A slidecast of a paper (fulltext) that I recently gave at the International Human Sciences Research Conference at the University of Seattle.

Here's the abstract:

The increasing use of online simulations as replacements for animal dissection in the classroom or lab raises important questions about the nature of simulation itself and its relationship to embodied educational experience. This paper addresses these questions first by presenting a comparative hermeneutic-phenomenological investigation of online and offline dissection. It then interprets the results of this study in terms of Borgmann’s (1992) notion of the intentional “transparency” and “pliability” of simulated hyperreality. It makes the case that it encumbrance and disruption --elements that are by definition excluded from simulation designs.

Just finished revisions to the paper, Dissection and Simulation: Brilliance and Transparency, or Encumbrance and Disruption?, which will soon be appearing in the online journal Techné.

Here's the abstract:

The increasing use of online simulations as replacements for animal dissection in the classroom or lab raises important questions about the nature of simulation itself and its relationship to embodied educational experience. This paper addresses these questions first by presenting a comparative hermeneutic-phenomenological investigation of online and offline dissection. It then interprets the results of this study in terms of Borgmann’s (1992) notion of the intentional “transparency” and “pliability” of simulated hyperreality. It makes the case that it is precisely encumbrance and disruption --elements that are by definition excluded from simulations and interfaces-- which give dissection its educational value.

Here's a summary of the findings (warning: spoiler :-)

Intentionality --which cycles through moments opacity versus transparency, interruption versus flow-- refers to the way our experience (and its meanings) is tied to the world around us through our changing plans, purposes and goals. The language used to describe interface design, interface experience, only are those of “positive” moments of transparency, flow, intention, seamlessness, learnability. But in excluding disruptions and opacity, interfaces –which increasingly frame our access to the world—only half of one side of intentionality is accommodated. Opacity and interruption, clearly significant as perturbations and dis-equilibration in learning, are systematically removed, and become nearly impossible to simulate.

Reading WJT Mitchell and Mark Hansen's introduction to their Critical Terms for Media Studies: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/532554.html

They describe media as an ontological condition that is always-already part of our situation --it is something in which "'we live and move and have our being.'" Speaking in less Biblical terms, Mitchell and Hansen continue: "Before it becomes available to designate any technically specific form of mediation, linked to a concrete medium, media names an ontological condition of humanization—the constitutive operation of exteriorization and invention."

In this sense, the term "media" is to be understood in broadest possible way, as designating

...the operation of a deep, technoanthropological universal that has structured the history of humanity from its very origin (the tool-using and inventing primate). In addition to naming individual mediums at concrete points within that history, “media,” in our view, also names a technical form or formal technics, indeed a general mediality that is constitutive of the human as a “biotechnical” form of life. Media, then, functions as a critical concept in something like the way that the Freudian unconscious, Marxian modes of production, [the educationist's notion of curriculum (?)] and Derrida’s concept of writing have done in their respective domains. Though a distinct innovation, this general concept of mediality that we are proposing reveals thinkers from Aristotle to Walter Benjamin to have been media theorists all along. Sophocles had no concept of the Oedipus complex, but after Freud it becomes difficult to think about Greek tragedy without reference to psychoanalytic categories. Shakespeare had no concept of media, but his plays may be profitably studied as specific syntheses of varied technical, architectural, and literary practices. The very concept of media is thus both a new invention and a tool for excavating the deepest archaeological layers of human forms of life.

Education, of course, is deeply tied to (if not indistinguishable from) notions of "literary practice," and "operations of exteriorization." And like the literary examples that Mitchell and Hansen mention, educational theorists and practitioners can (should?) be re-read in terms of their responses to their own mediatic condition. From Plato's warnings to his student Phaedrus about writing, through Dewey's notions of "transactional education," to current activity-theory studies of the dialecitcal mediation of the relationship between subject object and artefact.

The “net generation” (also known as “generation y,” “millenials” or “digital natives”) has been defined as those born in industrialized nations between 1977 and 1997, and thus exposed to innovations like personal computers, the Internet, and mobile phones at a very young age. Based on statistics about the increased use of these technologies in homes and schools, --as well as more anecdotal information-- Don Tapscott (1999; 2008) and others have concluded that this generation is characterized by distinctive values and characteristics as workers, consumers and learners. This generation places significant value on personal freedom, individualization, collaboration and innovation (particularly as enabled by digital technologies), and such values, according to some, are clearly incompatible with existing educational models --based as they are on antiquated print and broadcast media. Because these are so distinctive, this generation has been portrayed as being “a force for social transformation,” which will “superimpose its culture on the rest of society” (1998, 2; 2009, 2). Schools and universities that receive this new generation are at therefore centre of this transformation, as the new generation imposes its culture on these institutions and their practices.

