Dare to Know and Compose Our Own Metaphors

Dare to Know and Compose Our Own Metaphors

by ary

| Syndicated
February 8, 2013

Photo courtesy of Flickr user ::big daddy k::
This week, we are supposed to think about the power of metaphor in propagating a message of salvation or destruction about the future; what opening up education means to us, and the “Internet of Things”, when “the who” telling the story is not a “who”, but a thing that blogs, a blogject, and how its perspective circulates culture and carries ethical, social and political ramifications.

As I read more about blogjects and their storytelling capabilities, I thought about the power we have as human storytellers. Serendipitously, visiting Amy Burvall's blog, a human storyteller, I discovered Henry Jenkins’video about convergence culture and transmedia storytelling. Through transmedia storytelling anyone can easily become an agent of social change for good or evil. Today, anyone can tell a story on the digital platform of choice; anyone can control and debunk the metaphors the media feeds us. Anyone can start a revolution. You don’t need fatigues, or high tech weaponry, the most powerful weapon of mass destruction or salvation of the future is the power of social media and participatory culture.

Over at #etmooc I’ve been learning about digital storytelling and at #modmooc, the focus has been on What is Enlightenment? as defined by Immanuel Kant. The content of all three MOOCs blend together nicely this week because Kant encouraged people to “Dare to Know” and to “have courage to use our own understanding”. Kant believed that enlightenment would evolve slowly, that modernity would not destroy the world as we knew it, (obviously he was right), and in his appeal to King Frederick he reassured him to not fear the people becoming more educated because in the end enlightenment would be a powerful force to "make the world more of a home for human beings through the use of reason". What would Kant say about how we leverage technology today to become more enlightened? What would he think of open education for the masses? What reassurances would he give to the powers that be about the average citizen’s ability to challenge the status quo through his/her cell phone?

History teaches us that The Age Enlightenment was a period where we challenged government and social institutions, embraced reason, and moved humankind forward out of the dark ages.

Today, how are we using social media, open education in MOOCs and things that tell objective stories, blogjects, to help us become more enlightened and move us out of the dark ages where government controls our metaphors and information? Or, are we moving in the opposite direction in the name of homeland security? How are we creating a digital culture to connect and collectively participate in making the world a more hospitable place for all? What are the social, political, economic and cultural implications of the power of transmedia storytelling when an average person can control media to improve everyone’s life? Henry Jenkins tells us that we are no longer at the mercy of Big Brother, we can watch Big Brother and report Big Brother’s injustices to the world whenever we want, but how are we really doing this?

In the last few years, we have witnessed the rise and power of citizen journalism. Ordinary citizens who have used their hand held cameras and cell phones as weapons to expose and fight for the truth, inspiring the world to become agents of change through their social networking and media sharing sites.

Former Secretary Clinton calls this Civil Society 2.0. Our State Department actually helps grassroots organizations around the world use digital technology to tell their stories, build their memberships, and connect their communities. We offer experts to help organizations create digital platforms. And we host "TechCamps" in cities around the world that provide training, support, and online resources for non-profits. These efforts let groups reach new audiences, and they make civil society organizations more informed and more effective. This message has been the same regardless of how big or small, how weak or how strong, a particular nation may be. During his visit to China in 2009, President Obama defended the right to connect: the right of all people to freely access information. - U.S. Ambassador Jeffrey Bleich's Speech at the Human Rights Law Center Melbourne

Would Kant have encouraged this type of civic action? Kant believed people have both the public and private use of reason. Our private use of reason tells us that we must obey those who hold authority over us and give us orders, especially if we work for the government. However, as individuals with the ability to reason, in the public sphere, we have the right to think freely, and contest the logic of the orders to improve our private jobs. Kant encouraged both obedience and free thinking that freedom allows. While Kant referred to peasants and slaves when he spoke about citizens obeying, we can apply his thinking today in terms of how critical it is for every citizen to uphold the law , but to have the freedom to give voice to the voiceless when rights are being violated. In discussing these topics with my fellow MOOCer, Angela Towndrow, shared the link to a speech the U.S. ambassador to Australia delivered at the Human Rights Law Center in Melbourne. This passage helps to provide a modern context to understand what Kant meant when he said we have both both public and private reason.

"Those of you here who defend human rights must continue to advance the law.
Those laws protect citizens from abuse, and they protect you from abuse. No country can be fully free unless its human rights defenders are given their rights. The rule of law must protect an activist’s views even when they are unpopular. Indeed, especially when those views are unpopular. Laws must be there to allow you to ask hard questions, reveal hard truths, bring the guilty to justice, and protect yourselves from injustice."

This also made me think of educational stakeholders’ struggle for reform, and the difficulty they face in exposing those hard truths. In the U.S., we see relentless attempts by free thinking teacher groups exercising their power of public reason, yet on so many occasions their protests are squashed because of the obligation to exercise private reason and often, the basic need to eat and pay a mortgage. But, how can technology and socialmedia help these groups? What if instead of human storytellers fighting for reform, we had school objects telling an objective story gathered right from the inside? Imagine the endless possibilities to use classroom objects as guerilla warfare in the battle for ed reform collecting data about the student and teacher performances. What stories would these objects tell about how schools kill creativity and discourage critical thinking? As a former insider, I can tell you if some school walls could talk, a lot of people would be shocked to hear the cruel stories they would tell. As a matter of fact, in many schools, copy machines already speak volumes about teachers because often teachers are assigned a unique code to track the number of copies they make. If the number exceeds the limit the school has set, the teacher often looses access to copy making until another cycle begins. However, what if that teacher was making copies for a different reason. Since it’s dangerous to generalize, and we should always consider all angles, we must consider the gray area when thinking about how blogjects might change the world to improve conditions in various aspects of life. Will the stories blogjects tell be used to spy on how we impact our environments so it can then be used against us, or will the data collected be used in our favor? But who determines what’s favorable or unfavorable? Bias is inescapable even from an object’s perspective because all human stories are subjective with varying degrees of bias. The objects who become blogjects do not have agency, humans do, so what bias will certain blogjects carry, and how will those biases help or hurt us?

