It's interesting to think about how our discussion ranged from robot scoring to process vs. product and the definition of cheating. In some ways, would the blatant manipulation of machine scoring be considered cheating. If, for example, students understood that there was a list of "big words" that the computer values more than another, has the student equally subverted the purpose of the assignment and avoided any authentic expression? What about the student who figures out that there is a particular topic or style that is over-valued by the teacher? I knew that my professor of American Literature was a deep scholar of William Faulkner and a Hemingway doubter - I tailored my arguments to those parameters even though I feel exactly the opposite. Have I expressed what I was supposed to? What am I taught by the feedback that says, "great job"?
I agree with Jen Holden and Shawn that there are concrete, discrete, and measurable aspects of writing that all students deserve the access to and that we as teachers have an absolute responsibility to make sure that those students have those skills. Where I think we could have a longer and deeper conversation is about exactly how those skills are acquired and how we determine the actual deficiencies. That's neither here nor there.
I think our valid fear of measurement is the inherent lack of reliability that any measurement of writing has. Language is so elastic that there are literally no rules that can't be broken in the right context. None. As Amanda described the idea of placing the evaluation responsibility on an entire teaching staff, I imagined a scenario: take the blue pill and the entire staff grades your students' essay; take the red pill and my robot scorer does it. It makes me queasy. While it's easy to imagine that those humans must be better, it's also easy to imagine it going horrifically wrong. Bias, anitpathy, ego...I might pick the robot given that at least the robot won't simply decide that it isn't getting paid enough to do my job, so it's just going to assign numbers randomly.
What's the answer? I'm examining my most recent practices, and I think I'm emphasizing the process. It's harder to fake and easier to track. The measurement is a bit more subjective (are you working hard? are you using time wisely?), but I think it's been an okay to bend to the whims of the idea of grading writing that allows me to adjust without feeling completely dishonest or unfair.
I know that this may sound insane, but my comment about my students using bad teaching as an excuse for cheating was not made to criticize the students. I think that the Ritter piece is trying to get at that. How do we drive our students to cheating? How do we use the data point that Student X cheated/bought a paper/copied the answers from another student to honestly evaluate our teaching practices? Ultimately, UNPOPULAR OPINION ALERT, I tend to believe my student's critiques of me and my colleagues. With a grain of salt, but there's always truth buried in there. Their feedback is in their words, actions, and attitudes.
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Commuinty, Identity, Stability
Identity is a difficult question. As I read and watched the various items for the day I found myself wondering about the newness of any of this. Adolescence has always been time dedicated to understanding and constructing persona. Human identity isn't static and the problem of exactly who a person is seems fundamental to human history. Our current evolution seems to be a further iteration of the problem, but I'm interested in how much direct control the individual can have over the cultivation and curation of an identity. Humans have always wanted to create and capture the right affiliations to suit their self-image. Previously, though, doors and avenues were closed by lack of access.
As a teenager, I wanted to be different, to like things that others didn't, and to connect with a rebellion that simply wasn't happening in my hometown. Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder were rock stars who clearly had a bigger message than glamour and lifestyle, and I wanted to connect to them, to shape myself in tandem with them. Their music gave me an in-road, and what I could find to connect with them superficially, but I never felt truly connected. I knew the superficiality was there and couldn't overcome it. A teenager today can overcome that superficiality in tangible ways - following his favorite artists on instagram, twitter, facebook - but also by creating and engaging more deeply with the ideas that those artists might actually care about. So many of my students are doing the work of identity that I did in my 20's: generating an ethos, cultivating a persona, deciding exactly the type of person they want to be. How many personas did I never consider because I had no access to them? This era allows people in the throes of finding out who they are access to so many more possibilities and connections that can sustain those choices and provide stability and certainty for them to more confidently to become themselves.
This is large and small. My students who love anime can do so unabashedly because they can find millions of like-minded people online who can make them feel normal, accepted. My LBGT students in much the same way can find support no matter the size or composition of their communities.
