I mentioned in my D2L post for Week 10 that I had been struck by Sharon Friesen's use of of an architectural metaphor in her article on competency-based curriculum (Friesen 2013). Meanwhile, I just posted my link and question about an environmental issue for Week 12, which is about architecture--a subject of particular interest to me. As you know by now, my particular area of interest is in the design--the architecture--of "school", both as social institution and as built environment.
The metaphor of teachers as architects of learning has resonated very strongly with me, especially in light of everything we have considered this semester. Architects create designs, but they do not actually build. Architects have a vision of where they want a process to go, but they need many others to reach the goal. Architects must often revise, refine, or reject ideas, designs and plans. Architects coordinate and facilitate the work of many different groups and individuals, all of whom have their own strengths and weaknesses. Architects understand and use some technology, but they also rely on others who have particular or specific technological tools, without necessarily fully understanding how their colleagues use a particular tool.
This indeed sounds very much like the evolving role of the teacher. The teacher creates the overall design, but the students do the actual construction/building/learning/work. The teacher has a goal or outcome in mind, and designs a process by which to work toward the intended result. The teacher is constantly revising, refining, or rejecting ideas as the process unfolds. The teacher works with a variety of students, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, but each contributing to the overall goal. The teacher coordinates and facilitates the work being performed by the students. The teacher may not fully understand a particular technological tool being used by a student, but can see the value of the tool to the work being performed.
Architecture is a holistic practice. A building requires a variety of individual systems or components (the envelope, mechanical systems, electrical systems, plumbing systems, and so forth)--but they must all come together to create a whole which functions as a seamlessly integrated set of systems. No "subject" or "discipline" exists in isolation--they are all interdependent. Similarly, education must be a holistic, integrated practice. Subjects do not exist in isolated silos. They are interdependent. It is the teacher--or teachers--who coordinate and facilitate the coordination of various components to create an integrated set of systems which function as a whole.
Architects are not "experts" in any of the various fields which contribute to the completion of a building. They are not engineers, skilled tradespeople, or technology gurus. They are facilitators, coordinators, and problem-solvers. They have a certain degree of control, but they must also relinquish a great deal of control to those who turn their vision into a finished product. The metaphor seems truly apt for today's teacher. The work is indeed rich and challenging!
Reference:
Friesen, S. (2013). The rich and challenging work of competency-based curriculum. ATA Magazine. 93(4), no pages given.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Left to Our Own Devices?
The traditional meaning of the idiom "left to one's own devices" means to be allowed to decide for ourselves what to do. It may imply that someone else is leaving us to our own devices without trying to help or control us, but not necessarily. But in our present world of "devices", is there a somewhat different meaning we can assign to the expression?
I'm sure many people of all ages would indeed prefer to be left to their own devices--i.e., to not have someone trying to "help" or "control" the ways in which they use their devices. There has been much discussion among our group about "alarmist" or "fear-mongering" rhetoric around the ways in which people do or don't use various technological devices. I've used the metaphor before, but it truly seems as if the pendulum of conventional wisdom about devices and social media has swung from the utopian extreme to the dystopian.
Let's not rush to judgment in either direction. I would suggest that both extremes are not true. It is undeniably true that the hardware and software have "radically reshaped out social lives" (Brown, 2011). But notice that Brown does not say "for the better" or "for the worse"--merely that our social lives have been reshaped. There simply has not yet been enough time for us to truly understand the myriad ways in which this has occurred and to create social codes and conventions around this phenomenon.
Despite the alarmist rhetoric, studies seem to be concluding that there is "no difference in either offline network size or emotional closeness between those that use social media and those that do not at all" (Pollet, et al, 2011). It is worth bearing in mind that "smartphones" and the various social media platforms have both only been with us for approximately a decade. The work of Brown and Pollet, et al was published in 2011. Their research may well have been conducted in 2010 or even 2009. This may not seem like that long ago, but it is half the time that these technologies have existed! Perhaps we should indeed leave people to their own devices and give ourselves a bit more time to think somewhat more calmly and reasonably about the benefits and/or risks of those devices and platforms.
On the other hand, I would hate to see a world in which people are "left to their own devices" when it comes to "assistive technology" or "bring your own device". Coleman (2011) does not speak directly to the issue of cost in her paper, but matters of cost are implicit throughout her discussion of issues around the availability and implementation of assistive technology--assessment, training, and so forth. We are all familiar, I'm sure, with anecdotes about families who have to raise many thousands of dollars to acquire various assistive technologies on their own.