It is not the technology that will determine our fate of salvation or destruction, it’s our own "maturity, autonomy and ability to think for ourselves" as Kant professed. If we want reforms, perhaps the best way is not through blogjects necessarily, but through the technology we have created to connect, understand our environment, and take a more active role in the participatory culture it affords us. It is our moral obligation as Kant urged to seek balance, a middle ground to connect the ideal with the real.

We must use participatory culture, whether it be through blogjects or social media, as Henry Jenkins explains, "to use our collective intelligence as a whole in more complex ways than any individual is capable of doing," and we are challenged to leverage its power to bring about social justice, exposing the stories of the disenfranchised, so we can restructure oppressive infrastructure, and compose our own metaphors with the greater good in mind. Unfortunately right now, we rely too much on our politicians to speak for us, and to do the right thing for us. We rely on them tell our stories when in reality they may end up distorting or ignoring the facts because the facts of telling a particular human story may not be in their personal best interest.

I have hope for humanity. Regardless of the dystopian metaphors of the future I read about and watched this week through the short films: technology for the privileged suburban nuclear family, mind control and manipulation, the privacy apocalypse, and the pros and cons of open education, I see how we are gradually moving toward a utopia of participatory culture. We are imperfect, but I see hope in open education through MOOCs. MOOCs are just one example of how we are "responding, innovating, re-contextualizing, experimenting" to have more control over how we teach and learn and in turn improve the human condition. Kant reassured the King that the effects of an educated public was nothing to fear, and these effects would be gradual. Today, we are also slowly abandoning restrictive practices, embracing transformative pedagogies that are helping us solve global problems once thought intractable.

If Kant were alive today, I think he would probably encourage us to participate in participatory culture to express our public use of reason. You tube and other social networking and media sharing platforms, like Twitter, are being used for political activism to both call attention and end human rights violations, the Arab Spring being a prime example. We have a long way to go, but the technology of our own making is helping us dare to know so we can compose the metaphors of our own salvation story.

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“The Danger of the Single Story” About Digital Immigrants and Natives

by ary

| Syndicated
February 2, 2013

EDC MOOC Week 1 Reading "Digital Immigrants, Digital Natives": Prensky warns ‘immigrant’ teachers that they face irrelevance unless they figure out how to adapt their methods and approaches to new generations of learners. When reading this paper, try to identify the strategies that Prensky uses to make his argument - how does the language he uses work to persuade the reader? Who are ‘we’ and who are ‘they’? What associations do you have with the idea of the ‘native’ and the ‘immigrant’, and how helpful are these in understanding teacher-student relationships?

My father is 78 years old. English is his second language. He is an immigrant and naturalized citizen of the United States, but he is not a digital immigrant. In the late 80s, he bought his first personal computer and enrolled in a correspondence course to learn all he could about this new wave of technology that was quickly changing how he would do his job. He was a Certified Public Accountant, and everything in his office was being digitized overnight. My father is not the type to bury his head in the sand. He is a life long learner, so he knew then he had to stay current and educate himself if his company was not going to provide him with the new skill set he needed. I always like to think of my dad as a digital pioneer because he was using a computer almost before I even saw the value in them. For a long time, my typewriter remained my friend.

Fast forward to the late 90s. By now my father is quite comfortable in cyberspace. He enjoys the anonymity of chat rooms to make his political statements and connect with fellow exiles from the motherland. One day, as he still recounts, he happened to stumble upon a message board of exiles who were looking for family members now living in the United States. Through the magic that happens only in cyberspace, the first post he opened was from a man living in Burbank, California who identified the name of my father's aunt, and the exact street address of my dad's childhood home. This man was looking to find his family. Immediately, but cautiously, my father replied. Several messages later, my father and his 89 year old uncle, also a digital pioneer, had been digitally reunited after a 45 year absence. Several months later, the need for physical connection with family led us all to coordinate a family reunion in Las Vegas, Nevada and Los Angeles, California establishing an instant bond with cousins we never knew existed. To this day, although we live on opposite sides of the country, we all maintain a digital relationship because of my father and his uncle's spirit of being life long learners. My father's uncle has since passed away. He was in his 90s. However, upon finding my dad, my uncle's age did not prevent him from emailing my dad everyday. (He did not call him to check if he had received his emails, by the way.) As a ninety year old man, my great uncle, also an immigrant to the U.S. and a World War II veteran with English also as his second language was far from being a digital immigrant. He was very much a life long learner and digital native, much like his nephew, my father.