The title of this reflection, though, is an allusion to Brave New World. I think the comparisons of the modern surveillance state (at least in America) to 1984 are inapt. We don't live in Big Brother's world and we most likely never will. Basic limits of space (go hide in Wyoming or Montana) combined with the proliferation of weapons and libertarian ideology will keep that a near impossibility. I always read that book to imply that the populace was cowed and forced into the state they were in not through some sort of force by the state or civil war, but by the threat of war and the need for security. No, we live in Huxley's world in which the corporate and business ethos is taking over many of the aspects of our lives. The question, of course, is where control is being exerted from. Of course, Henry Ford wanted to create demand for supply to feed. Huxley takes that out to the furthest possible extent. And the motto of the World State is apt: Community, Identity, Stability. This is what we're offered by our social media companies. You can belong to a group. You don't have to feel alone. You can define who you are. Could those desires be nefariously manipulated? Probably, but the most recent Facebook "controversy" over the psychological "experiment" they ran and admitted to illustrates that while we seem to be heading down a frightening path, Huxley's book is not necessarily prophetic. The fact that we discuss and worry about the issues of online identity and marketing manipulation is the key to the fact that it will have an incredibly hard time becoming absolute.
As a teenager, I wanted to be different, to like things that others didn't, and to connect with a rebellion that simply wasn't happening in my hometown. Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder were rock stars who clearly had a bigger message than glamour and lifestyle, and I wanted to connect to them, to shape myself in tandem with them. Their music gave me an in-road, and what I could find to connect with them superficially, but I never felt truly connected. I knew the superficiality was there and couldn't overcome it. A teenager today can overcome that superficiality in tangible ways - following his favorite artists on instagram, twitter, facebook - but also by creating and engaging more deeply with the ideas that those artists might actually care about. So many of my students are doing the work of identity that I did in my 20's: generating an ethos, cultivating a persona, deciding exactly the type of person they want to be. How many personas did I never consider because I had no access to them? This era allows people in the throes of finding out who they are access to so many more possibilities and connections that can sustain those choices and provide stability and certainty for them to more confidently to become themselves.
This is large and small. My students who love anime can do so unabashedly because they can find millions of like-minded people online who can make them feel normal, accepted. My LBGT students in much the same way can find support no matter the size or composition of their communities.
The title of this reflection, though, is an allusion to Brave New World. I think the comparisons of the modern surveillance state (at least in America) to 1984 are inapt. We don't live in Big Brother's world and we most likely never will. Basic limits of space (go hide in Wyoming or Montana) combined with the proliferation of weapons and libertarian ideology will keep that a near impossibility. I always read that book to imply that the populace was cowed and forced into the state they were in not through some sort of force by the state or civil war, but by the threat of war and the need for security. No, we live in Huxley's world in which the corporate and business ethos is taking over many of the aspects of our lives. The question, of course, is where control is being exerted from. Of course, Henry Ford wanted to create demand for supply to feed. Huxley takes that out to the furthest possible extent. And the motto of the World State is apt: Community, Identity, Stability. This is what we're offered by our social media companies. You can belong to a group. You don't have to feel alone. You can define who you are. Could those desires be nefariously manipulated? Probably, but the most recent Facebook "controversy" over the psychological "experiment" they ran and admitted to illustrates that while we seem to be heading down a frightening path, Huxley's book is not necessarily prophetic. The fact that we discuss and worry about the issues of online identity and marketing manipulation is the key to the fact that it will have an incredibly hard time becoming absolute.
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Visual Literacy - All Ugly
I'm wrapped tightly in Wysocki's chapter. Can't quite get past how stunningly she has driven straight to the issue. I wonder where this leads.
So, then, what is the purpose, then? Incorporate visual literacy into our general definition of literacy, or even simply decided that it's its own animal, and you still have to get to this question. I, too, looked at the rubrics she provided, and it boils down to a continuum of little to moderate to exceptional. I can agree that this sort of literacy should be included in our curriculum. I can agree that this sort of literacy should be given equal weight to that of "old" media. Hell, I could see myself agreeing that this sort of literacy should become a heavier focus than the "old" media, even (radically) the sole focus. But to what end and at what standard? That's what I find myself examining.
Wysocki knocked me down, though. Her chapter neatly whipped through all of the different avenues I know that I would've pursued to explain and set a standard for my students. So then, what next? Again, back to basics. She plowed through the approaches from easy rhetorical ground to a dense philosophical jungle requiring machete, guide, and various vaccinations. After coming through all of that, where are we?
