Here is the archive of my Lectora project:
Here is the paper, in a PDF format, in case the Word document is hard to read:
Adaptive Learning-A Review and Exploratory Project
If the Moodle course is locked, I welcome comments here.
I’m Carl. Click my face for an audio intro.
Wrapping up months of study and discussion in a page or two? That’s a challenge.
Digression: I tell people fairly often that my mother was a philosopher. I’m quite proud of her, actually. She was offered a full fellowship in philosophy at the University of Chicago as a woman from a non-wealthy background, in the 1950s. And turned them down to become a lawyer.
Anyway, the philosophical orientation she bequeathed makes me think about the “underpinnings” of a subject more than most people. In this case, I am moved to question the basis of the course. There’s the concept of “reification” in philosophy, literally “making real.” In particular, philosophy would encourage one to start by questioning existence: Are there new media? And is “new literacy” a real thing?
No. They’re not real, at least in the way that a chair or an atom are real. They’re just concepts. Now philosophy says to ask if they’re useful concepts.
I’d argue that “New Media” is a useful concept. The experience of, say, blogging is different enough from the experience of reading and writing letters or magazine articles that considering it separately and analyzing those differences is worthwhile.
Does the existence of new media imply that we should speak of “new literacy”? Honestly, I’m dubious. Anyone who is “old literate” can read a blog. Anyone who reads text messages can read (for instance) a car’s owner manual, and anyone who can deliver a platform lecture (as I sometimes do) can follow a YouTube how-to video (as I sometimes do).
Does that make this course irrelevant? No. I’m not questioning that new technology exists and that newer tech is constantly appearing. And I certainly don’t question that skill with new media is both useful and often lacking. I suppose what I’m doing is arguing that the terminology is not helpful.
Similarly, I really enjoyed Crystal’s work on Internet language, even while denying its premise. He documented changes to English usage in this are well … but it isn’t a new language, it’s one of many, many ways English has changed for centuries.
Speaking of terminology: while writing the final paper, I decided to change terminology about myself. Prensky defined my generation as “digital immigrants,” but I grew up along with networked communications. My generation was the first to use online services, the first to use the Internet, the first to have cellular phones. I’m redefining us as “digital pioneers” instead of immigrants.
So, having criticized the entire basis of the course, what did I get out of it? Well, not unimportantly, I got an insight into and background in the current state of the field, an awareness of how educators and academics treat the subject. I familiarized myself with a fraction of the literature on the subject(s). And critically, I believe that I found areas that I plan to study further. A course like this is meant to be a beginning, not an ending.
Thank you all.
Introduction
When thinking about writing, I’m trained to consider the audience and the need. In this case, I have the privilege of choosing my own notional audience, and immediately chose “older” adult learners, because I feel it’s an underserved population and because these are most of the learners I deal with at my day job. As for the need: anyone who’s going to be seeking out an “Information Literacy” guide can be assumed to have some minimal computer skills and probably own a smartphone or iPad. Therefore, the guide should deal with more sophisticated subjects.
Of course, inevitably this will include general research methodologies as well as specifically Internet techniques.
I’m aiming this document at hypothetical adults (say, 40 and over, up to and including senior citizens) who finished their educations before the Internet and PCs were things, long before computers-in-your-pockets became an expectation. My theoretical environment is an “information literacy” adult education course, taught either at a library or community college. (I actually did a class not unlike that at my employer, some 25 years ago.)
One thing the new generation does easily: find things out, without much fuss or time spent. Here’s how:
You’ve probably heard dozens of jokes about how Google can be used to find out anything. That’s not true. You can use Google to find out amazing numbers of things. Don’t want to pull out your calculator? Type “5+5” into Google. Need to read a European weather report? Type “29 Celsius into F” into Google and find out it’s 84 degrees American. There are plenty of things Google isn’t good for, but for simple things like finding the “capital of uganda” (Kampala) it’s really easy and works great.
There are also plenty of other search engines if you prefer to avoid Google. If you worry about privacy, Startpage.com, Ixquick.com, and DuckDuckGo.com all work great and don’t track your searches.
If you want to actually learn about a subject (as opposed to find a fact), you can’t easily beat Wikipedia. Just like the name says, it’s an encyclopedia, but it has more content than any paper compendium, and it gets updated literally every second.