Before looking at evidence for and against these claims, it is useful to adopt a wider perspective on the issue and to look at what a “generation” is, and how generational identity is constituted. As a sociological category, a generation is only one of a number of ways in which a society is layered, stratified or differentiated. Other forms of differentiation include race, gender and class. Of these, generation as a category is generally considered as providing the weakest basis for differentiation. According to Karl Mannheim, the first to analyze generations sociologically, the term designates “a particular kind of identity of location, embracing related ‘age groups’ embedded in a historical-social process.” (1952, p. 367). It refers, in other words, to the coherence of a group that arises from its particular location in history or time (rather than from a shared skin colour, gender or socio-economic status). Studies have shown that the coherence of a generational group is typically defined in terms of “a collective response to a traumatic event or catastrophe” --like the 9/11 attacks (Edmunds & Turner, 2002, p. 12). By comparison, the adoption of new media technologies (occurring at different rates for different classes, genders and nationalities) is not characterized by the cultural force or distinctiveness of an event such as an attack or disaster. It is in this context that Tapscott’s and others’ claims concerning the current generation of students should be understood. These claims reflect the important point that as social changes develop, intergenerational change and conflict becomes a more urgent issue (a point also made by Mannheim). But their more far-reaching conclusions are not supported by systematic, international research. For example, a recent study of “new millennium learners” in some of the 30 OECD countries (Pedró, 2009) concluded that “students tend to be far more reluctant in [the use of emerging media in education] than the image of the new millennium learner would suggest.” The study also reports that the majority of the students surveyed “do not want technology to bring a radical transformation in teaching and learning, but would like to benefit more from their added convenience... in academic work.” These students, like at least some of their teachers, are inclined to see new media as a way of enhancing what occurs in classrooms or other in established educational settings, rather than as supplanting them. A recent article by Reeves and Oh (2008) that surveys a wide range of studies on generations, technology use and learning styles concludes that

Generational differences are weak as a researchable variable in a manner similar to learning styles... The bottom line on generational differences is that educational technology researchers should treat this variable as failing to meet the rigor of definition and measurement required for robust individual differences variables. The gross generalizations based on weak survey research and the speculations of profit-oriented consultants should be treated with extreme caution in a research and development context. (p. 303)

Reeves and Oh’s conclusions about “gross generalizations” and the exercise of “extreme caution” are echoed by other researchers that have looked at this same issue. David Buckingham, a leading researcher in media and literacy, speaks specifically of Tapscott in making the following point about the quality of internet use by net generation users:

Tapscott's approach... ignore[s] what one can only call the banality of much new me¬dia use. Recent studies... suggest that most children's everyday uses of the Internet are characterized not by spectacular forms of innovation and creativity, but by relatively mundane forms of information retrieval. (Buckingham, 2006, p. 10)

Substituting the exceptional uses of a very few for the banal uses of the many is one of the issues presented by Tapscott and similar writers. A second problem is a failure to carefully consider the results of rigorous research that suggest conclusions different from those of a book’s or article’s overarching thesis.

This takes us back to one particularly important qualification from Mannheim concerning the overall coherence of a generational group, the net generation included. As would be the case for any age group, the coherence of the net generation is undermined by the fact that it does not stand alone as a unified and unopposed social actor. It is entering institutions of higher education that are now dominated by members of the “baby boom” generation; and it will soon be coping, as a group, with members of a new, generation shaped by yet unknown events and technologies (i.e. their own children). As the term “stratification” implies, any one generation is, by definition, a layer “sandwiched” between a number of others, rather than a lone actor on a more-or-less empty stage. Mannheim explains, for example, that a new generation generally finds forerunners in the generation(s) that came before it; 60’s protest musicians had Pete Seeger, kids sharing files today have Lawrence Lessig and Richard Stallman:

it occurs very frequently that the nucleus of attitudes particular to a new generation is first evolved and practised by older people who are isolated in their own generation (forerunners), just as it is often the case that the forerunners in the development of a particular class ideology belong to a quite alien class.

Marx, as Mannheim points out, came from the bourgeoisie, but was a champion for the proletariat; white youth activists in the 60’s followed the lead of the black civil rights movement before it.