To extend the metaphor well past where it deserves, I find myself walking out of that dense and complex jungle that I could barely get myself out of let alone navigate students through, and when I pop out on the other side, I find myself in ancient Greece. The surprised, bearded faces of a group of men in togas greet me, looking quizzically at my pith helmet. They aren't disturbed much by me and get back to their conversation quickly. I shake off the leaves, wildlife, and horrifying parasites and hover on the edge of their circle. A miracle of the fact that I'm in charge of this metaphor means that I can understand what they're saying.
They're debating the story of Persephone and its meaning and implications for their lives. They're pushing and pulling at the choices of the author, parsing the differences in the different ways they were told and remember the story, and digging deeply into where their ideas come from. They're leaving no aspect as "chance". The story's parts and contexts and allusions are all on display. But of course these ancient Greeks have a major disadvantage: it's not written down. Oh, maybe it's written down, but it has no author - it's oral tradition. And each man brings the version he heard as a boy, along with the moralizing and deep teaching that his family or teachers selected for him. As they pick the story apart, argue, yell, threaten, and mock, I realize that what's happening is the kind of analysis that is looser than the kind that is mostly practiced (and praised and measured and encouraged) in my classroom. See, we always have the text to return to. And words have vast but ultimately limited meaning. We can be sure what the words on the page say. They don't change and provide us parameters and boundaries. The playing field is vast, but the lines are mostly clear and visible.
The analysis those metaphorical Greeks are doing is the kind that is required to look at the Peek ad or the Redskins logo and begin to argue. Where does the game even begin? The answer to the question is not an increasingly complex analytical algorithm that will take into account the historical context, the author's intent, the cultural norms and contexts, the impact on the reader, the background and context of the reader, or the access to the allusions in play. Instead we have no clear boundaries beyond our own compasses to let us know the limits of the analysis. In that way we are all on equal footing.
The men stand in a circle, they address each other as equals. No one is teaching the analysis. The analysis is generated and moderated by the group. Does maybe the incorporation of this type of literacy force the teacher to come down from the pulpit and join the flock in the act of "not knowing"? But each will be enriched by the process, discernibly though probably not measurably. This is the antithesis of the standardized curriculum and yet I feel compelled to do more of this because of its inherent focus on the life of the mind of the individual.
So, then, what is the purpose, then? Incorporate visual literacy into our general definition of literacy, or even simply decided that it's its own animal, and you still have to get to this question. I, too, looked at the rubrics she provided, and it boils down to a continuum of little to moderate to exceptional. I can agree that this sort of literacy should be included in our curriculum. I can agree that this sort of literacy should be given equal weight to that of "old" media. Hell, I could see myself agreeing that this sort of literacy should become a heavier focus than the "old" media, even (radically) the sole focus. But to what end and at what standard? That's what I find myself examining.
Wysocki knocked me down, though. Her chapter neatly whipped through all of the different avenues I know that I would've pursued to explain and set a standard for my students. So then, what next? Again, back to basics. She plowed through the approaches from easy rhetorical ground to a dense philosophical jungle requiring machete, guide, and various vaccinations. After coming through all of that, where are we?
To extend the metaphor well past where it deserves, I find myself walking out of that dense and complex jungle that I could barely get myself out of let alone navigate students through, and when I pop out on the other side, I find myself in ancient Greece. The surprised, bearded faces of a group of men in togas greet me, looking quizzically at my pith helmet. They aren't disturbed much by me and get back to their conversation quickly. I shake off the leaves, wildlife, and horrifying parasites and hover on the edge of their circle. A miracle of the fact that I'm in charge of this metaphor means that I can understand what they're saying.
They're debating the story of Persephone and its meaning and implications for their lives. They're pushing and pulling at the choices of the author, parsing the differences in the different ways they were told and remember the story, and digging deeply into where their ideas come from. They're leaving no aspect as "chance". The story's parts and contexts and allusions are all on display. But of course these ancient Greeks have a major disadvantage: it's not written down. Oh, maybe it's written down, but it has no author - it's oral tradition. And each man brings the version he heard as a boy, along with the moralizing and deep teaching that his family or teachers selected for him. As they pick the story apart, argue, yell, threaten, and mock, I realize that what's happening is the kind of analysis that is looser than the kind that is mostly practiced (and praised and measured and encouraged) in my classroom. See, we always have the text to return to. And words have vast but ultimately limited meaning. We can be sure what the words on the page say. They don't change and provide us parameters and boundaries. The playing field is vast, but the lines are mostly clear and visible.