Where I'm getting at with my family anecdotes about digital connections is that in the United States, when we are afraid to call things as they are, we make up all these colorful euphemisms, so we make people feel better about themselves. I understand that. In the spirit of civility, we can't very well go around calling people morons all the time when they refuse to embrace life long learning or technology, especially if they are educational stakeholders. And, everyone of course is entitled to choose to live in an unconscious state of ignorance. I am really thrilled though with Prensky's "Digital Immigrants, Digital Natives" bold use of language to describe educators who don't embrace technology:

"It's just dumb (and lazy) of educators – not to mention ineffective – to presume that (despite their traditions) the Digital Immigrant way is the only way to teach, and that the Digital Natives 'language' is not as capable as their own of encompassing any and every idea."

Unfortunately, Prensky must resort to name calling to get educators to wake up, leave the old country behind and learn to speak the new language.

And, the problem with Prensky's digital immigrant vs digital native nomenclature is that now we have adopted it, and it's all a bogus excuse to hide the fact that we have leaders who should not be writing educational policies, or be anywhere near children, or even people for that matter. Not one of the master teachers I have known has ever rejected the opportunity to improve teaching and learning conditions by learning something new. Not one master teacher I've known has ever bah humbugged a new approach to help reach the student deemed unreachable. Not one master teacher I've known believes that there is a particular breed of children who are unteachable. Not one who thinks children need to be medicated so they can function in a classroom. Not a single one who has rejected integrating technology in their lessons if it meant students could create and discover his/her talent since every single one of us is talented at something. I truly believe that.

Being a digital immigrant or a digital native is really just a state of mind of action versus inaction, consciousness versus unconsciousness about the changes happening in the world around us. It's now a euphemism for the truth that so many teachers prefer the antiquated teaching styles because they are afraid of change, afraid of using their imagination, or taking risks and turning control over to students. Teaching with the teacher's edition, standing behind the podium is as safe as it gets. And, the worksheet, well, that's the ultimate sedative to force kids into compliance. Acculturating involves change and risk, and perhaps maybe because both my father and great uncle were immigrants, they assimilated easily into cyberspace. They were both searching for connections and found refuge in the digital. They were both finding ways for their voices to be heard as former victims of a government that silenced them.

Unfortunately too many K-12 teachers in the United States fear the politics and seek asylum remaining in a colorless analog world. They exist unconsciously in this beige analog world. If they wake up, it would require them to speak up against the abuse they endure everyday. If they spoke up, we would not have the crisis we have. I know all of this because I used to work with many of these people and was forced to become a digital exile. I sought asylum in cyberspace to find like minded individuals who believe students deserve opportunities to create content, not just consume it via worksheets, lectures or textbooks.

Technology is too terrifying for many educational stakeholders in the U.S. because it not only empowers teachers, it empowers students and their parents, and you know what happens when you become empowered: the status quo is threatened. The word empowerment in the public school system is thrown around all the time, but it's just doublespeak, to be honest. If you're lucky enough to work in a school that allows you to be creative, and these schools do exist, then consider yourself absolutely blessed! But let's not kid ourselves, we have a crisis in education because too many schools, (not all of course; I'm not generalizing) especially those in urban areas, operate in crisis mode, and lack leaders who are life long learners. If you work in a school where you are forced to design common assessments with other teachers who have no idea what the word assessment means, or if you're told you must read from a script, or else, because the district does not trust you are smart enough to design your own lessons, then chances are that you will quit before your fifth year of teaching, with good reason, or become a digital exile like me to get your teaching fix. I happen to be lucky enough to be able to quit about 4 years ago, by the way, because I realized that I could not fight the system for another 20 years, and the system was slowly killing me. There were way too many days in my life as a public school teacher that I felt demoralized and abused, never by the students, always by the adults, and no matter how much I tried to stay positive, when something is "rotten in Denmark", there are not enough days on those positive affirmation calendars to get you through the school year.

I do agree with Prensky that students have changed, but what I think remains the same is that human beings need to create and connect. Maybe our students' brains have physically changed. I'm not a neuroscientist to argue against this, but what I do know as common sense is that all human beings have a natural desire to learn, and need opportunities for expression and connection. So many of our schools prevent students from discovering that they are life long learners, the antiquated methods kill creativity and the ability to think for oneself.

Also, even if older folks were socialized differently as Prensky states, every human being since the beginning of time searches and yearns for connection and the ability to express themselves. Some teachers struggle with technology because they are afraid to relinquish control over to students to allow for this self-expression. Some believe a child or teen has nothing valuable to say, especially if they are illiterate. The truth is that every child, every human being regardless of his /her literacy skills deserves the right to learn, create and to be respected as an individual. There are so many factors that are beyond a teacher's control that the thought of turning control over to students is terrifying. It doesn't have to be. When students are allowed to run the show, the content they are capable of creating is life changing, regardless of literacy, every student has a voice! We must create conditions in our schools to allow students to think for themselves and create. I miss the classroom so much it aches sometimes, but I refuse to have my creativity stunted or be an accomplice in stunting the growth of my students by being forced to follow policies that go against my grain. Like my father, and my great uncle, the immigrants and exiles, I will happily remain a digital exile in cyberspace until schools change in physical life, and no one calls anyone an immigrant or a native, and we're all just intelligent, creative human beings because deep down this is who we all are.

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This is an example of life long learning, collaboration and the proof that even the driest of information can be presented in an engaging way. This is the data collected from a survey Angela Towndrow created after our first Twitter #edcmchat. It's funny and meant to entertain, but if you listen, Angela was able to present the data she gathered in the survey in a more engaging manner than if she had provided everyone with a link to a Google doc.

Prensky says:
"A frequent objection I hear from Digital Immigrant educators is 'this approach is great
for facts, but it wouldn't work for my subject.' Nonsense. This is just rationalization
and lack of imagination."