Still, if there is a place for inter-generational tension and conflict, it is indeed the school and university. After all, these are institutions that essentially mediate between generational cohorts, enabling a kind of “formal” transition from one generational cohort to the next. As such, they reflect very clearly reflect generational differences and tensions (as campus unrest in the 1960’s illustrates). As Mannheim wisely comments,

This tension appears incapable of solution except for one compensating factor: not only does the teacher educate his pupil, but the pupil educates his teacher too. Generations are in a state of constant interaction.

It would be worthwhile to consider the process of education and educational change in the light of intergenerational relations. Tapscott and others are right to identify the issue of generations as highly relevant to education, but they are wrong to focus only on one generation in isolation from others and from the sociology of generations generally.

References:

Buckingham, D. (2006). Is there a digital generation? In D. Buckingham & R. Willett (Eds.). Digital generations: Children, young people and new media. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Edmunds, J. & Turner, B. (2002). Generations, Culture and Society. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Mannheim, K. (1953). The problem of generations. In Mannheim, K. (Ed.). Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge. London: Routledge Kegan Paul.(see: http://learningspaces.org/n/files/mannheim.pdf)

Pedró, F. (2009). New Millenium Learners in Higher Education: Evidence and Policy Implications. International conference on 21st century competencies s, 21-23 September, 2009. Brussels: OECD. http://www.nml-conference.be/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/NML-in-Higher-Ed...

Reeves, T. C., & Oh, E. J. (2008). Generation differences and educational technology research. In J. M. Spector, M. D. Merrill, J. J. G. van Merrienboer & M. P. Driscoll (Eds.), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Pp. 295-303.

Tapscott, D. (1999). Growing up digital: The rise of the net generation. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Tapscott, D. (2009). Grown up digital: How the net generation is changing your world. New York: McGraw-Hill.

A paper I've been working on with Darryl Cressman that focuses on Kittler's media theory and education. One element that this paper traces over a number of mediatic developments (revolutions?) is the role of pictorial elements (above) in conceptualizing and articulating education and curriculum. Here's the abstract:

As the means through which specialized and general knowledge and practice is reproduced in a society, education, and the university, are indelibly shaped by media. With this in mind, the purpose of this paper is to re-think Kittler’s (2004) history of the university as a media system by emphasizing how media shape pedagogy. Kittler points to a variety of moments within the history of the university: Its initial formation alongside manuscript culture; the advent of the printing press; university reform corresponding with liberalism and nationalism in the 17th & 18th centuries; and the era of psychometric study stretching from 1900 to the present. Referring to a variety of media theorists, and tracing the development of forms of curricular organization and representation, our paper develops a more detailed historical account of the function and characteristics of education in each of these academic media systems. In our conclusion, we provide a brief review Kittler’s controversial diagnosis and prognosis of the contemporary university, in the light of our own historical overview of pedagogical methods.

A new book from Anya Kamenetz looks at the crises (rising tuition, falling standards) and opportunities (cc content, blended learning) that institutions of higher learning are confronting.

This examination is thoughtful and thoroughly-researched. It avoids the apocalyptic predictions that Tapscott and Williams (and I might add, a David Wiley and Stephen Downes) continue to make. For example, Kamenetz does not predict –and much less give an expiry date for—the university’s demise. Instead, she sees trends like “technohybridization” (blended learning) and the “personal learning paths” as central to DIY in higher ed. In fact, arguing directly against Wiley and Downes (whom she cites directly), Kamenetz concludes:

The protestant reformation did not destroy the Catholic church, and the DIY educational revolution won’t eradicate verdant hillside colonial colleges, nor strip-mall trade schools. DIYU examples will multiply. Most likely, in bits and pieces, fits and starts, traditional universities and colleges will be influenced by them to be more open and democratic, to better serve their communities and students.

That changes the way that things like PLEs, connectionism, and e-learning 2.0 are to be understood: They do not supplant dominant practices, but at best, augment and modify them. There is much to say otherwise about Kamenetz’s book. But (with apologies for shameless self-promotion), I close this post with a short passage about one presentation at Open Learning 2009 in Vancouver

At one point, I Twittered a compelling quote from the presen­tation I was watching on historical precursors to open education, by Norm Friesen, who holds the chair in e-learning practices at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia." The woman next to me saw my tweet pop up on her screen, looked over at me, and winked. The quote was from Paolo Freire, the Brazilian radi­cal educator and author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. In the 1960s he invested in slide projectors to teach reading to peasants using evocative pictures; later, in the 1990s, as the secretary of education for Sao Paulo, he established the Central Laboratory for Educational Informatics, and added televisions, tape recorders, and microcom­puters to his arsenal for empowering the poor through knowledge.' The quote that struck me? “The answer does not lie in the rejection of the machine, but rather in the humanization of man.”