The analysis those metaphorical Greeks are doing is the kind that is required to look at the Peek ad or the Redskins logo and begin to argue. Where does the game even begin? The answer to the question is not an increasingly complex analytical algorithm that will take into account the historical context, the author's intent, the cultural norms and contexts, the impact on the reader, the background and context of the reader, or the access to the allusions in play. Instead we have no clear boundaries beyond our own compasses to let us know the limits of the analysis. In that way we are all on equal footing.
The men stand in a circle, they address each other as equals. No one is teaching the analysis. The analysis is generated and moderated by the group. Does maybe the incorporation of this type of literacy force the teacher to come down from the pulpit and join the flock in the act of "not knowing"? But each will be enriched by the process, discernibly though probably not measurably. This is the antithesis of the standardized curriculum and yet I feel compelled to do more of this because of its inherent focus on the life of the mind of the individual.
Monday, July 7, 2014
The Master Switch by Tim Wu
It's hard to hone in on exactly what aspect of The Master Switch that stood out to me. At first, I thought I wanted to write about the first amendment and how the right of speech might be limited or enhanced by the new media revolution. Then, I thought I might like to spend more time focused on how education may be in for its own "disruptive" innovation revolution. Now, I think what is standing out too, though, is the idea that if that disruptive revolution comes, it will come from a direction that is unexpected. We've walled off many of the likely sources with disdain and disregard, actively hating and discounting those possible technologies that could have a legitimate shift for the concept of education in America.
Here's the thing: the 19th century model that our schools are patterned after sees students as customers. This is why we stand at the front of a room and dispense knowledge which then the students pattern responses after. Practice makes perfect. I think - not to go too deep - that the concept of the student as a human being with equal value and dignity is a much more recent and not deeply rooted idea in education. When you are in a factory-esque school system that needs to fill you with the knowledge and skills necessary to be a "good" citizen, you have no value beyond what we can turn you into. You are being manipulated. Maybe for good, maybe for ill, but the person who holds the reigns to say that these are the skills and bits of knowledge that make you a good citizen does a censor's job.
The current media era is antithetical to that idea. Everyone is and should be a creator, the open internet seems to say. The open internet era seems to be thriving (until net neutrality is destroyed) on the idea that the more people who have access and ability to create, the better. There will be chaos, but innovation has to come out of chaos. It can't be planned, according to Wu.
So then, what implications does this have for curriculum? What are we asking students to do? When my students check out or disrupt - from a discussion, an assignment, a bit of writing - I ask myself why. In the 19th century model the answer is simple: they're defective. If I have the skills and information it takes to be successful that I can give to them, and they are turning their noses up at it, they must be unreachable, rotten, and/or lost. But of course, I am disregarding the possibility that they, like me, are thinking individuals. That I haven't sold them the product, and that - though at their age and development level they may not have the ability to express their disagreement with any kind of academic eloquence - their opinion is valid.
Once I realized that my students are valid, often unconscious critics of my teaching, school, and curriculum, I changed. What I realized is that there were discussions and poems and stories that could get even the kid who hadn't spoken since the first day of school to dig into what was on the menu, and that those must be the right kind of lessons and ideas. If I ask a kid what we should do today, often the answer is "nothing". We had an interesting discussion one day in class about the fact that the cliched behavior of the average high schooler is a rundown of the symptoms of depression. We depress them.
I'm not an edu-tainer. Never have been. There's a school of thought that says that singing songs, drawing pictures, and playing games are the ways to hook kids in. In the end, though, those mask the real problem. Students will engage fully when they are treated as fully human. The 20th century has seen the populace evolve in the area of identity. We are slowly evolving towards being fully self-aware human beings. Cultivating image and managing relationships have always been a part of the human experience. Modern Americans are simply more deliberate and aware of it. In the end, the changes we see in our students are the symptoms of that evolution. And I think they're quickly evolving past our methods of education. They question the authority of the teacher in ways large and small. Picking up my phone to check facebook or texting the person in the next class over is my tacit argument that what you, teacher, have got us doing here is irrelevant. It's not that Facebook is more important - I don't see it as a judgment.