Every second? Yup. Because anyone who chooses to can change any article (except the few locked ones).
Is it perfect? No. You cannot count on every article, or any article, being right about everything. There are vandals and liars who like to put nonsense, obscenities, and lies in there. And you’ll almost never encounter them, because the truth-tellers way outnumber the liars and vandals. Even if you do come across a vandalized article, odds are it will be fixed shortly. (You can fix them yourself if you’re so inspired.)
Shopping
I’m sure you’ve all bought something from Amazon by now. Even if you’re buying in a store, the Web is your friend. You can quickly compare prices, get and compare product information, and find local sellers. Sites like Cars.com make buying used cars almost painless, by letting you skip the “getting sold to” part! You might want to bookmark sites like Google Shopping (https://www.google.com/shopping), Price Grabber (http://pricegrabber.com), and My Simon (http://mysimon.com), if you want to always get the best price. The manufacturer sites can also be great resources—for instance, my phone company offers “live chat” with representatives, with no waiting on hold and at no charge.
Speaking of chat …
This covers almost any way people can communicate online. You all know about email by now, of course, but let’s compare the leading “social media” services as of right now. (They change constantly.)
FaceBook wants to be your online social life. It includes its own internal email-like service, its own chat, and of course its main service, which lets you post text-and-picture messages that will be seen by people who “Friend” you on FaceBook. A lot of people like its search ability, which lets you reconnect with old acquaintances. It also has lots of hidden features, like games you can play and event calendars that make it easy to invite people to a party, then track who is coming and what they’re bringing. It’s big, slick, reasonably easy to use … and that’s one problem. Lots of people find it addictive and spend hours just “facebooking”. Experts have also raised real privacy concerns about Facebook, as well. Some people love it, some find it unpleasant, like any other social environment.
Twitter lets anyone post short (140 characters or less) messages, which might show up to anyone, but are much more likely to be seen if someone “follows” you. Twitter is used for quick updates more than anything else. It’s also a way to follow breaking news, as reporters and onlookers “tweet” what is happening in real time. Lots of companies are using Twitter for customer support these days, too.
This one is aimed at not-everyone, unlike Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn is specifically for business people. Not for businesses themselves especially, for people who work at businesses. It’s a great place to find ex-coworkers and to post your resume. LinkedIn is a wonderful source for professional groups to join and to network with colleagues. It isn’t really meant for family or recreational use.
Tumblr
Tumblr is all about its users. It isn’t technically especially interesting—it’s sort of “Twitter but with less features and no character limit.” Some people enjoy it because it’s very tolerant of controversial and/or sexual content, so fair warning.
Instagram is an example of a photo-sharing service. While you can and many people do share photos on all social media services, Instagram is specifically for that and nothing else. It’s very popular among people who take lots of cell phone pics. This is the stereotypical service for people who take pictures of their meals.
One thing to remember: more and more, these services are meant to be used on smartphones. All of these services supply apps for both Android and Apple devices. Twitter and Instagram were really designed more for phones than actual PCs or laptops.
Social media change very fast. No one can confidently predict what the landscape will look like in a few years. (Twitter, for instance, is under 10 years old as this is written.)
Unplugged: no more TV
You don’t need TV any more. The big trend in entertainment, at least according to some, is “unplugging” from cable TV. You can see essentially the same video on your screens without it. Apple TV, or ChromeCast, or services like Hulu and Netflix, can all show you this year’s movies or 1962’s television, and low or no cost, anywhere. You also get more control than traditional cable, watching most things whenever the mood strikes you without waiting for them to be scheduled.
Unbound: no more paper books
Electronic books (ebooks) are revolutionizing publishing in much the same way. If you have a specialized ebook reader like like a Kindle or Nook, you can download a book whenever you like and start reading immediately. You can also install ebook reading apps on your phone, tablet, or computer and read the books there. Lower cost, no storage space needed, and instant delivery make ebooks a pretty compelling thing.
Note that “ebooks” includes magazines, too.
Beyond the chessboard: Games in the 21st Century
You’re familiar with video games, but if you believe the popular image you think they’re all about teenage boys shooting 3D images of zombies. Those games exist and are often fun, but the biggest group of gamers these days is women over 40 years old, according to CNN.
