Ipseity

Please see newer posts at http://ehabitus.blogspot.com.

This new paper of this same title develops three themes following up on an article I wrote in 2005 with Andrew Feenberg: "Ed Tech in Reverse": Information Technologies and the Cognitive Revolution (to be published in Educational Philosophy and Theory). These three arguments are:

1.	From the camera obscura through the "cinematograph" and now the computer, new technologies have provided metaphors for understanding how the mind works. This fact taks on special importance when these technology-based understandings of the mental are then used to discuss the educational use of technology. Consider these quotes from the early 20th century, and how technological metaphors of the mental (from mind maps to memes) operate in e-learning discourse today: "We may therefore sum up what we have been saying in the conclusion that the mechanism of our ordinary knowledge is of a cinematographical kind." -Henri Bergson "Scholars will soon be instructed through the eye. It is possible to teach every branch of human knowledge with the motion picture" - Thomas Edison
2.	Research in discursive, or more generally, post-cognitive psychology can be carried out in three basic steps (from Lynch & Bogen, 2006 [PDF, 0.9 Mb]): "Investigate one or more of the topics associated with cognitive science by locating organized social settings in which these topics feature as perspicuous phenomena" "Examine how the intelligibility of actions and expressions associated with these phenomena are bound to interactional, pragmatic and political contexts" "Treat assessments about what goes on in a speaker’s mind [or in the computer] as themselves part of the social interactional field of production." These steps assume that language is not transmission between information systems (as pictured, right), but a way of acting.
3.	Looking at actual uses of language shows that we also often treat language as action –not as the transmission of information. Looking at patterns in very specific, actual instances of conversation shows language use as a kind of work, as a way of accomplishing a set of tasks. Listen, for example, to these these "conversational openings" using the telephone (recorded and brilliantly analyzed by Schlegloff in the 1980’s): the_routine_as_achievement.mp3 (0.37 Mb). Comparing examples like these to "artificial" chatbot conversations, this paper illustrates how discursive and postcognitivst psychological inquiry into language and thought have direct applicability to the design and research of e-learning applications and projects.

Slavoj Zizek provides an engaging commentary on the Time magazine “person of the year” for 2006 (”you”): The Guardian, Dec. 31, 06

The short piece picks up towards the end where Zizek clarifies his thesis with the perverse image of a frog in amourous embrace with a bottle of beer. (Its kind of like what’s depicted in the cartoon to the right.)

Well worth the read.

Overeducated in the knowledge age?

It is commonly asserted that "knowledge," "information" or more abstractly, "the networked" or "the postindustrial," are eponymous for our society, age or economy. These assertions, of course, are seen to bring with them urgent implications for all levels and forms of education–from the preparation of children as "knowledge builders," through the reconfiguration of higher educational institutions, to support for new types of technology and new educational forms. Thus, we read: "The challenge [is to] get students on…a developmental trajectory leading from the natural inquisitiveness of the young child to the disciplined creativity of the mature knowledge producer." (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003; 1370; emphasis in original); "The new economy has placed the acquisition of knowledge, and the role of higher education, at the center of national development" (Futures Project, 2001; p. 1); and, in our "knowledge-driven era… education is a lifelong endeavor, one that will only occasionally be mediated by the ‘traditional’ artifacts of historical learning experiences (Gandel, Katz, Metros, 2004; p. 44). Unsurprisingly, traditional educational artifacts –such as "places," "professors," "degrees," etc.—are generally seen as being superseded in this new economy, age or configuration by more advanced information or knowledge technologies: computer supported "knowledge building" environments (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003), learning management systems (Gandel, Katz, & Metros, 2004), learning objects (Sloep, 2004; Polsani, 2003), the semantic Web (Friesen & Anderson, 2004), etcetera.

See the complete piece.

I recently came across this diagram from G. Stahl that outlines the philosophical influences behind prominent English-Language learning theories. It is definitely a good start, but like any overview, invites refinement (e.g. a lot more could go between Kant and constructivism than just Piaget, or between Hegel and situated cognition than Heidegger). The preponderance of continental thinkers in this diagram is also interesting, as is the absence of learning theories outside of those familiar in English-language research (e.g. theme-centered interaction).

I refer to this diagram in my discussion of the interrelationship between Anglo-American and German-language educational theory. It occurs on pp. 3-10 of this much revised version of a paper on (Micro)didaktiks. I describe how the two traditions have been divided since Thorndike’s scientific approach to the study of learning beat out Dewey’s humanistic/interdisciplinary emphases. I then explain how these two traditions have again been converging in their recent, common engagement with the media of the WWW, and their common preoccupation with the situated and dialogical aspects of learning.