Our most recent discussion of "bring your own device" or "student-owned devices" raises a similar spectre of social-economic equity or justice. Crichton et al are not specifically addressing student owned devices in their paper, but they do suggest that "personal wireless devices might be those nimble shape-shifters capable of putting opportunity into the hands of learners, significantly changing teaching and learning" (Crichton, et al, 2012). Nedungadi & Raman seem somewhat naive in blithely stating that mobile devices are affordable, widespread and egalitarian (Nedungadi & Raman, 2012). Widespread, perhaps, but by no means necessarily affordable or egalitarian.
From a systemic or institutional point of view, the allure of "leaving people to their own devices" when it comes to assistive technology or student-owned devices is easy to understand. If the onus can be shifted to the individual, there is no obligation on the part of the system or institution to provide anything, which in turn leads to massive cost and administrative savings on a number of fronts. But the socio-economic issues of any such thing are obvious and completely unacceptable.
Many post-secondary institutions now require incoming students to have some sort of device. They specify platform and minimum system requirements. Students must purchase a device before they can begin their studies. This is both laudable and entirely acceptable. Post-secondary education carries a number of costs, which are fully understood and accepted by all. Requiring a student-own device is simply another cost associated with post-secondary education.
But in a publicly funded compulsory education system, it is simply unacceptable to require individual families to equip their child(ren) with a device. If technology is to become a basic tool or requirement for full participation in such a system, the onus must reside squarely on the system to provide the necessary tools. Obviously, the "system" must be adequately resourced to do so. In other words, we--collectively through taxation--must provide sufficient funding to the system.
Ultimately, this becomes a social and political issue. If we want each student in our publicly-funded compulsory education system to have a device, we must summon the social and political will to make it happen. What we cannot allow is a system in which individuals with sufficient resources receive one form or level of education while those less fortunate receive something lesser.
References:
Brown, A. (2011). Relationships, Community, and Identity in the New Virtual Society. Futurist, 45(2), 29-34.
Crichton, S., Pegler, K., White, D. (2012). Personal Devices in Public Settings: Lessons Learned From an iPod Touch/iPad Project. The Electronic Journal of e-Learning, 10(1), 22-31.
Nedungadi, P. & Raman, R. (2012). A New Approach to Personalization: Integrating E-Learning and M-Learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 60(4), 659-678.
Pollet, T.V., Roberts, S.G.B., Dunbar, R.I.M. (2011). Use of Social Network Sites and Instant Messaging Does Not Lead to Increased Offline Social Network Size, or to Emotionally Closer Relationships with Offline Network Members. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14(4), 253-258.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself...
...nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes. (Of course, these words come from FDR's famous first inauguration speech in 1933.)
I am truly and deeply depressed by the palpable sense of fear that has run through so many of the thoughts, comments, and posts during the last two units of our course. Perhaps the current debate around Bill C-51 and any number of other almost Orwellian things happening at the moment has heightened my sensitivity, but I truly despair for civil liberties and personal freedom of thought at the moment. Then again, it just may be the wild oscillations of the pendulum which inevitably seem to accompany significant social and technological changes and innovations.
I refer, of course, to the great fear--verging on some sort of hysterical moral panic--about the bogeyman of social media and the evils they stand poised to wreak on our (professional) lives. We need to remember that "social media" as we have come to know, love, loathe, and fear them are less than a decade old--Facebook (being abandoned in droves by young people as it becomes the domain of creaky middle-agers), Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Vine, and all the others have only existed for a handful of years. Still, they seem to have followed an all-too-familiar trajectory. First, there is the utopian discourse about their astonishing potential to make our lives unimaginably better, empower the dispossessed, speak truth to power, and so forth. And now, we have reached the "cautionary tale", profoundly dystopian phase, in which all we hear are horror stories about how they will destroy our lives. The truth, as always, is not only in between, but probably terribly mundane and boring.
Nevertheless, I am truly and deeply troubled by the fear, paralysis, and aversion they have provoked. Yes, there are indeed idiots out there who happily post and share wildly stupid things--things which may indeed come back to haunt them in some way, shape, or form at some point down the road. (Or they may not. The EU has recently decided that people have the "right to be forgotten" on the internet, and to have Google search results removed--although how this can possibly be implemented is an entirely separate question.) Yes, potential employers and others have become aware of social media and often conduct at least cursory searches of candidates' online existences (although few, if any, employers have developed HR policies or their own professional codes of ethics about this area). But that does not and should not mean that reasonable people become terrified, paralyzed, and--by FAR the worst of all--self-censoring.