Most of those women aren’t playing games about hitting monsters with hammers. There are games for everyone, from Farmville (a FaceBook game) to phone-based trivia or drawing games to simply playing “Words with Friends” (a Scrabble-like game) on your phone with a friend in, say, Tanzania or Tasmania or Tashkent. Modern games aren’t just fast-moving and graphically beautiful, they remove the limits of time and space.
You’re a citizen of a new world now. You’ve joined the connected universe. It’s full of information, entertainment, and people talking to each other. Dive in!
I spoke with Joe, one of the students who attended the Engineering Pipeline Program at my place of business. (I was one of the instructors for Joe’s class, as well as the lead designer of the entire program.)
I’m making no effort to quote Joe here. The conversation took place by telephone and I’m working from written notes, so I don’t have his exact words in front of me. (My current smartphone does not have a call recording feature.) I believe I’m accurately paraphrasing what he said.
Q? How would you compare your own use of personal technology like computers and smartphones to your high school classmates?
A. Everyone is on the same page with smartphones–everyone has that all figured out. With computers and laptops there is variation. Some people actually learn how they work, even build their own. Joe was interested, but not as focused on the topic as the real buffs (to use an anachronistic word).
Some students used phones only to text/talk/take pictures. On the other hand, different subcultures did exist. Computer Science class members all extremely interested in how computers work and how to make them or program them. (CS is an elective, so only interested students took the class.) Joe himself is not one of the real computer-focused students, but two of his friends are–they both wrote video games while in high school.
Q)How do you think your average teacher’s tech use (not knowledge, but use) compares to a typical high school student’s? For instance, do they play online games? Use Facebook? Social media? Compare a typical teacher’s proficiency with tech with that of, say, a 10’th grader. If you think you can, consider several types of tech (phones, computers, etc.). Do you see a difference between younger and older teachers at your school? This can be any differences you think are interesting–tech usage, but also teaching styles and
A)There were what Joe calls “Dinosaur” teachers, who he characterized as the older ones. He felt that the younger teachers (under 30 or so) had tech skills enough to not need help, where he and other techie students would often have to assist older teachers.
All teachers, even the dinosaurs, did use technological assistance in teaching, things like smart whiteboards, email, online homework, and turnitin.com to allow assignments to be submitted online and to check for plagiarism. However, there was a visible difference in how fluidly and effectively different teachers used the tools.
Q)Now that you’ve finished your high school education, you’re in a perfect position to make suggestions. How would you improve high school for new students, especially in terms of using newer technology to make learning better, easier, faster or more convenient?
Multiple-choice tests should use hand-held clickers as opposed to Scantrons. Simulations should be used more when teaching sciences and social studies.
Q)What subjects that you took through grade school in general do you think were old-fashioned and won’t help you as an adult? What subjects do you think were left out, that you’ll definitely need?
Other students say that all social studies courses are useless. Joe feels that anything teaching history before the Industrial Revolution is a waste of his time. He also feels that English, after Junior High, is just repetitive, teaching the same topics every year and just making him do the same assignments.
He was not able to name a subject he wished had been part of his primary and secondary education, but which had not been included.
Q.)How would you compare the way you learned technical subjects like chemistry and physics in school to the way the Pipeline Program introduced you to engineering and the utility industry? Do you see a major difference? Which worked better for you? (Be honest!) How can we improve? What should we add and what should we remove from the program.
Schools are less hands-on in teaching technical subjects. There were only “occasional” labs at his school. Our STEM program differs from school in having almost no homework, and not enough review of topics covered.
He also felt that one week is too short for the topics we cover. It feels “crammed”.
Finally, the most valuable material, for Joe, was the career and interpersonal skills covered at the very end. He is confident of his ability to learn technical material on his own, but the writing workshop and practice job interviews were entirely new to him and he felt he had learned useful skills even in that brief exposure. (I’m proud to say that I instructed that segment.)
I was distressed that Joe, who plans to go into a technical field, had so little lab exposure in high school. In my day as a science teacher, half of our class time was spent on hands-on lab work. I’m also interested in his saying our writing practice was useful, because he simultaneously complained about having too many writing assignments in English–which hints to me that the English assignments avoided “practical” skills in favor of highly academic exercises like essays.
I’ll be taking Joe’s comments on my own program to heart when we revamp it for next summer, and I’m hoping someone is working on fixing these issues in the educational system.