Wikipedia is the biggest fish in what is becoming a very big pond of community developed websites. These are pages where the public, the online collective, act as volunteer editors responsible for gathering content from a number of sources. Some people call it Hive Mind. Jaron Lanier calls it Digital Maoism. Earlier this summer, Lanier wrote a provocative essay explaining why he thinks the spread of collectivism online is a dangerous thing. Since then, it’s created a digital duststorm of debate. Jaron Lanier is a digital pioneer. He’s a computer scientist and a columnist for Discover Magazine. He also coined the term virtual reality.

Nora Young’s interview with Lanier (MP3, 15.6 Mb) starts right after the introduction, above.

Lanier’s original article, Digital Maoism, appeared in the June issue of Edge.

(IMHO, Nora does a much better job than the regular host, M. Enright, ever would with such a “cutting edge” topic.)

The Myth: It is often said or implied that technology or technological change impact education. They are seen as acting as a kind of “disruptive force,” requiring the adaptation, transformation or sometimes even the elimination of educators and educational institutions alike. The assumptions behind such understandings are that technology drives educational change, and that there is generally a direct and one-way relationship between technical innovation and educational transition. In its most extreme form, this myth is encapsulated in so-called “laws” of progress and change: Moore’s law (the annual doubling of computer processor speeds), Kurzweil’s “law of accelerating returns,” or Gladwell’s epidemiologically-derived “tipping point.” Although none of these are laws in the strict scientific or physical sense, their consequences for education, schools, the university, etc. are often seen as having the self-evident truth and certainty of natural edicts. “I don’t question if e-learning will reach a tipping point,” one author confesses, “but what I [find] myself pondering is when e-learning will reach a tipping point and become a social epidemic.” (Neal e-learn 2004, emphases added; see also Bull, Bull, Garofalo & Harris, 2002; Gandel, Katz, & Metros, 2004; Educause, 2002). Here, the effects of technical change are inevitable and are not questioned; only the precise time of its full impact on education is open to debate.

A similarly unquestioning but less explicit understanding of technology as a kind of “unmoved mover,” decisively influencing education from the outside, is expressed in a range of research into the impact of technology in education. One example is research which understands technological innovations as being “disseminated” throughout a population (often the faculty at a university, as it happens; e.g. Mahony & Wozniak, 2005; Bull et al, 2002; Garofoli & Woodell, 2003; PT3 2002). This way of framing the research question has the effect of casting a technology as an externally determined “artifact,” being absorbed by a passive population. This allows only for responses of “adoption” or “resistance” of varying intensity, and it has the further effect of labeling parts of the population according to their imputed willingness to adopt –as “early adopters” “mainstream” or (rather tendentiously or controversially) as “laggards.”

Another example of research that also reinforces this technological fallacy –and that also tends to produce controversial results– is presented in quasi-experimental designs that define technology as a treatment or control, and measure its educational effects or outcomes. This general type of research, utilized in hundreds of investigations measuring the impact of a new technology or medium on educational performance, generally produces results deemed either controversial, inconclusive or as “fatally flaw[ed]” (Bernard et. al. 2004; Russell, 1997).

The Reality: To continue, see the complete piece.

There a number of claims, truisms or clichés that are frequently taken as self-evident in e-learning discussions, presentations, funding proposals and papers. These frequently find pointed expression in buzzwords and catchphrases like “net generation” (e.g. Barone, 2005), “knowledge economy” (e.g. Gandel, Katz, Metros, 2004) or fixed “laws” of technological change (e.g. Bull et al, 2002). The claims entailed by with these phrases play critical and enabling roles in e-learning research and practice. But these claims are all too frequently invoked without being subject to any kind of questioning or scrutiny, and often with little explicit supporting evidence. Closer investigation reveals the phenomena behind these claims to be much less self-evident, and much more controversial and complex than one would initially be led to believe. In fact, careful consideration –often involving sources outside the literatures of e-learning– often shows that behind these truisms or myths, lurk problems and challenges that are in urgent need of educators’ and technologists’ careful attention.

The first of these is the myth of the “net generation,” discussed below. Other myths will be itemized and described in coming weeks on this blog.

The Myth: Unlike any other generation before it, the Net Generation (born since 1982) is said to be marked by characteristics that correspond to the technologies they so readily adopt and so proficiently utilize. This technology is described as “personal, multifunctional, wireless, multimedia, [and] communication-centric;” corresponding net gen characteristics or “behaviours” include “multitasking, always-on communication,” and a participatory rather than consumerist “engagement with multimedia” (Hartman, Moskal, and Dziuban, 2005; 6.3). “For the first time in history,” as the originator of the term “net gen” puts it “children are more comfortable, knowledgeable, and literate than their parents about an innovation central to their society. And it is through the use of the digital media that the N-Generation will develop and superimpose its culture on the rest of society” (Tapscott, 1998; 1-2). In the case of education, this generation will shape institutions and practices by “pioneering new ways of knowing and understanding” (Brown, 2004; 16). Schools and universities must take “a forward-thinking posture” in adapting to the ways of this generation (Hartman, Moskal, and Dziuban, 2005; 6.12), or risk being becoming irrelevant to it.