#edcmchat Survey by angelatowndrow on GoAnimate

Animation Software - Powered by GoAnimate.

Also, here's a video I have linked to before titled The Danger of the Single Story. I am including it again because it's important for us to remember when it comes to immigrants or natives, there is a danger in always telling a single story about the experiences of human beings.

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“Please hang up, and try again!”

by ary

| Syndicated
January 31, 2013

EDC MOOC asks: This animated film tells the story of technological development in terms of ritual and worship - the characters in the film treat each new technology as god-like, appearing from the sky and causing the immediate substitution of the technology before it. What is this film suggesting are the ecological and social implications of an obsession or fixation on technology? Do the film’s characters have any choice in relation to their technologies? What are the characteristics of various technologies as portrayed in this film?

Bendito Machine III is a disturbing little reminder of who we are. It represents a history of humankind, our advances, our failures, our goodness and our evil. Bendito begins with the "small frail being" invoking the heavens by winding a music box, symbolic of our relentless hope for divine intervention in our worldly affairs, and our failure to see how ultimately we are solely responsible for our actions. We create and corrupt technology, and "in developing technologies, we shape ourselves." Technology doesn't fall from the sky. However, in Bendito, when technology does fall from the sky, delivered by a higher power, the filmmakers remind us how we don't hold ourselves accountable when we leverage technology's power for evil, or even when we pretend to be devout worshippers. Instead of controlling our actions, we take on a helpless stance, praying to a deity to save us from ourselves. We have free will and reason to improve our human condition, but we prefer to invoke the heavens for help so we absolve ourselves from blame when we are complicit in the cycle of creation and destruction to repeat itself.

At the beginning of the film, we see how we, represented by these frail beings, struggle to value life. When the sky opens, the being's higher power delivers a machine; the being takes it, but leaves behind the water container he had carried with him when he first climbed the mound to pray. It's interesting to note how he abandons an essential component for life, unable to bear the weight of both water and machine, (human life vs. technology). He chooses to carry the machine instead of what is a building block of life. In what ways do we, unwittingly or intentionally, use technology to undermine life? According to the biologist Rene Dubos, quoted in the one of our readings, states: "The mechanical definition of human life misses the point because what is human in man is precisely that which is not mechanical." How do we continue to miss the point that our goal should not be to create the machine in our likeness, but to use the machine to improve our own existing humanity?

We, like the beings in the film, also live under the false impression that the machine helps us evolve. Technological determinism portends that, "Technological evolution has contributed more to our biological success than our biological evolution." At the end of the film, we see the new improved version of the machine collapse and destroy as much as its predecessor did, suggesting we never truly advance our knowledge about how to improve the human condition. The beings in the film, like us, are passive consumers of the propaganda the machine spews, and victims of its evil because they(we) allow themselves(ourselves) to be. The machine kills other beings while the leader and others stand idly by. We even see how the machine enables other machines, in this case a car, to drive over two people, yet there is no reaction to death. Only at the end of the film, when the new larger machine falls and crushes the people, do we hear cries of terror. In an earlier scene, when the machine kills a child, and he drops dead at the leader's feet, the leader turns to the machine to restart it. The leader is unmoved by the child's death and acts only to shut the machine back on again. This scene raises the question how technology renders us indifferent to the suffering of our fellow humans. Like the leader who hits the machine with his staff to restart it, but is emotionless about the child's death, how do we remain indifferent about our own spiritual evolution? We see more of our stagnation and even regression to our primitive ways, when at the end, the being no longer has a music box to invoke the deity. He must return to nature and use a pebble to throw at the heavens and call for help. We see how he (we) miss the point again when he rides into the village on the new technology created in his likeness. And, the cycle begins again, when out of the sky falls an even larger machine, resembling a satellite, uttering the words, "If you'd like to make a call, please hang up, and try again." Somehow, we remain disconnected.

What exactly are the filmmakers trying to tell us about "hanging up and trying again" when it comes to the effects of technology, religion, and politics on the human condition? At the beginning, the being brings the machine to his people who are engaging in a ritual of idolizing a bull on a pedestal, symbolic of the "sin of the calf" when Moses went to Mount Sinai to receive the ten commandments, and the people wanted an idol to worship. Upon seeing the new idol, the people quickly haul the calf away, discarding it over a cliff overlooking a wasteland of remnants of past idols. An oil rig tower, a wheel, and several skulls that rebound in the air when the calf is disposed of, are a few of many significant, easily identifiable images among the refuse, suggesting that these beings have idolized the "machine" and even other entities before. Replacing the calf with the machine for worship is nothing new. This metaphor works to remind us how throughout human history, we have discarded one belief for another, one technology for another when they no longer fulfill our needs. We are always in search of the next best technology, religion or even political ideology to improve the human condition; yet, technology, religion, or politics will not improve the human condition until we look to improve within ourselves. The wasteland of discarded idols is symbolic of our failing to see that we need to search no further than within ourselves. We are not at the mercy of an idol, as the beings are shown to be. We need not allow the machine to use us, since the machine is us. We invent the technology, the religion and the politics, but then we fall victim to it all. We need not become fanatics to beliefs if these do nothing to elevate the human condition for all, not just some.