We have been tasked to write about media education. As a teacher and as someone trained as a scientist, my first instinct is to consider what that term means. Jenkins (2006) wrote that there is demand for schools to “foster a critical understanding of media as one of the most powerful social, economic, political, and cultural institutions of our era.” That’s both full of detail and highly vague.
What I mean is, it can be interpreted many ways. Foster? That seems to mean something like encourage or promote. Surely schools should instead (or at least primarily) be teaching critical understanding, not just reinforcing the idea that students should have it?
What is a “critical understanding of media”? Is it critical analysis of the media themselves, as in the deconstructions we have done? That is, is it analysis in the manner of a film critic, or literary critic, or music critic? Surely those are all worthy things to teach in schools. Presumably this form of critical understanding would involve analyzing video in terms of scene, acts, acting, and more technical matters such as lighting and scoring, where such analysis of games would involve matters like gameplay, victory conditions, enjoyment, repeat playability, etc. Almost any media analysis on this level would include things like theme, comprehensibility, influences by past works, and such.
Is a critical understanding meant as analysis using critical thinking skills? Sumner (1940) defines critical thinking as “… the examination and test of propositions of any kind which are offered for acceptance, in order to find out whether they correspond to reality or not.” I’m a member of the skeptical movement (I belong to the James Randi Educational Foundation and have done videos for the Skeptics Guide to the Universe) and no one can favor critical thinking education more strongly than I do.
But Jenkins wants (or he thinks other people want) us to have students understand “… one of the most powerful social, economic, political, and cultural institutions of our era.” First of all “media” is plural and using “one” to refer to a plural is incorrect. (I am also the owner of nitpicking.com.) More seriously, he’s lumping “media” into a single homogeneous “institution.” I don’t accept that blogging is identical in any way, much less all ways, to ballet, or that either is identical to Vines videos. Looking at the quote in its context might be helpful:
As media literacy advocates have claimed during the past several decades, students also must acquire a basic understanding of the ways media representations structure our perceptions of the world; the economic and cultural contexts within which mass media is produced and circulated; the motives and goals that shape the media they consume; and alternative practices that operate outside the commercial mainstream. Such groups have long called for schools to foster a critical understanding of media as one of the most powerful social, economic, political, and cultural institutions of our era.What we are calling here the new media literacies should be taken as an expansion of, rather than a substitution for, the mass media literacies.
It seems Jenkins is referring to groups wanting education on mass media, not the “new media” that perhaps would be implied by a course in “new media and new literacies.”
So now that I’ve over-analyzed this, let me state my position on Jenkins’s (or again, on his referred-to “media literacy advocates”) desire for students to learn “critical understanding” of new media. First, I narrow my field to primary and secondary education. In that area, I believe that what needs to be taught are broadly general principles (such as recognizing invalid reasoning) and methods (such as analyzing any sources for credibility) that apply across media, not something limited to one or a few media. Certainly, where it’s economically possible schools can and should make available direct education in and about specific media, but “media” is such a broad term that this includes everything from web design courses to dance classes to working at the school’s radio station. It’s simply not possible to supply formal education in the specifics of everything, so (as in most areas) the job of childhood education is and should be providing foundations,.
In post-secondary schools, the sky(scraper) is the limit, building on those foundations. Philosophically I would continue to build general skills in a core curriculum–critical reasoning skills (such as recognizing formal logical fallacies), familiarity with cultural touchstones from Aristotle to Zynga, and such, but this is the time when a person selects specific areas of interest (or of perceived value) and specializes. Here’s where the first type of “critical understanding” above can become fully-fleshed. A person can graduate with say, a film degree and write knowledgeably about films, or study game design (there are several such majors available now) and go on to a career writing (or writing about) games.
This is a rather long blog post to have dealt with such a basic issue, but I believe that one must know what direction to run in before starting the race. Now that I’ve defined an answer to Jenkins’ question, I can begin to think about implementing any of these ideas.
Jenkins, H. (2006). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. An Occasional Paper on Digital Media and Learning. John D. And Catherine T. Macarthur Foundation, (accessed July 14, 2015).
Sumner, W. G. (1940). Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals, New York: Ginn and Co., pp. 632, 633.