Whatever any of us do for a living, we are also human beings--creatures with profound social needs, and persons with ideas, interests, and passions. These may be quotidian things (food, hobbies, etc). But they may also be much more substantial--social, cultural, and political. Personally, I happen to fall into the latter camp. Perhaps because of my former career as a journalist, am am still very interested in, and care deeply about, "current events". I am, today, appalled by the wanton destruction of priceless historical artifacts and manuscripts by ISIS idiots in Mosul. I am also passionate about the FCC decision regarding "net neutrality". I care deeply about the potential implications of Bill C-51. I am infuriated by Alberta's continued reliance on unsustainable non-renewable resource revenue to fund the public purse. I'm also interested in things much more "trivial", like popular culture and whether a dress is white/gold or blue/black.
I have, for several years, posted, shared, tweeted, retweeted, and even sporadically blogged about all kinds of social, cultural, and political things. Sometimes those various activities have included rants, profanity, sarcasm, vitriol, and potentially "inappropriate" comments, humor, and who knows what else. They OFTEN include strong opinions. But they are things I find interesting and/or care about. I don't post naked selfies (or any other kind of selfies, really), drunken stupidity, pictures of cats or food, or mindless platitudes or affirmations. So perhaps I engage in some form of "self-censorship". But I do not--and will not--self-censor my thoughts, nor will I particularly trouble my pretty little head with hopelessly feeble and essentially pointless "privacy settings". (Anybody who is half-decent with computers and who has even the slightest desire to do so can easily circumvent those; and besides, official, pseudo-official, and downright covert state apparatuses are surveilling everything anyway--Hi, NSA spooks!) Could some of my social, cultural, and political personal expression online come back to haunt me? I suppose it's possible, but that's a risk I'm MORE than willing to take. I can rest assured that I am not terribly likely to be offered a job by the Conservative Party of Canada any time soon, but that's more than fine with me, as long as I'm not also hauled off to jail for something I tweeted (which can and does happen in many places around the world).
This is why I found Michelle Clark's TEDx talk particularly depressing and chilling. She, like so many others, has already succumbed to and completely internalized the mistaken belief that we must censor what we say and do online--which is so perilously close to censoring what we say, do, and think offline as well as to be utterly terrifying. THAT is what strikes fear into my heart--the internalized fear that results in self-censorship. We cannot simply succumb to the Thought Police. I don't want this to sound like the demented ravings of a tin-foil-hat wearing conspiracy theorist, but when we become so paranoid that we start to self-censor not only deeds and words but even thoughts, then we have entered a world that is truly frightening.
I am truly and deeply depressed by the palpable sense of fear that has run through so many of the thoughts, comments, and posts during the last two units of our course. Perhaps the current debate around Bill C-51 and any number of other almost Orwellian things happening at the moment has heightened my sensitivity, but I truly despair for civil liberties and personal freedom of thought at the moment. Then again, it just may be the wild oscillations of the pendulum which inevitably seem to accompany significant social and technological changes and innovations.
I refer, of course, to the great fear--verging on some sort of hysterical moral panic--about the bogeyman of social media and the evils they stand poised to wreak on our (professional) lives. We need to remember that "social media" as we have come to know, love, loathe, and fear them are less than a decade old--Facebook (being abandoned in droves by young people as it becomes the domain of creaky middle-agers), Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Vine, and all the others have only existed for a handful of years. Still, they seem to have followed an all-too-familiar trajectory. First, there is the utopian discourse about their astonishing potential to make our lives unimaginably better, empower the dispossessed, speak truth to power, and so forth. And now, we have reached the "cautionary tale", profoundly dystopian phase, in which all we hear are horror stories about how they will destroy our lives. The truth, as always, is not only in between, but probably terribly mundane and boring.
Nevertheless, I am truly and deeply troubled by the fear, paralysis, and aversion they have provoked. Yes, there are indeed idiots out there who happily post and share wildly stupid things--things which may indeed come back to haunt them in some way, shape, or form at some point down the road. (Or they may not. The EU has recently decided that people have the "right to be forgotten" on the internet, and to have Google search results removed--although how this can possibly be implemented is an entirely separate question.) Yes, potential employers and others have become aware of social media and often conduct at least cursory searches of candidates' online existences (although few, if any, employers have developed HR policies or their own professional codes of ethics about this area). But that does not and should not mean that reasonable people become terrified, paralyzed, and--by FAR the worst of all--self-censoring.
Whatever any of us do for a living, we are also human beings--creatures with profound social needs, and persons with ideas, interests, and passions. These may be quotidian things (food, hobbies, etc). But they may also be much more substantial--social, cultural, and political. Personally, I happen to fall into the latter camp. Perhaps because of my former career as a journalist, am am still very interested in, and care deeply about, "current events". I am, today, appalled by the wanton destruction of priceless historical artifacts and manuscripts by ISIS idiots in Mosul. I am also passionate about the FCC decision regarding "net neutrality". I care deeply about the potential implications of Bill C-51. I am infuriated by Alberta's continued reliance on unsustainable non-renewable resource revenue to fund the public purse. I'm also interested in things much more "trivial", like popular culture and whether a dress is white/gold or blue/black.