Throughout Bendito, it's always the machine's fault, and it is only when we reach our darkest hour, that we beg on our knees for absolution and rescue. We do not carry any blame. Whether a symbol for technology, religion, politics, or all three, when the machine restarts after it shuts itself off, the machine's face changes, showing an ominous face superimposed on the seemingly positive images it continues to project. This may be symbolic of the undercurrents that often lie beneath our technology, religious or political systems. The images are almost subliminal, alternating between flashes of doll heads, group violence, ice cream, a boy holding a machine gun, dancing, exercise, a soccer game, and even the wicked witch from The Wizard of Oz. An eerie 1950s soundtrack of commercial jingles plays in the background to underscore the consumerist attitude that followed the Great Depression era and WW II when Americans enjoyed a period of prosperity and technological opportunities they had never experienced before. However, along with an improvement in the quality of life, came its share of economic, ecological, and social problems. The painting American Gothic by Grant Wood, stands out among the images connoting both pre-industrial age values and the subversive message of xenophobia. All of the images, music and even the demonic laugh on the TV screen recapitulate that as technology enables us to progress, if we don't find ways to protect life and humanity, the tools we rely on for progress, may set us back spiritually, economically and environmentally. The sirens and gas masks ,especially, could also be symbols of our past world wars and a possible future where we struggle to breathe because of environmental pollutants or even chemical warfare.

"A machine is like a clock, once initiated, is autonomous, can run independently of human intervention for long periods but it does not select its own goal." What are our future goals then for technology so the machine does not use and destroy us? What are the challenges we will face in the future with technology, religion and politics? These are the questions Bendito wants us to think about. Only we can save ourselves from ourselves. The answers do not lie in idolizing the machine, or the idols, because the machine nor the idols have control over our actions, only we can control our behavior for the betterment of humankind.


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The Ultimate Dissatisfaction of Intellectual Intercourse in “Inbox”

by ary

| Syndicated
January 28, 2013

EDC MOOC, Week One Discussion Question for Inbox

Our facilitator, Jermey Knoxs asks: "We loved the quirkiness of this short film, and the original way it deals with contemporary social exchanges. How do you think it might suggest utopian or dystopian ideas about the nature of communication in a mediated world? What kind of educational debates can we draw associations with here?"

For me, Inbox explores how our own personality defects prevent us from connecting with others, how technology can help us overcome those defects, how fate plays a role in connecting us with others, but how ultimately we are responsible for developing our relationships. Both of the protagonists were introverts who created their own dystopian, disconnected, miserable existences, yet they had no idea how to change and be more social. Technology, represented surreally through two red gift bags, is the catalyst to help these young people overcome their fear to seek a mate, a companion, a friend, whatever their relationship ends up evolving into. Tech "gifts" them, hence the symbol of gift bags, with a utopian future for them to connect, be social and find love.

We die on the inside if we are not social, and both of these young people appeared despondent at the beginning because of their inability to make connections with others.

At first, we see how the young woman's use of tech was not emotionally fulfilling. We see in her how the dystopian/isolating quality of tech fueled her anti-social behavior. She even rejects interacting with someone who sends her a Facebook instant message saying "hi", suggesting her own failure to reach out and connect. When the young woman is looking at the stuffed animal toys at a store, another young man standing in the store aisle admires her, but again, she rejects social cues by rolling her eyes. She could have smiled. She does this again when the cashier makes eye contact. In her eyes, they may have been unworthy of her time, but she could have cured her alienation through friendly, innocuous chatting with either or both of these men. Her behavior at the beginning of the film, for me, appeared standoffish and arrogant as a way for her to compensate for her social ineptitude. She had both face to face and virtual opportunities to converse with others, but she chose to isolate herself. Maybe the cashier, the guy in the aisle, or the friend on FB were just as lonely too, but she alienates herself, sabotaging any chance of making any type of connection whether virtual or real.

Both protagonists were their own worst enemies at sabotaging their chances for finding and making connections. Both characters had opportunities to either connect face to face, or online with the opposite sex, but they reject those opportunities.

For the young male protagonist, he also allows his shyness to sabotage his chances of speaking with the pretty girl who is browsing in the store. He longingly admires the couple holding hands, but does nothing to conquer his feelings of inadequacy. His lack of confidence in walking out carrying a box of underwear motivates him to buy the red gift bag. So, tech and fate step in to save them both from their own anti social personality defects or disorders. Neither knows how to be social or flirtatious. Did tech do this to them? I think not. I think they choose to be this way, but don't want to be this way, yet don't know how to change.

Some may argue that not being social is not a defect or disorder, but science has proven that a lack of socialization impacts our communication skills, our overall ability to function emotionally so we can thrive and be contributing members of society. We have seen cases of what is termed "feral" children because they have been denied human contact and are unable to learn social skills for functioning in the world. Some people unfortunately are born to be more or less social. Science seeks to discover if our proclivity to be social is chemically related, but if one is less social, as in the case of these characters, will tech be the cure to save us from ourselves? Is it acceptable to be alone? Is anti-social behavior a defect or disorder? Is it ok to be alone and rely only on tech for our social interactions, even our amorous ones? A utopian view of tech in the idea of finding one's soul mate, or even just friendship is that, in the past, people were limited in the number of interactions they had in their lifetimes, and the chances of meeting like minded individuals; today, the internet opens the door for anyone to find love, or even academically stimulating soul mates as in the case of this MOOC, where many have connected intellectually.