Podcasting and Slidecasting

 
Using Creative Commons resources in organizations or publications that still follow the rules of "conventional copyright" is probably more complicated than you expect. These materials generally aren't "free" --either as in beer or as in speech.Instead, they bring with them limitations (and also possibilities) that are quite different from those of copyrighted materials.
 
I deal with these issues in this paper:
 
Using Free and Open Online Resources: Licensing and Collections
 
The purpose of this document is to provide an overview of the “open” or “free” resources and materials available from online collections and providers that may be of significant strategic value to schools, universities and to other organizations with educational mandates, such as museums and archives. The initial sections of this paper describe some of the most basic characteristics of “open source,” or more accurately, “creative commons” licensing for cultural and educational resources. These sections also outline criteria for the inclusion of items in the annotated listing that is provided in the remainder of the document. This listing provides details for a number of recommended collections of resources with alternative licenses, indicating the terms governing their use in each case.
 

Here's an abstract I just submitted to Gert Biesta's conference, Theorising Education, in June.

It is relatively uncontroversial to describe teaching and education as means through which naturally-occurring, biologically-based processes of learning are directed and facilitated to achieve predetermined outcomes. Gert Biesta (2006) and others (e.g. Haugsbak & Nordkvelle, 2007) have labelled such understandings by using the phrase “the new language of learning.” This refers to a vocabulary or discourse that, for example, characterizes “‘teaching’ [as the] ‘facilitation of learning’ [and], ‘education’ [as the] ‘provision of learning opportunities” (Haugsbak & Nordkvelle, 2007, p. 2). The emergence of this language can be attributed to many sources --political, economic, and scientific-- but it clearly has deep roots in the foundational role long granted to psychology in education (in North America, at least). Ramified in the genetic epistemology of Piaget, and in recent constructivist and neurologically-based discourses, this language has also been articulated with special force and economy in recent work in instructional design and technology (e.g., Spector et al 2007) and in the incipient field of the “learning sciences” (e.g., Sawyer, 2006). Typically, the classroom is described in these terms as one “environment” among many in which learning processes can occur, but also one that is deliberately designed to facilitate and even optimize of these processes. Unfortunately, the implications of this language for education in general and teaching in particular are not at all positive. Given that “the objective of education is learning, not teaching,” as one slogan has it, school and pedagogy end up appearing as sub-optimal or even as superfluous means for obtaining such “educational” ends.

This paper makes the case that any choice between natural processes of learning on the one hand and the pedagogical artifice on the other is a manifestly false one. It attempts to delineate the limitations presented by the language of learning by contrasting it explicitly with other understandings of social change and reproduction, above all those from human and social (as opposed to psychological) sciences. These alternative discourses would replace the terminology of “environment” (and an accompanying lexicon of behaviour, adaptation and motivation) with that of the intentional structuring, meanings and histories of a “lifeworld” for which educational elements such as “self-activity” and “developmental preparedness” would obtain (e.g. Friesen & Saevi, 2010). This paper also explores the possibilities presented by replacing “learning” (and its formal and informal variants) with more differentiated understandings of socialization, development and acculturation --phenomena that are historically and culturally embedded, and are not readily reducible to the instrumental logic of means and ends.

References:

Biesta, G. (2006). Beyond learning: democratic education for a human future. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.

Friesen, N. & Saevi, T. (2010). Reviving Forgotten Connections: Klaus Mollenhauer and Human Science Pedagogy in Canadian Teacher Education. Journal of Curriculum Studies 42.

Haugsbak, G. & Nordkvelle, Y. (2007). The Rhetoric of ICT and the New Language of Learning: a critical analysis of the use of ICT in the curricular field. European Educational Research Journal 6 (1), 1-12.

Spector, J.M., Merrill, M.D., van Merrienboer, J., & Driscoll, M.P. (Eds.) (2007). Handbook of research on educational communications and technology. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Sawyer, R.K. (Ed.) (2006). The Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, pp. 567–580.