I have, for several years, posted, shared, tweeted, retweeted, and even sporadically blogged about all kinds of social, cultural, and political things. Sometimes those various activities have included rants, profanity, sarcasm, vitriol, and potentially "inappropriate" comments, humor, and who knows what else. They OFTEN include strong opinions. But they are things I find interesting and/or care about. I don't post naked selfies (or any other kind of selfies, really), drunken stupidity, pictures of cats or food, or mindless platitudes or affirmations. So perhaps I engage in some form of "self-censorship". But I do not--and will not--self-censor my thoughts, nor will I particularly trouble my pretty little head with hopelessly feeble and essentially pointless "privacy settings". (Anybody who is half-decent with computers and who has even the slightest desire to do so can easily circumvent those; and besides, official, pseudo-official, and downright covert state apparatuses are surveilling everything anyway--Hi, NSA spooks!) Could some of my social, cultural, and political personal expression online come back to haunt me? I suppose it's possible, but that's a risk I'm MORE than willing to take. I can rest assured that I am not terribly likely to be offered a job by the Conservative Party of Canada any time soon, but that's more than fine with me, as long as I'm not also hauled off to jail for something I tweeted (which can and does happen in many places around the world).
This is why I found Michelle Clark's TEDx talk particularly depressing and chilling. She, like so many others, has already succumbed to and completely internalized the mistaken belief that we must censor what we say and do online--which is so perilously close to censoring what we say, do, and think offline as well as to be utterly terrifying. THAT is what strikes fear into my heart--the internalized fear that results in self-censorship. We cannot simply succumb to the Thought Police. I don't want this to sound like the demented ravings of a tin-foil-hat wearing conspiracy theorist, but when we become so paranoid that we start to self-censor not only deeds and words but even thoughts, then we have entered a world that is truly frightening.
Friday, February 6, 2015
And now for something completely different
(Sorry this week's blog is late...I've been battling a bug this week, and just haven't quite been able to keep up!)
This year, I'm thinking of trying something different with a different (higher-level) class. I've compiled a list of 10 songs about consumerism. Their assignment would be to analyze the song and discuss its critique of consumerism. But I'm definitely open to suggestion--about different songs, different approaches to the assignment, etc. So feel free to make suggestions!
And here, for your educational thinking, as well as your viewing and listening pleasure, are the 10 songs I've thought of so far. (Lyrics for all songs are available at musixmatch.)
References:
Duran, C. [Charlie Duran] (2013.06.04). Jonathan Richman - Rockin' Shopping Center [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb0KcCIsGkE
Lorde. (2013.05.12). Lorde - Royals [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFasFq4GJYM
Alexm799. (2009.03.15). The Clash - Lost in the Supermarket [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsrEAWcAvRg
DaveClark5Hits. (2009.11.24). Rolling Stones: "Satisfaction!" [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoxRFOr_sQ0
Chaine de DiapoRetro. (2012.03.10). Janis Joplin-Mercedes Benz(original) [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qev-i9-VKlY
DivisionIsTheNWO. (2010.08.20). BILLY BRAGG - The Busy Girl Buys Beauty (lyric-italiano) [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45m98bGBoy8
AllModConsTheJam's channel. (2011.11.24). The Jam - Shopping [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXnX1AKUqXU
laurynhillvevo. (2013.10.04). Ms. Lauryn Hill - Consumerism (Pseudo Video) [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFPhKf_dg7g
emimusic. (2009.02.28). The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lyu1KKwC74
billyjoelVEVO. (2013.04.09). Billy Joel - Movin' Out (Anthony's Song) (Audio) [video file]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJtL8vWNZ4o
Musixmatch - The world's largest lyrics catalog. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.musixmatch.com/
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Synchronous Spontaneous Serendipitous Synchronicity
As I sit down to write this asynchronous blog entry fairly late on a Thursday evening, I have just returned home from teaching one of my classes. It's a group of 8 "advanced" adult ESL learners. This was the end of the first week of classes, so we have not yet begun to delve into the meat of the course. I had them work in teams to label the provinces and territories of Canada and name the capital cities of the various jurisdictions. That part of the activity was fairly banal, although they had fun and learned something by doing it.
But the really interesting things happened after they were done. We started discussing what they know about various parts of the country. This quickly led to discussion about landscapes, which in turn veered into a discussion about urban and rural life. In discussing cities, we started talking about homelessness. This led to a discussion around substance abuse. And that led to a fascinating discussion of Vancouver's Insite safe injection clinic--initiated by one of the students. We also had a discussion about Canada's treatment of First Nations people, again initiated by a student. These were amazing discussions, with huge amounts of learning taking place, and none of the flow from topic to topic was initiated or directed by me, the ostensible teacher.
