "Twitter for school", and so on. But they never really work. Facebook is for Facebook. Twitter is for Twitter. Blogs (even such as these) are for blogging--personal writing and expression, not academics. They're all "curated diaries" in an increasingly mean online world.

I have tried to "use" various social media for purposes for which they were never intended in my own education practice. These efforts have always been glorious failures, for precisely those structural reasons. The only true success I have had (thus far) is with blogs. I encourage/require my students to write personal thoughts, reflections, and observations on their blogs. I don't impose academic rules, regulations, or expectations. I just ask them to write, and to read and comment on each others' blogs. This works well, precisely because it uses the platform not only for something familiar, but for the purpose for which it was designed.

Reference: Krutka, D & Milton, M. (2013). The Enlightment Meets Twitter: Using Social Media in the Social Studies Classroom. Ohio Social Studies Review, vol. 50, #2, pp. 22-29. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/5231710/The_Enlightenment_meets_Twitter_Using_social_media_in_the_social_studies_classroom

Catch a Wave and You're Sittin' on Top of the World

It's really quite remarkable how the notion of "catching a wave" has passed from the tiny world of surf culture (as captured in the lyrics of the Beach Boys song "Catch a Wave", referenced in the title of this post) into common usage. But it is indeed a very apt metaphor. In order to successfully surf a wave, you have to catch at at just the right moment. Not only can you be too late, but equally importantly, you can be too early.

Trying to catch "the wave" of social and technological change is virtually impossible. It's akin to trying to time the stock market. The pace of change is dizzying, many "next big things" turn out to be duds, and things that are dismissed as trivial turn out to become wildly successful. I have already blogged about the folly and futility of trying to predict the future. Now I'm proposing to argue that it is just as impossible to truly comprehend the present.

There are many claims that we live in a "post-industrial age". But do we really? Yes, many western economies seem to be moving away from industrialism and manufacturing to some other form of economic activity ("service" economies actually being more economically significant than "knowledge" economies). But the global economy is actually still heavily predicated on industrialism--the manufacturing and consumption of "hard goods". They're just being manufactured in places that are more economically advantageous for global capitalism and being shipped around the world because our current carbon economy makes shipping ridiculously cheap, and the combination of manufacturing in a location where labour is cheap (expendable, even) plus shipping is still economically "better" than manufacturing in locations where labour is more expensive.

So do the massive bodies of literature making recommendations as to what we should do in the supposed post-industrial age really hold true? Do they truly understand present reality? I am increasingly doubtful/skeptical that they actually do.

What I find fascinating about the article "Catching the Knowledge Wave: Redefining Knowledge for the Post-Industrial Age" (Gilbert, 2007) is in fact it's deep reliance on the past to make its argument. The absolute foundation of the article's entire argument is the work of Jean-Francois Lyotard, which dates from the 1970s--30 years prior to the publication of the article and almost 40 years prior to today. That's verging on being half a century old!

Another of the readings suggests that the concept of the "Knowledge Age" or "Knowledge Society" itself is outdated, arguing instead that we have already passed through this stage and should be preparing for the "Creative Age" or "Creative Society" (sadly, I can't seem to put my finger on the specific article at the moment).

Gilbert's article is, in fact, largely a work of history. It examines the origins of the concept of the "Knowledge Society". It examines the history of schooling. It postulates or proposes a future, and then creates some proposals to suit that postulate. But this aspect of the article is entirely speculative. Only the historical aspects of the article have any great degree of certitude.

It is now common or received wisdom to suggest that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. This is, of course, absolutely true. But perhaps it is only history--the past--which we can truly understand. Trying to predict the future--especially in such a time of profound change--is virtually impossible. And perhaps even truly understanding the present is just as impossible.

So what, then, are the implications for education and educators? Can we truly try to mold something as massive and unwieldy as the social structure/system of "education" for some speculative future? It certainly seems that we have come to grips with its history, and have recognized that we do not wish to repeat the past. But how can we possibly create the future, when even the past is profoundly uncertain and, I would argue, not fully understood?

I don't mean to be glib--quite the contrary. I am increasingly unsure about not only what to do for the future, but even what questions to ask about the present!

Reference: Gilbert, J. (2007). Catching the Knowledge Wave: Redefining Knowledge in the Post-Industrial Age. Retrieved from:http://www.cea-ace.ca/sites/cea-ace.ca/files/EdCan-2007-v47-n3-Gilbert.pdf

"Recombinant" Education

I found the Week 4 materials (and activity) particularly interesting and thought-provoking. Predicting the future, as we all know, is often a fool's errand or a mug's game. All we have to do is look at the history of "futurism". Various World Fairs have boldly predicted "the world of tomorrow". Disney had Tomorrowland--which evolved into "New Tomorrowland", a retrospective look at futurism. We rarely get it right when we try to predict the future of anything--but we can't resist trying. It's the nature of our species.

There is plenty to unpack simply in the title of the Knowledge Works 3.0 document, "Recombinant Education: Regenerating the Learning Ecosystem" (KnowledgeWorks, 2012). First of all, the document uses the software version convention (3.0). This suggests that it is the third "major release" of the document, which in turn suggests that the document is an iterative process, rather than a finished product. The software version convention suggests that minor "tweaks" and "bug fixes" receive a designation following the point (2.1, 2.2, etc). Only major overhauls receive a new designation before the point. One must, therefore, assume that version 3.0 is a major overhaul from version 2.x.

The use of the term "recombinant" suggests a deliberate borrowing from the world of genetics. Recombinant DNA (rDNA) is artificially created DNA. It is manufactured in a lab. The term recombinant also suggests or implies genetic modification. Therefore, one must conclude that the report is an artificial creation, perhaps intended to modify the "genetic code" of education.

Sadly, I found the document rather wanting. To me, it suffered from the same afflictions that plague all forms of futurism. They are invariably either deeply utopian or profoundly utopian. This document is clearly the latter. so much of what it blithely proposes as "good" or "beneficial" struck me as profoundly chilling. I also found that it suffered from massive amounts of pseudo-science and "technobabble"--meaningless jargon.

The notion of "democratized startup" and "edupreneurship" (KnowledgeWorks 2012) may sound wonderful on the surface, but there is absolutely no evidence to support the claim. The very notion of "democracy" is actually laughable. The kinds of resources--beginning with simple access to the requisite technological tools--are available only to (upper) middle class learners. There is already a huge "digital divide" which threatens to become only worse. The social/class issues and problems with the report are astonishing.

The idea that "we" will all become independent contractors is also chilling. This is already happening, and causing huge social disruption. Independent contractors have no job security. They typically have no benefits (health care, pension, and so on). This, of course, is tremendously attractive to global capitalism, but comes at equally tremendous human cost. Yet the report completely ignores the social implications in its glowing praise of such a future.

But what I found most disturbing is not only blithe acceptance but outright cheerleading for incredibly invasive data analytics, cognitive prosthetics, automated alerts, invasive neuroscience, and so on. This is flat-out terrifying. The idea of reducing huamn beings to nothing more than data points or streams to be constantly monitored and "optimized" is straight of the most nightmarish science fiction imaginable. The privacy implications alone should be enough to induce sheer terror. Yet the document sees nothing but deliriously positive outcomes from these things.

If this is indeed the future of education, educators, and learners, I personally want no part of any such future!

Reference: KnowledgeWorks (2011). Recombinant Education: Regenerating the Learning Ecosystem. Retrieved from:http://knowledgeworks.org/future-of-learning