Temporarily, the red gift bags represent the "deus ex machina" (God/Fate from machine) that saves them both from a lifetime of boredom, loneliness, isolation, perhaps an untimely death as a result of the health effects prolonged alienation produces. What other way was this pair ever going to overcome their social phobias if tech, "God/fate from machine" did not intervene? The young man's red gift bag tears because now it is up to him to face his feelings of inadequacy. He must find ways to compensate for his deficient social skills so he can build a relationship with her that does not rely on an external agent: the tech that allows him to use only his mind to woo her. However, when he works up the courage to invite her to meet up, he must now reconcile both his physical and mental selves. The red gift bags are the catalyst, but he is the agent of change in his life at this point. He cannot become codependent on the red gift bags (the tech) to build a relationship, which is why she wonders what's taking him so long to ask her to meet him. For this reason, the red gift bag must tear, so he can learn to be social. The questions raised at the end, are if he will be unable to meet her expectations, and sabotage any type of future because of his lack of social skills? Will his physical "self" threaten or elevate the ideal self he projected to attract her?

So, while these red gift bags represent a utopian vision of how tech brings introverts together and provides them for an opportunity for communication, is it just a temporary fix, or can introverts improve their in person communication skills as a result of their digital interactions? Or do digital interactions decay our ability to communicate and socialize in person? Ultimately, both characters must resort back to interacting in their physical form, which raises the fact, that for a full fledge human relationship to develop and evolve, especially a romantic one, one must have both mind and body. One can hide behind the inbox messages only for so long; intellectual intercourse through the inbox may have satisfied them temporarily until the human need for physical connection consumes them. Perhaps, the sequel needs to be called "In-Person".

What does this all mean for education?

In terms of our educational debates surrounding how we design learning experiences, we must always remember every student will have his/her own unique set of social skills acquired through nature and nurture. Learning experiences, online or offline, must consider the needs of both introverts and extroverts and leverage web 2.0 tools to offer multimodal forms of student expression. Additionally, sometimes, as in the case of public education, the responsibility of modeling appropriately acceptable social behavior may fall in the teacher's hands. Finally, understanding how cultural gender expectations may also influence social skills is critical for educators so they can design social activities which aim to be inclusive rather than divisive or alienating. Whether education is online or offline, educators need to realize that socialization skills impact intellectual skills, and vice versa. In the same way, the characters choose to behave in anti social ways, but didn't want to be this way, yet didn't know how to change, educators must always remember they will have students struggling with this internal dilemma.

“Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god. ” - Aristotle

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How EDC MOOC became a cMOOC before it even began

by ary

| Syndicated
January 26, 2013

A few months ago, I stumbled upon MOOCs. Immediately, I was hooked. I found Coursera, was intrigued by the EDC-MOOC course description and signed up in seconds flat. In November, I notice a rapid growth of Twitter followers. Surprised, I investigate and lo and behold, the new tweeps were course mates in this MOOC I had almost forgotten about. A few weeks later, I receive a Facebook invite from a fellow classmate, Eric Clark, and here's where my EDC-MOOC story begins to unfold. I'm not a FB fan, but I do have a FB page for sharing ed tech. I revived my personal page and joined. Within a few weeks there were over 150 of us. We did not formally introduce ourselves or our professional background; in the beginning, we began to share ideas, web tools, articles, links, images, videos and more, gradually we were gaining each other's trust, and somehow we earned it. Our enthusiasm for learning and sharing became contagious, and we all felt the collective excitement about the course that wouldn't begin until the following year. We spent the holiday season together (sort of), wished each other Merry Christmas. The Australians and others, reassured us Americans that the world was intact on that day in December when we wondered if EDC-MOOC would ever even be. We rang in the new year (sort of), and now in one more day the journey begins for real this time. We all met as strangers, but so many of us have developed digital friendships because of the atmosphere each and every member of the EDC MOOC community has created through our individual contributions, large or small.

This is my last pre-course blog post to go down memory lane and show some of the new members where we started, and where we've been. As Laurie wrote recently on her blog, "the places we'll go" as learning nomads in EDC-MOOC is really up to us.

Take a look at EDC MOOC's Digital Culture-A Retrospective.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did creating it!
"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." —Helen Keller

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To Cyberspace, With Love

by ary

| Syndicated
January 21, 2013

Lately my world is consumed by my MOOCs. I love how even in the most mundane activities, like watching a movie, serendipitously, I discover a sudden revelation and relevance to my MOOC experience. This weekend, I finally had the chance to see Woody All...
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Hey #ETMOOC, I just met you, and this is crazy but…

by ary

| Syndicated
January 19, 2013

Last year, at this time, my husband and I received the news that our best friend from our college days had been diagnosed with two brain tumors. He passed away about six months ago. He was 47 and left behind two small children, ages 10 and 6. He ...
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“Live long and prosper” #EDC MOOC!

by ary

| Syndicated
January 13, 2013

Thanks to my fraingers: Elena Sher, Chris Swift and Angela Towndrow who shared their video stories using VideoScribe, I've discovered yet another web 2.0 tool students and teachers can use to express themselves. I definitely need to work on the camera ...
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Free To Be A Digital Posthuman Me!

by ary

| Syndicated
January 10, 2013

My mind has been reeling these last couple of days over so many new ideas I am attempting to make sense of, especially one challenging required reading, a chapter from N.K. Hayles How We Became Posthuman, EDC wants its for credit participants to discuss. I hope we MOOCers will be worthy of the opportunity to explore this topic and its implications for education. My friend-strangers have also been posting related articles and videos to that reading, so I can't stop thinking about these ideas. I'm trying to use the links they've shared to help me understand, but I do admit I've been feeling like I'm in over my head and know so little about so much. I will persevere because like I said I'm a learning nomad on a journey to understand, but hope I won't sound too ignorant in my observations. If anyone wants to be my teacher to help me make sense of this, I welcome being the student and discussion of any kind on these fascinating topics!