So a seemingly "simple" cartographic exercise led to numerous real, authentic, relevant, meaningful discussions about a range of subjects. The learners were able to use and extend their speaking and listening skills. They met new vocabulary. They used a variety of grammatical constructions. They became so engaged in what we were talking about that they became less self-conscious about making mistakes and simply talked--about things that mattered to them. For an ESL instructor, this is pure gold--and it's precisely the sort of thing that could never happen in online learning, be it synchronous or asynchronous.
Granted, the circumstances or context were quite specific--adults, advanced learners, a fairly small group of people who are comfortable with each other, and so on. But I have done this activity several times, with learners at various levels of English proficiency, in groups both larger and smaller, and the result is always the same. The activity leads to spontaneous conversations. The topics vary--but they are always meaningful. The students exchange ideas and opinions as best they can. They encounter things they didn't know--both subject matter and linguistic.
I was about to say that ESL may be a "special" circumstance, but I remembered that the paper by Ge (Ge, 2012) about asynchronous vs. blended cyber learning dealt with ESL students, so clearly ESL is not a special case. Online or distance learning simply cannot--as of yet--replicate the sort of spontaneous interpersonal exchanges I have just described. And more often than not, these kinds of exchanges have, through the magic of serendipity or synchronicity, been discussions I have been able to relate directly to the lesson/unit/topic we are "supposed to be" doing, according to the curriculum and syllabus.
The fact that I can do the work I need to for this course at 22:30 on a Thursday night is fantastic. It's an incredible convenience, and if not for asynchronous online delivery, I might well not be able to do this course or the program of which it is a component. That said, there is simply no way that, given current technology capabilities, any mode of online delivery could possibly reproduce the incredible, spontaneous dialogue that took place in my class tonight. Perhaps someday the technology will exist to allow such things, but at the moment it simply does not, and online learning is always frustratingly attenuated and mediated. Online learning is great in many ways, don't get me wrong; but as far as I am concerned, it is still a fairly pale shadow of the kinds of learning that can take place in a face-to-face environment.
Reference: Ge, Z.-G. (2012). Cyber Asynchronous versus Blended Cyber Approach in Distance English Learning. Educational Technology & Society, 15(2), 286-297.
But the really interesting things happened after they were done. We started discussing what they know about various parts of the country. This quickly led to discussion about landscapes, which in turn veered into a discussion about urban and rural life. In discussing cities, we started talking about homelessness. This led to a discussion around substance abuse. And that led to a fascinating discussion of Vancouver's Insite safe injection clinic--initiated by one of the students. We also had a discussion about Canada's treatment of First Nations people, again initiated by a student. These were amazing discussions, with huge amounts of learning taking place, and none of the flow from topic to topic was initiated or directed by me, the ostensible teacher.
So a seemingly "simple" cartographic exercise led to numerous real, authentic, relevant, meaningful discussions about a range of subjects. The learners were able to use and extend their speaking and listening skills. They met new vocabulary. They used a variety of grammatical constructions. They became so engaged in what we were talking about that they became less self-conscious about making mistakes and simply talked--about things that mattered to them. For an ESL instructor, this is pure gold--and it's precisely the sort of thing that could never happen in online learning, be it synchronous or asynchronous.
Granted, the circumstances or context were quite specific--adults, advanced learners, a fairly small group of people who are comfortable with each other, and so on. But I have done this activity several times, with learners at various levels of English proficiency, in groups both larger and smaller, and the result is always the same. The activity leads to spontaneous conversations. The topics vary--but they are always meaningful. The students exchange ideas and opinions as best they can. They encounter things they didn't know--both subject matter and linguistic.
I was about to say that ESL may be a "special" circumstance, but I remembered that the paper by Ge (Ge, 2012) about asynchronous vs. blended cyber learning dealt with ESL students, so clearly ESL is not a special case. Online or distance learning simply cannot--as of yet--replicate the sort of spontaneous interpersonal exchanges I have just described. And more often than not, these kinds of exchanges have, through the magic of serendipity or synchronicity, been discussions I have been able to relate directly to the lesson/unit/topic we are "supposed to be" doing, according to the curriculum and syllabus.
The fact that I can do the work I need to for this course at 22:30 on a Thursday night is fantastic. It's an incredible convenience, and if not for asynchronous online delivery, I might well not be able to do this course or the program of which it is a component. That said, there is simply no way that, given current technology capabilities, any mode of online delivery could possibly reproduce the incredible, spontaneous dialogue that took place in my class tonight. Perhaps someday the technology will exist to allow such things, but at the moment it simply does not, and online learning is always frustratingly attenuated and mediated. Online learning is great in many ways, don't get me wrong; but as far as I am concerned, it is still a fairly pale shadow of the kinds of learning that can take place in a face-to-face environment.