Marshal McLuhan referred to television as a “cool” medium. By this he did not mean that it is not exciting. He meant that it leaves out a great deal, forcing the viewer to actively supply or invent things in order to make TV’s narrative work, as opposed to reading, which he perceived as supplying everything and leaving less to the imagination. This is not intuitively obvious usage in 2015. McLuhan (BBC, 1965) explained that he was following the slang of the day, in which “cool” meant what the previous generation meant by “heated”.
Accepting this terminology, it’s interesting to speculate about how McLuhan would have classified Facebook and its siblings in social media. They’re certainly low-bandwidth compared to television, at least superficially. Other people are mostly represented by relatively short texts and a few still images. I don’t know of many people who would call online interactions (as a whole) “uninvolving,” certainly.
Watching a Facebook commercial (video ad) after reviewing McLuhan was interesting. I want to extend my analysis to the commercial as well as Facebook itself. The ad is distinguished by conscious simplicity. There are no scene-to-scene transitions. There are no special effects. The music never seems to have more than 3 instruments playing, and often only one. Many scenes have only one or no actors–a few are just still life. Is the ad “cool” or “hot”? The rapid scene changes (scenes average less than one second) don’t tell a story in any overt way. There are no continuing characters, even in a 90 second ad. If “coolness” is defined as involving the audience member by leaving out information, this ad is very cool.
What’s fascinating to me as I analyze the thing is that it has almost nothing in common with Facebook, at least superficially. Facebook is almost all textual. About 10 words of text appear during the commercial. Facebook doesn’t have a narrator. Facebook doesn’t have a musical score. Facebook does have still images, the ad does not. Even the still-life scenes tend to have a subtle pan to them. They are not totally still.
On a deeper level, though, there are (pun intended) links to Facebook. The cast is multinational. The “topic” of each scene can either directly follow from the last one, or be completely unrelated. The narration is all about human connections and the repelling of loneliness, surely the central theme of Facebook.
I’m sure this was unintentional, but there are no close-ups in the ad. I see this as a representation of the fact that Facebook communication will rarely or never produce the degree of intimacy one can obtain in face-to-face or even telephone interactions.
One could also analyze the advert as an attempt to promote a “new medium” (to quote both McLuhan and the course title) using an older one (although calling TV “old” is strange in the context of 10,000 years of history, especially considering that TV itself is constantly changing). I find it interesting how completely the ad refused to use the standard format for advertising. It doesn’t mention a single product feature. There’s no price info. They don’t caricature the competition. They don’t talk to a satisfied customer or an actor playing an authority figure. It’s just a somewhat bland short film that would be an interesting project for a graduate student in film studies, but has very little in common with ordinary product ads.
British Broadcasting Corporation (Producer). (1965). Monitor [Video file]. Retrieved from
http://www.marshallmcluhanspeaks.com/sayings/1965-hot-and-cool-media/
Since once can be a bit more personal in a blog, let me open by saying that my mother was a philosopher. I’m actually pretty proud of her. She was offered a graduate fellowship in philosophy at the University of Chicago, as a woman in the 1950s. One side-effect of mom’s education is that I sometimes think about subjects in terms of the philosophical foundations rather than the level the author or speaker is intending to write or speak about.
In “Changing Citizenship in the Digital Age” (Bennett, 2008), W. Lance Bennett seems to engage in the fallacy of reification (literally “making real”). In philosophy, the term is used generally to mean treating any abstraction as a real “thing” rather than a construct (Vandenberghe, 2013). In this context I use it to mean Bennet’s tendency to categorize things, then to treat the categories as if they were real and distinct entities.
As long as I’m being personal, my own undergraduate and previous graduate education was in zoology. Biologists are trained to be suspicious of hard-and-fast distinctions. Beginning on page 1 of his article, Bennett states what are really changes of degree or gradual gradations as sharp, black-and-white cutoffs. For instance, he writes, “The pathways to disconnection from government are many: adults are frequently negative about politics, the tone of the press is often cynical, candidates seldom appeal directly to young voters on their own terms about their concerns, politicians have poisoned the public well (particularly in the United States) with vitriol and negative campaigning, and young people see the media filled with inauthentic performances from officials who are staged by professional communication managers.” Notice how he transitions from more careful language (frequently, often) to absolute (have poisoned, see). He then cites Coleman’s distinction of managed vs. autonomous environments in attempts to engage younger people in public life (page 2). He never seems to question that these two descriptors are both sufficient to describe all such attempts, and that the distinction is sharp, obvious, and unarguable. (I have not read Coleman’s paper at this time.)