So back to curriculum. What am I asking them to do? I've seen an enormous value in using methods of inquiry and projects combined with argumentation to get kids engaged. But then I realized that what I'm saying there is I'm asking kids to speak. To think. To construct a message. Whatever the medium or the scenario, when it allows students to engage as a human beings in a meaningful way with fundamentally engaging questions, the responses are excellent.
Jim Heiman told me that the latin root of education is "educare" - meaning "to bring out, or to lead forth". Maybe the disruptive innovation that will change the face of education will be the realization that what's really necessary from the teacher is to see each student, each objective, each lesson as a way of bringing out what is already in the students. The ability to read is built-in to the human animal. It's not put there by the teacher. So is math. So is understanding and analyzing narrative. So is argumentation. So is morality and judgement. the teacher's role in the "old" media paradigm was and is to put the knowledge in the student. Maybe the next role for the teacher is to help to "lead forth" those aspects of each student that are already in them.
Here's the thing: the 19th century model that our schools are patterned after sees students as customers. This is why we stand at the front of a room and dispense knowledge which then the students pattern responses after. Practice makes perfect. I think - not to go too deep - that the concept of the student as a human being with equal value and dignity is a much more recent and not deeply rooted idea in education. When you are in a factory-esque school system that needs to fill you with the knowledge and skills necessary to be a "good" citizen, you have no value beyond what we can turn you into. You are being manipulated. Maybe for good, maybe for ill, but the person who holds the reigns to say that these are the skills and bits of knowledge that make you a good citizen does a censor's job.
The current media era is antithetical to that idea. Everyone is and should be a creator, the open internet seems to say. The open internet era seems to be thriving (until net neutrality is destroyed) on the idea that the more people who have access and ability to create, the better. There will be chaos, but innovation has to come out of chaos. It can't be planned, according to Wu.
So then, what implications does this have for curriculum? What are we asking students to do? When my students check out or disrupt - from a discussion, an assignment, a bit of writing - I ask myself why. In the 19th century model the answer is simple: they're defective. If I have the skills and information it takes to be successful that I can give to them, and they are turning their noses up at it, they must be unreachable, rotten, and/or lost. But of course, I am disregarding the possibility that they, like me, are thinking individuals. That I haven't sold them the product, and that - though at their age and development level they may not have the ability to express their disagreement with any kind of academic eloquence - their opinion is valid.
Once I realized that my students are valid, often unconscious critics of my teaching, school, and curriculum, I changed. What I realized is that there were discussions and poems and stories that could get even the kid who hadn't spoken since the first day of school to dig into what was on the menu, and that those must be the right kind of lessons and ideas. If I ask a kid what we should do today, often the answer is "nothing". We had an interesting discussion one day in class about the fact that the cliched behavior of the average high schooler is a rundown of the symptoms of depression. We depress them.
I'm not an edu-tainer. Never have been. There's a school of thought that says that singing songs, drawing pictures, and playing games are the ways to hook kids in. In the end, though, those mask the real problem. Students will engage fully when they are treated as fully human. The 20th century has seen the populace evolve in the area of identity. We are slowly evolving towards being fully self-aware human beings. Cultivating image and managing relationships have always been a part of the human experience. Modern Americans are simply more deliberate and aware of it. In the end, the changes we see in our students are the symptoms of that evolution. And I think they're quickly evolving past our methods of education. They question the authority of the teacher in ways large and small. Picking up my phone to check facebook or texting the person in the next class over is my tacit argument that what you, teacher, have got us doing here is irrelevant. It's not that Facebook is more important - I don't see it as a judgment.
So back to curriculum. What am I asking them to do? I've seen an enormous value in using methods of inquiry and projects combined with argumentation to get kids engaged. But then I realized that what I'm saying there is I'm asking kids to speak. To think. To construct a message. Whatever the medium or the scenario, when it allows students to engage as a human beings in a meaningful way with fundamentally engaging questions, the responses are excellent.