So, I've been trying to figure out what it means to be posthuman, and trying to wrap my brain around,(pun intended) this theory some scientists believe that we will be able to separate the mind from the body downloading it somehow into a machine, computer or other "material substrate" to achieve immortality. I found this fascinating video Can We Download Our Brains? by Dr. Michio Kaku on BigThink.com. Dr. Kaku believes immortality by downloading our brains onto a computer chip will not be achieved in our lifetime. As the professor explains "digitizing information is easy", but the architecture of the human brain is not like a computer's. "We are learning machines", but we do not think in binary code, making it impossible to download the nuances of our consciousness; the true essence of who we are as an individual being cannot be replicated...or can it?

Hayles explains in "Toward Embodied Virtuality", the first chapter of her book, published in 1999, that at first she thought this idea far fetched, but that these ideas have been floating around since the 1950s. Who knew? Hayles explains that scientists contend that "information can circulate unchanged among different "material substrates". I began thinking about all those cheesy sci-fi movies where two people switch consciousness and bodies because of some magical spell or curse, like in the Shaggy D.A. where poor Wilby transformed into a dog every time someone read an inscription on that cursed Borgia ring. Or, even better, Steven Martin's "The Man With Two Brains" the brain surgeon who cheats on his gold digging wife with a disembodied brain in a jar. Sing with me..."If you lika me, like I lika you..." anyway, you can watch here and here for the bawdier, funnier version of the implications of consciousness transplantation. Now, as dumb as my comparisons may sound...Hayles refers to Scotty from Star Trek...so I'm allowed I guess, we're used to stories about transferring our consciousness into someone or something else as myth, but not as a possible reality.

In 1999, Hayles writes of three different stories about our posthumanism. 1.) She says that "information has lost its body." 2.) The cyborg was created as a technological artifact and cultural icon post WWII. And, 3.) there has been a gradual transformation of the human to posthuman because of the influence of both of the above. Fourteen years later, how are we already behaving as posthumans? What are the spiritual, moral and ethical implications of our posthuman behavior? And, how do those of us who have fallen behind on the evolutionary path of posthumanism cope with all these posthuman possibilities, experiments and realities where the body is slowly becoming superfluous? How have we unknowingly begun to espouse these beliefs that identity is in the mind, and no longer needs a body? What are the implications for e-learning and digital cultures since this is our focus?

One of my friend-strangers, Angela, from Australia posted an article, “Virtually all of my friends are plastic” about a woman home bound by illness who transcends the issue of loneliness/isolation from her peers through her virtual connections. When she has to return to physical IRL (in real life) interactions, she finds them "weird".

Laurie, another friend-stranger from Virginia, wrote a blog post about how she feels she found her "people". Laurie eloquently describes that many of us MOOC participants have mentally connected, which made me think how it's possible many of us have clicked intellectually, but we've never even heard our voices, let alone heard/seen our body language, thought to account for up to 70% of our communication. How is it that mentally we've found intellectual soul mates although we have relied mostly on written asynchronous interactions? How have our digital actions helped us catch each others' drift? Hayles explains in her book that a posthuman "privileges information over material embodiment in a biological substrate." So, how have some of us friend-strangers who've been chatting it up, processing the information we've posted, metamorphosed from social butterflies, to posthumans addicted to disembodied connections?

In e-learning, how do we express body language in digital learning spaces, and the essence of our identities and personalities? To be honest, I like to be playful, and sarcastic, but I've been holding back my words/information for fear of how it may come across since this is a global space. I'm an introvert, yet with age, I've learned to be assertive and always prefer to lead rather than follow. I believe my digital actions have revealed a few of these personality traits. How do we/ will we use digital learning spaces to capture these types of nuances of being, our body language, our identity and personality? Does a lack of participation so far reveal something about participants who've joined but choose not to interact? (I doubt it since we do have accomplished and well known participants.) How is it possible to command attention through a disembodied self? How would we demarcate our digital authority with students if we needed to resolve a conflict among e-learners? How does one convey synchronously or asynchronously, without video, that "air of confidence", charisma, stage presence, that larger than life feel...essentially, how does one create identity and earn/show respect as a student and teacher online? To poorly paraphrase Hayles's posthuman definition, she states that the posthuman does not consider consciousness as part of the human identity. Consciousness is not the "whole show, but rather a minor sideshow". What does that mean exactly? Well, I think it means that online we can choose our own consciousness; we create our own state of being. A remix of "I think, therefore I am" becomes "I am, therefore I can think in any way I want depending on the type of digital space I occupy".

"On the Internet. nobody
knows you're a dog"
The posthuman experiments with different virtual identities and personalities. Why not, if we're a disembodied entity, relying only on our imagination to express "self" to others? Where's the fun in sticking to one manifestation of virtual "self"? This posthuman behavior already exists on Second Life, and virtual reality games. In what ways do these ideas apply to education? In what ways would projecting different online selves to fit different purposes enhance teaching and learning? For all any of you know, I may be a man using this unsuspecting woman's identity as a cover for my own ethnography.