As part of this theme of dividing things into two categories, he next reifies a distinction between engaged and disengaged views of young people (page 2). What I find interesting here is that clearly one would expect people to fall along a spectrum between “highly engaged” and “not at all engaged.” However, Bennett writes about this as if there is no middle ground at all. In fact, his writing indicates (pages 2-3) that he’s deliberately using highly contrasting “paradigms” to try to elucidate or find different ideas. However, the resulting examples strike me as just cherrypicking, selecting examples of things that fit the paradigm you’re consciously using–exactly the opposite of what a scientist is trained to do.
At times I think he’s consciously reifying for sheer ease of discussion. For instance, he refers to a “dotnet generation” on page 8, as if there was a real border of some kind making those born between 1977 and 1987 different from all other humans. I’m sure he’s well aware that there is no such sharp distinction, but for convenience’s sake pretending there is makes the discussion easier.
On page 14 are the categories that caused this train of thought for me. He divides all citizens into “Actualizing citizens (AC)” and “Dutiful Citizens (DC)”. He uses careful language at first (“However, two broad patterns do seem to mark a change in citizenship …”). However, the remainder of the article then is written as if these two categories represent two entirely separate groups of people who are as different as quartz and limestone–that is, at least stylistically he reifies the distinction. In practice, of course, people will fall along a spectrum, act differently in different circumstances, and switch between these categories depending on their experiences to a greater or lesser extent.
Having written a long essay criticizing one aspect of the article, let me say that my reaction to it was actually much more complex. I do feel that Bennett doesn’t cite sufficient evidence to describe so confidently enormous social trends across an entire planet. On the other hand, many aspects of the work are useful and well worth the reading, such as his comments about the effects of NCLB on American teaching of civics (page 16). I do find it interesting that he is repeatedly upset that “youth” think government is rarely a solution to problems (pages 17, 18, 21, etc.). It doesn’t occur to him (apparently) that they might be correct.
In the end, it was worth reading, but must be read critically and carefully.
REFERENCES:
Bennett, W. Lance. “Changing Citizenship in the Digital Age.” Civic Life Online: Learning How Digital Media Can Engage Youth. Edited by W. Lance Bennett. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2008. 1–24. doi: 10.1162/dmal.9780262524827.001
Vandenberghe, F. (2013). Reification: History of the Concept. Logos: A Journal Of Modern Society & Culture, 12(3), 427-436.
In his TEDx talk, Doug Pitt shows a photo he took in Tanzania, showing African tribesmen who live in grass huts and have just fought off a pride of lions with spears and knives.
If you look closely at the photo, each of these warriors is wearing a cellular phone on his belt.
Infrastructure. In Networked Publics (Varnelis, 2008) the discussion is of specifically communications infrastructure. Pitt’s example highlights how communications network infrastructure is spreading and growing and encompassing the world even faster than such fast-growing and showy types of infrastructure as transportation (railroads, automotive roads, air networks), medical infrastructure, industrial infrastructure, commercial networks, et cetera. I’m sure these warriors have seen a plane or been treated by a doctor or ridden in a Land Rover in their lives–but they own and use phones.
In the “Infrastructure” chapter, Bar et al. do an excellent job of providing a historical and technical background on the growth of the Internet. I am myself an occasional computer journalist, and I have nothing but admiration for this chapter. It’s concise, clear, and non-technical without oversimplifying. I think it makes the case for net neutrality while the authors try to remain neutral themselves. I’d like to extend their speculations about the future some 8 years ago into their actual future: now. I’d also like to consider the implications of the infrastructure for education.
The authors predicted that incumbent broadband providers would oppose net neutrality, and that it might be imposed by government anyway. They were remarkably prescient. They also anticipated the increased speed and lowered cost of modern wireless broadband (“4G”), and again were correct.
On the other hand, their optimism about municipal broadband was not borne out, at least in the USA. Successful lobbying by incumbent providers (“TCNOs”) largely stopped that movement, although there remain a few exceptions. Recently the FCC exercised Federal privilege to allow municipal broadband in states that had previously forbidden it, but Tennessee is suing to retain its right to restrict its own municipalities.
So, how does this affect us educators?