Reference: Ge, Z.-G. (2012). Cyber Asynchronous versus Blended Cyber Approach in Distance English Learning. Educational Technology & Society, 15(2), 286-297.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Copyright, Copyleft, Copywrong
In one of those serendipitous moments, I happened to have a quick look at my Facebook page as I sat down to write this week's blog entry. Lo and behold, there was a post from Boing Boing about copyright in the EU.
The post leads to this article, written by Cory Doctorow, a founder of Boing Boing, among monay other things. Doctorow is a Toronto native who has become one of the leading voices of the Open Rights and Creative Commons movements. He recently published a book entitled "Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age", which examines the current state of global copyright laws, especially as they pertain to creative/artistic production and consumption.
The interesting thing about the Boing Boing article, of course, is the fact that the one and only currently elected member of the Pirate Party, Julia Reda of Germany, is leading the European Parliamentary review of copyright legislation in Europe! The Pirate Party was born in Sweden in response to government crackdowns and raids on the file-sharing site The Pirate Bay. It has since spread internationally, including to Canada (disclosure: I have donated to the Pirate Party of Canada).
Tangentially, The Pirate Bay was again raided and shut down just last month, but as a countdown timer on The Pirate Bay homepage hints, it might be back in operation again soon. In any event, to have a member of parliament representing a party founded by so-called "pirates" who have been hounded and prosecuted for years leading the review of copyright legislation is truly remarkable.
Just this week, the organization Copyright for Creativity issued a manifesto calling for comprehensive copyright reform to "support creativity and innovation". This and all of the above are just some examples of recent developments in the world of copyright.
The point of all this is that copyright and "intellectual property" are incredibly hotly-contested concepts at the moment. There are a great many other voices in the discussions, including politicians, academics, cultural creators, and so on. The people, articles, ideas, and debates I have referenced in this post may seem far removed from the world of an individual teacher in Alberta. But I would propose that they are not at all distant. These discussions will shape the flow of ideas in the world we inhabit. As far as I'm concerned, these are profoundly important ideas, and--if we are to call ourselves informed citizens, let alone educators--it is our responsibility to at least become informed about these debates. At appropriate grade levels, we should also be introducing these debates to our students. They must be aware of, and understand at some level, these sorts of discussions if they are to be informed, engaged, critical "digital citizens".
References:
Copyright for Creativity. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015-01-22 from http://copyright4creativity.eu/
Doctorow, C. (2015.01.22). They put a Pirate Party MEP in charge of EU copyright reform: you won't believe the awesomesauce that followed. Retrieved 2015.01.22 from http://boingboing.net/2015/01/22/they-put-a-pirate-party-mep-in.html
Gibbs, S. (2015-01-21). Countdown Timers Hints at Pirate Bay Return. Retrieved 2015-01-22 from http://thepiratebay.se/
Gibbs, S. (2014-12-10). Swedish Police Raid Sinks The Pirate Bay. Retrieved 2015-01-22 from http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/10/swedish-police-raid-pirate-bay
Information Doesn't Want to Be Free. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015.01.22 from http://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/information-doesn-t-want-to-be-free
Pirate Party of Canada. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015-01-22 from https://www.pirateparty.ca/
The Copyright Manifesto. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015-01-22 from http://copyright4creativity.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/C4C-Copyright-Manifesto-20150119.pdf
The Pirate Bay. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015-01-22 from http://thepiratebay.se/
Post by Boing Boing.
The post leads to this article, written by Cory Doctorow, a founder of Boing Boing, among monay other things. Doctorow is a Toronto native who has become one of the leading voices of the Open Rights and Creative Commons movements. He recently published a book entitled "Information Doesn't Want to Be Free: Laws for the Internet Age", which examines the current state of global copyright laws, especially as they pertain to creative/artistic production and consumption.
The interesting thing about the Boing Boing article, of course, is the fact that the one and only currently elected member of the Pirate Party, Julia Reda of Germany, is leading the European Parliamentary review of copyright legislation in Europe! The Pirate Party was born in Sweden in response to government crackdowns and raids on the file-sharing site The Pirate Bay. It has since spread internationally, including to Canada (disclosure: I have donated to the Pirate Party of Canada).
Tangentially, The Pirate Bay was again raided and shut down just last month, but as a countdown timer on The Pirate Bay homepage hints, it might be back in operation again soon. In any event, to have a member of parliament representing a party founded by so-called "pirates" who have been hounded and prosecuted for years leading the review of copyright legislation is truly remarkable.