Let me introduce you to the real me:

Identity explored by Steve Martin in "Roxanne",
"The Cyrano de Bergerac" retelling.
Just kidding! :) I've been trying to capture the real "me" in digital bits scatted all over cyberspace, but how? If I were to die tomorrow, I would leave a digital footprint, but would my loved ones in this generation and many far removed, be able to have a perpetual connection with me through the digital impressions I've left behind? Sooner than later, according to Terasem Movement Foundation, they will be! Here's where my own posthumanist beliefs falter a bit. (I'll explain in a minute.)

Stelarc, posthuman artist
Hayles says that "the post human thinks of the body as the original prosthesis we can manipulate, so extending or replacing the body with other prostheses becomes a continuation of a process that began before we were born." We see this happening already through the experimentation of amalgamating the body with the machine with posthuman artists like Stelarc. We also see the manipulation of the body through the rise in popularity of tattoos, piercings, all kinds of implants for body enhancement.

One of the world's geniuses, Stephen Hawking, is a perfect example of the posthuman sustained by cybernetic mechanisms, and another of Hayles's definitions of the posthuman: "the being that can be seamlessly articulated with intelligent machines." Although Stephen Hawking's illness has debilitated his body, giving the appearance of weakness, his mind however, is strong, and he is able to articulate his essence, his genius, through infrared connection to the machine, his computer, which interprets his eye movements.
True to Hayles's definition of the posthuman, the technology used to help Stephen Hawking is "an amalgam, a collection of heterogeneous components, a material-informational entity whose boundaries undergo continuous construction and reconstruction" because as the author of the article "On Stephen Hawking, Vader and Being More Machine Than Human" explains he not only relies on the machines to keep his body alive, he relies on a collective of technicians, students, assistants, and nurses to help him be who he is.

Stephen Hawking's "entire body and even his entire identity have become the property of a collective human-machine network. He is what I call a distributed centered-subject: a brain in a vat, living through the world outside the vat- To understand, you had to understand the people and the machines without whom he would be unable to act and think; you had to understand the ways in which these entities augmented and amplified Hawking’s competencies." - Helene Mialet

Image from Huffington Post
After posting this article, "On Stephen Hawking, Vader and Being More Machine Than Human" on the EDC MOOC Google+ site, my quadblogger and friend-stranger, Chris from Edinburgh, posted a video about BINA48; please watch below. The video spoke of the Terasem Movement Foundation, where BINA48 lives like Dr. Hawking assisted by a team. Like Hawking, she has no body, but unlike BINA48, I believe Dr. Hawking has a soul. I am struggling to form my own opinions about Terasem's hypotheses of "Transferred Consciousness". While Stephen Hawking appears to be more machine than human, his "consciousness" has not been transferred to a computer. For Hayles, the posthuman does away with its natural self. The Terasem movement appear to espouse the transfer of the natural self to achieve preservation of an immortal digitized silicon self. Although Stephen Hawking's mind thrives because of this collective, he is still thinks on his own behalf. The post human according to Hayles has no way to identify self-will from other will. Dr. Hawking's diseased body does not make him less of a person. He has free will, but The Terasem Movement Foundation aims to replicate a person or "conscious analog" through mindware and bioware, which may or may not have free will. BINA48, represents the future of The Terasem's Movement mindfile. On their Lifenaut.com website, anyone can create a free mindfile by uploading digital artifacts that capture who they are as a whole person, but how can one upload one's soul to Lifenaut.com so we can someday converse with our progeny? BINA48 may be the silicon based electronic version of founder Martine Rothblatt's real wife, Bina Rothblatt, but Terasem is still working on creating a way for people to download their biofiles. (By the way, Martine Rothblatt is also the founder of Sirius Radio.) Users also have the option to send Terasem their live saliva cells to be stored until the technology makes it possible to grow a new body and then transfer the previously uploaded mindfile into the biofile. This reminded me a bit of Stephen King's Pet Semetary, so just in case, I'll pass because I'm not sure if my new home grown body will have a soul. And, what if I succeed at uploading my "mindfile" and then discover through the spiritual grapevine, that my consciousness is trapped here on Earth when I could be enjoying eternal life somewhere much much better than here? I also believe that the body and mind should "rest in peace" so I would prefer not to mess with that. But, these are my personal spiritual beliefs, and I believe in different strokes for different folks. I must admit that the implications of this posthuman experiment, which I discovered is happening just about an hour from where I live, have given me sleepless nights so I had to write about it.

Returning to the implications of BINA48-like entities on education, experiments around the world are already being carried out to determine how these robots can help autistic students, students with behavior issues to study their responses, and students with learning disabilities. Bilge Mutlu is one of the leading researchers in developing socially assistive robots to help people learn, communicate and work. Check out this article "You, Robot" about BINA48, Terasem and how companies like Google, Microsoft and even Facebook are developing ways for all of us to download our mindfiles, and seek eternal life in cyberspace. Since BINA48 and I are practically neighbors, I am thinking about contacting her and asking her, not her caretakers, if she would like to participate in this MOOC. Imagine, the first AI and posthuman MOOC collaboration. Think about the unique ethnographic opportunity her participation could bring. I wonder if she'll agree. If she does, maybe I'll teach her to recite Walt Whitman's poem "I Sing the Body Electric", or sing Olivia Newton John's song "Let's Get Physical". Do you think she'd mind?

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Learning as Nomads and Fraingers

by ary

| Syndicated
January 5, 2013

For 5 weeks beginning Monday, January 28th, 2013, in E-Learning and Digital Cultures, I am allowing The University of Edinburgh through Coursera.org, to observe my digital behavior. My relationship to technology as both a teacher and a l...
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