A non-neutral net might be very interesting. What if the University of Phoenix could (effectively) bribe Time Warner and Verizon to carry its video streams faster than ESC’s? More likely and more plausibly, what if YouTube had to pay more to stream video? Could it continue its current free model that subsidizes educational video, something ESC and its sister institutions depend on? Could Second Life or MOOCs continue in a bandwidth-limited world?
Answer: maybe. One hopes we won’t find out–or at least Bar et al. and I hope so.
Reference:
Varnelis, K., & Annenberg Center for Communication (University of Southern California). (2008). Networked publics. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
It happens that one thing I wrote in my first paper for this course was that our reading for that assignment ignored the two-directional nature of networked communications. It’s interesting (and gratifying), then, to read Chapter 2 of Networked Publics, “Culture, Media Convergence, and Networked Participation” (Russell et al. 2008). The authors show a prescient insight (they were writing just as YouTube was being born) into how the main use of the Internet is for many people conversations, where the main purpose of radio was mere listening and TV mere watching.
I’m going to be personal again: I’m old enough that I was online before the Internet was available for private (non-academic, non-governmental) use. I learned on and from the “online services” like CompuServe and Prodigy and GEnie. I actually worked for GEnie as a sysop (system operator) for years. All the commercial services tried to be something, whether it was a shopping mall, a virtual space you could “walk around in” like Prodigy’s original design, a set of entertainment services … what all of them turned into were communications media. There was a real hunger to talk to other people online (which I for one certainly felt).
It’s still there. It’s still critical. And in our own field, it’s still something that educators haven’t properly learned to harness.
In current educational practice, there are what I’d all haphazard attempts to use lots of online communication methods in education. In our last readings we heard about blogs (and of course I’m writing a blog as part of Denise Grandits’ attempt to teach me right now!). Classrooms have incorporated wikis, online collaboration tools like Google Docs, virtual worlds like Second Life, and probably every kind of technology that is used anywhere. In my day job I have both created and attended “webinars” (one-to-many training sessions conducted using either video, screen-sharing, or plain voice). Currently very trendy are MOOCs–Massively Open Online Courses.
What doesn’t exist is a standard of practice. There is some research into what works but it is scattered and mostly not very rigorous. We have to select our tools and our techniques based on intuition.
The authors discuss four specific cases to illuminate the issues related to a more networked world. In their discussion of Amateur Music and Remix, issues include lowered barriers to entry (which threaten established businesses) and the problem of file sharing (what the music industry calls “stealing our intellectual property”).
We might analogize to the Khan Academy, an outsider coming from nowhere to educate children despite having no formal background or education. Interestingly, I haven’t seen any hostility to Khan comparable to what the music business expresses to those suddenly competing with it.
In the second case study, the authors discuss anime fandom. (Full disclosure: I am the chair of LI-CON, a multimedia fan convention that will be held here on Long Island in August. A huge proportion of our attendees are anime fans. I am not unbiased here, although not a big anime fan myself.) They begin by talking about similarities to the music-sharing community (amateur-created and amateur-modified works in both, for instance). However, they assert that the creators of anime are more willing to see their own efforts as collaborative with their putative audience, and thus more likely to encourage rather than litigate against remixes and the equivalent.
Viral marketing, the third case, again allows the authors to talk about the increased power of the small group or individual vs. the large entity. In this case, they present the traditional powers (in this case, marketers) as immediately seeing the value of the new techniques and emulating them, in a direct reversal of the way the music business reacted to disruption.
In the fourth case study, we read about online news. Everyone is familiar with the rapid decline of traditional print media (including this former magazine writer). As before, the authors assert that those traditional outlets which integrate new technologies and especially new attitudes toward their readers will succeed, with older ones falling by the wayside.
Overall, this is one of the better readings I’ve been assigned. Reading it seven or eight years after publication it can’t help but feel a bit dated, but if you keep its publication date in mind it’s actually surprising how well the authors anticipated what would happen. I’m very impressed (and I’d like to read more of their works, perhaps more recent ones).
As I wrote above, what isn’t clear to me (at least this early in the class!) is how to directly apply any of it to education.
Rich, Adrienne; Ito, Mizuko; Richmond, Todd; and Tuters, Mark (2008). “Culture, Media Convergence, and Networked Participation.” in Varnelis, Kazys (Ed.) Networked Publics. (pp 43-76) Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.