Actually: Recent sociological and governmental studies paint quite a different picture of this same generation. Often focusing specifically on the Internet, they report –similar to the sources above– that “children and young people [are generally] claiming greater online self-efficacy and skills than…their parents” (Livingstone, Bober & Helsper, 2005; 3: emphasis added). However, they do not take these claims at face value, and universalize them to youth in general. Instead, this research emphasizes, for example, that the complex skills needed to effectively utilize the Internet are distributed not only by age, but also by “gender and socio-economic status” (Livingstone, Bober & Helsper, 2005; 3). One of the most important predictors for these differences is class –with middle class children more “likely to experience the Internet as a rich, if risky, medium than less priveged children (Livingston, & Bober, 2004; 415). This source and others also emphasize concerns related to the identity and safety of youth in the online environment, rather than assuming their mastery of it.

This research also provides results that are in general agreement with what has been called the 1% rule: “if you get a group of 100 people online then one [person] will create content, 10 will “interact” with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just view it” (Arthur, 2006). In other words, the vast majority are consumers of content; only a small minority interact with this content, and even fewer create it. For example, when blogging is mentioned in sociological studies of youth and the Internet, only a small minority of those asked identify themselves as being active bloggers (e.g. M.W.A., 2006). When “participation” is defined in political and civic terms, of those interested, only small minorities use relevant online resources in any other way than as “information consumers” –not as participatory creators, posting messages, signing petitions or joining a related chat rooms (Livingstone & Bober, 2004). (My own recent experience with young university students –although naturally not of the evidentiary status of surveys cited here—indicates something similar: During the 2005-2006 academic year, I taught in different levels and subject-areas at universities in Toronto, Norway, and Austria, generally using blogs and wikis as a part of mandatory assignments. In each case, the technology had to be carefully explained to students. The percentage of students in these classes initially using or understanding these technologies as active participants would be likely be numbered in the single digits.)

A general conclusion that has arisen from research on youth and technologies has emphasized a new class-based divide, in addition to the more familiar digital divide. As Livingston and Bober from the London School of Economics explain,

…not all of the opportunities available to children and young people are being taken up equally. Hence [we chart] the emergence of a new divide, signaling emerging inequalities in the quality of Internet use, with children and young people being divided into those for whom the Internet is an increasingly rich, diverse, engaging and stimulating resource of growing importance, and those for whom it remains a narrow, unengaging if occasionally useful resource of rather less significance.” (Livingston & Bober, 2004; 395)

The implications for educators and technologists seem fairly clear: It is important to address significant inequalities in use, understanding, and facility associated with these new technologies, rather than simply painting all students with the same brush. Indeed, it may be most effective to encourage those who are knowledgeable and active participants in using (and not just consuming) these media to show teach both instructors and peers how these media can shape and inform. It is be also important to at least consider the role of the instructor in guiding and protecting children (if not also youth) from some of the risks presented by these new technologies. Given the evidence, the matter of addressing the digital divide within the so-called net gen is at least as important (if not more so) than any imperative to blindly adapt to the technological orientation that is said to define them.

Unlinked References (i.e. those not openly available online):

Brown, G. (2004) “Getting Real in the Academy,” About Campus 9(4) 10-18.

Livingston, S. & Bober, M. (2004). Taking up online opportunities? Children’s use of the internet for education, communication and participation. E-Learning 1(3) 395-419.

Understandings of learning and education are clearly culturally contingent. German-language research in these areas follows different historical and thematic dynamics than its English-language counterpart. Research in German appears more heterogeneous, and more explicitly philosophically- and historically- grounded. (See, for example, this attempt to map out this heterogeneity and historicity.)

In the 1980’s there occurred in German educational research something called the “turn to the everyday” (die Alltagswende). I recently prepared and taught a course that introduces (from an admittedly North American perspective) some of the ideas associated with this turn. This course compares theories of quotidian knowledge as conceptualized in Anglo-American cognitivism (namely, the everyday as pale imitation of scientific theory, as “folk-theory”) with approaches emphasizing the irreducible complexity of everday action and knowing (e.g. Ethnomethodology). In the end, the course concludes by emphasizing that the quotidian appears to be far more thoroughly “colonized” by information and public relation technologies than it is explained by cognitive theory. Indeed, in this light, cognitivism appears to be much more of a symptom of this colonization of “common sense” understandings by technological conceptions and practices than an adequate account of these understandings.

Note: Most of the course materials are in German, but three video-clips that may be of special interest are in English:

• Noam Chomsky and Universal Grammar (7 Mb .wmv; Short segment from Manufacturing Consent)
• Artificial Intelligence and Common Sense (36 Mb .wmv; Short segment from “The Thinking Machine” episode of The Machine that Changed the World)
• The Manipulation of the Everyday : Public Relations (7Mb .wmv; Short segment from the “Happiness Machines” episode of The Century of the Self)