Jim Heiman told me that the latin root of education is "educare" - meaning "to bring out, or to lead forth". Maybe the disruptive innovation that will change the face of education will be the realization that what's really necessary from the teacher is to see each student, each objective, each lesson as a way of bringing out what is already in the students. The ability to read is built-in to the human animal. It's not put there by the teacher. So is math. So is understanding and analyzing narrative. So is argumentation. So is morality and judgement. the teacher's role in the "old" media paradigm was and is to put the knowledge in the student. Maybe the next role for the teacher is to help to "lead forth" those aspects of each student that are already in them.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Lev Manovich - What is New Media?
Lev is already outdated. If I found the correct source for this, he’s writing in 2002, and it doesn’t take much effort to find how incredibly outdated his conception of technology is. There was no iPhone. His statement that human to computer interfaces are looking and more and more like old media sources is completely exploded. But weirdly, this doesn’t invalidate what he’s saying. At all. As I worked through his five aspects of new media, I found myself swinging on the pendulum again - new media has discrete components some of which are difficult to conceptualize; new media works on scales and is nearly infinitely buildable and therefore re-buildable; some portions of the creation of new media can be automated and so there is a challenge to the concept of “authorship” and “creativity”; new media is always changing and always rebuilt and re-experienced; and new media has the ability to translate and transform old media.
So what? Is this truly that much different from old media? I kept thinking of ways to translate those components of new media back into the components of old media.
But then I started analyzing how I was reading. Let me break it down:
I read the first paragraph, and when he mentioned “CD-ROMs” I stopped. Seriously? CD-ROMs are new media? What year was this written? So I opened a new tab on my browser and googled the text. It took a couple of tries, but I think I found the book it came from (I’m assuming this is an excerpt for a different text). 2002. A lot has changed since 2002, but no worries, I’ll keep reading. Surely it can’t be that different.
I read along and find myself daunted by the text. Not sure what he’s talking about, so I spend some time really staring at the screen. I’m tempted by the fact that when i googled the author’s name and the title at the top of the page, google auto-completed with “summary.” I could click that and easily pull up a shorter, plainer version of the text. Tempting, and I’ve certainly succumbed to that siren song before, but no, I can’t trust that that summary will be accurate, and this a pretty dense text, so why would I leave it to some rando on the internet? Back to reading…
A thought drifts past: I really want to highlight… But that’s not possible without about 5 clicks and I just don’t have the perseverance to wade through that click jungle. Then I realize what I really want to do is copy/paste sections out of it into a document so I can play with them, but I try twice to do that in two different ways. Then I give up and decide to just write quotes on paper. I’m showing true grit here.
As I’m reading the section on automation and AI I suddenly remember a podcast I listened to yesterday as I mowed the lawn. It’s about a twitter account called Olivia Taters which is an imaginary teenager. It’s not that it’s a grown-up impersonating a teenager; it’s an algorithm attached to a twitter account that makes the account seem so much like a real teenager that other teenagers have full discussions with it. The short piece made me really think about how automatic and algorithmic human beings really are. I often (once a week, maybe) leave my house to drive somewhere and end up at school not really knowing how I got there. It’s usually when I’m really thinking about something else. So much of education might need to really focus on mindfulness, thoughtfulness. Does new media address that in any distinctly different way? It might depending on what we’re defining as “new media”. Not CD-ROMs, certainly.
I email a link to that podcast to Katie and Shawn because it’s so darn interesting and might be something we all could listen to together and talk about and then head back to my reading. More strain. Writing things down. Realizing that I didn’t actually know what the word “fractal” meant until it was defined in this text. Quick rabbit hole of thinking about the song “Let It Go” from Frozen. “...spiralling in frozen fractals all around…” Now I can explain that line way better to my 6 year old daughter. Back to reading.
I’m back to thinking about the out-dated-ness of this. I’m wondering how this reflects smart phone technology. Human/technology interface has been rapidly evolving. I wonder what a phone looked like in 2002. Back to google. “What did a cell phone look like in 2002?” Boom. Gizmodo site. Boom. Wow, great reminder of how far we’ve come. Wow. Back to reading...
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