Just this week, the organization Copyright for Creativity issued a manifesto calling for comprehensive copyright reform to "support creativity and innovation". This and all of the above are just some examples of recent developments in the world of copyright.
The point of all this is that copyright and "intellectual property" are incredibly hotly-contested concepts at the moment. There are a great many other voices in the discussions, including politicians, academics, cultural creators, and so on. The people, articles, ideas, and debates I have referenced in this post may seem far removed from the world of an individual teacher in Alberta. But I would propose that they are not at all distant. These discussions will shape the flow of ideas in the world we inhabit. As far as I'm concerned, these are profoundly important ideas, and--if we are to call ourselves informed citizens, let alone educators--it is our responsibility to at least become informed about these debates. At appropriate grade levels, we should also be introducing these debates to our students. They must be aware of, and understand at some level, these sorts of discussions if they are to be informed, engaged, critical "digital citizens".
References:
Copyright for Creativity. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015-01-22 from http://copyright4creativity.eu/
Doctorow, C. (2015.01.22). They put a Pirate Party MEP in charge of EU copyright reform: you won't believe the awesomesauce that followed. Retrieved 2015.01.22 from http://boingboing.net/2015/01/22/they-put-a-pirate-party-mep-in.html
Gibbs, S. (2015-01-21). Countdown Timers Hints at Pirate Bay Return. Retrieved 2015-01-22 from http://thepiratebay.se/
Gibbs, S. (2014-12-10). Swedish Police Raid Sinks The Pirate Bay. Retrieved 2015-01-22 from http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/10/swedish-police-raid-pirate-bay
Information Doesn't Want to Be Free. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015.01.22 from http://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/information-doesn-t-want-to-be-free
Pirate Party of Canada. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015-01-22 from https://www.pirateparty.ca/
The Copyright Manifesto. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015-01-22 from http://copyright4creativity.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/C4C-Copyright-Manifesto-20150119.pdf
The Pirate Bay. (n.d.). Retrieved 2015-01-22 from http://thepiratebay.se/
Thursday, January 15, 2015
One life, Two Lives, Three Lives, Four...
Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more.
Of this week's readings and viewing material (PLEASE don't get me started on what I thought of the Cyberwise YouTube clip!), I found Ohler's brief paper the most substantive, meaningful, and thought provoking (Ohler, 2011). (There's something to be said for brevity--a lesson I need to learn!) His notion that students lead multiple digital lives and his argument for "character education" is quite cogent--even though some may find the idea of "character education" rather reactionary.
He is perhaps somewhat unfair to teachers, administrators, specialists, and school boards. Most by now certainly understand that "studying issues related to the personal, social, and environmental effects of a technological lifestyle" do indeed have a place in school. But I'm not sure that many would (yet) agree with his assertion that "the most important job before us as a society is to help our students understand issues of digital responsibility, and to do so at school as part of a digital health initiative."
Personally, I'm inclined to agree with Ohler. As most of you know, my epiphany from our last course was that we have been thinking about the relationship between "school" and "technology" the wrong way around. It's now beating a dead horse to say that "school" as a social institution is still mired in 19th (let alone 20th) century ideas and values, while "technology" is a revolutionary paradigm which is fundamentally changing every aspect of civilization, of which "school" is just one small part.
As such, rather than thinking about how to "integrate" (and often bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate in our dogged efforts) technology into a broken paradigm of "school", we should be thinking in precisely the opposite way--how do we completely reconceptualize school and integrate it within the new technological paradigm?
In such a different approach, studying issues related to the personal, social, and environmental effects of a technological lifestyle, and "helping our digital kids balance the individual empowerment of digital technology with a sense of personal, community, and global responsibility" do indeed come to occupy a central position.
It seems to me that Ohler is quite correct when he suggests that (many) educators (still) tend to respond to sexting, cyberbullying, and other technology-related issues--both good and bad--in a piecemeal, ad hoc fashion, as if they are unrelated. I see evidence of the same sort of thing when I see how educators are trying (with the best possible intentions) to "integrate" technology into whatever part of education with which they are involved.
The problem is precisely a failure to think about technology holistically and systemically. To use a building analogy, it's like making a building airtight (in a valiant attempt to conserve energy), without realizing the impacts this has on air quality, moisture, mold, and other unintended consequences. It's a failure to understand the building holistically and systemically.
My final thought has to do with the notion of multiple lives or identities. Even if/when schools do see the importance of studying a technological lifestyle, students still lead multiple lives and create multiple identities. We all do. Our "digital selves" are constructs. We--all of us--carefully construct, manage, mediate, and curate our online identities. My own children were already well versed in this by age 7 or 8 as they created "identities" and "avatars" for Minecraft and other online games and interactions. In some cases, they created multiple personas for the same platform, using them interchangeably to manifest different "personalities" online.
So when we speak of "digital citizenship", it seems to me that we must always be aware of the fact that--unlike "being ourselves", so much of which we cannot control or change, in "real" life--our online "selves" are always deliberately constructed, artificial, mediated presences. "Michael Ireton" on Twitter or (shudder!) Facebook is not the same as "Michael Ireton" in this online world, and not the same again as "Michael Ireton" in real life. (Not to mention alternate online personalities I may or may not have created.)
As one of the participants in Burnett's study (Burnett, 2011) said of her online persona, "It's like it's me but it's a bit more of me."
It is deeply naive to think there is a direct one-to-one relationship between who we are offline and "who we are" (possibly plural) online.
References:
Ohler, J. (2011). Digital Citizenship Means Character Education for the Digital Age. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 48(1), 25-27
Burnett, C. (2011). Pre-service teachers' digital literacy practices: exploring contingency in identity and digital literacy in and out of educational contexts. Language and Education, 25(5), 433-449.
Of this week's readings and viewing material (PLEASE don't get me started on what I thought of the Cyberwise YouTube clip!), I found Ohler's brief paper the most substantive, meaningful, and thought provoking (Ohler, 2011). (There's something to be said for brevity--a lesson I need to learn!) His notion that students lead multiple digital lives and his argument for "character education" is quite cogent--even though some may find the idea of "character education" rather reactionary.
He is perhaps somewhat unfair to teachers, administrators, specialists, and school boards. Most by now certainly understand that "studying issues related to the personal, social, and environmental effects of a technological lifestyle" do indeed have a place in school. But I'm not sure that many would (yet) agree with his assertion that "the most important job before us as a society is to help our students understand issues of digital responsibility, and to do so at school as part of a digital health initiative."
Personally, I'm inclined to agree with Ohler. As most of you know, my epiphany from our last course was that we have been thinking about the relationship between "school" and "technology" the wrong way around. It's now beating a dead horse to say that "school" as a social institution is still mired in 19th (let alone 20th) century ideas and values, while "technology" is a revolutionary paradigm which is fundamentally changing every aspect of civilization, of which "school" is just one small part.
As such, rather than thinking about how to "integrate" (and often bend, fold, spindle, and mutilate in our dogged efforts) technology into a broken paradigm of "school", we should be thinking in precisely the opposite way--how do we completely reconceptualize school and integrate it within the new technological paradigm?
In such a different approach, studying issues related to the personal, social, and environmental effects of a technological lifestyle, and "helping our digital kids balance the individual empowerment of digital technology with a sense of personal, community, and global responsibility" do indeed come to occupy a central position.
It seems to me that Ohler is quite correct when he suggests that (many) educators (still) tend to respond to sexting, cyberbullying, and other technology-related issues--both good and bad--in a piecemeal, ad hoc fashion, as if they are unrelated. I see evidence of the same sort of thing when I see how educators are trying (with the best possible intentions) to "integrate" technology into whatever part of education with which they are involved.
The problem is precisely a failure to think about technology holistically and systemically. To use a building analogy, it's like making a building airtight (in a valiant attempt to conserve energy), without realizing the impacts this has on air quality, moisture, mold, and other unintended consequences. It's a failure to understand the building holistically and systemically.
My final thought has to do with the notion of multiple lives or identities. Even if/when schools do see the importance of studying a technological lifestyle, students still lead multiple lives and create multiple identities. We all do. Our "digital selves" are constructs. We--all of us--carefully construct, manage, mediate, and curate our online identities. My own children were already well versed in this by age 7 or 8 as they created "identities" and "avatars" for Minecraft and other online games and interactions. In some cases, they created multiple personas for the same platform, using them interchangeably to manifest different "personalities" online.
So when we speak of "digital citizenship", it seems to me that we must always be aware of the fact that--unlike "being ourselves", so much of which we cannot control or change, in "real" life--our online "selves" are always deliberately constructed, artificial, mediated presences. "Michael Ireton" on Twitter or (shudder!) Facebook is not the same as "Michael Ireton" in this online world, and not the same again as "Michael Ireton" in real life. (Not to mention alternate online personalities I may or may not have created.)
As one of the participants in Burnett's study (Burnett, 2011) said of her online persona, "It's like it's me but it's a bit more of me."
It is deeply naive to think there is a direct one-to-one relationship between who we are offline and "who we are" (possibly plural) online.
References:
Ohler, J. (2011). Digital Citizenship Means Character Education for the Digital Age. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 48(1), 25-27
Burnett, C. (2011). Pre-service teachers' digital literacy practices: exploring contingency in identity and digital literacy in and out of educational contexts. Language and Education, 25(5), 433-449.
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