On Thursday, June 20, 2013 I was lucky enough to be invited to host a webinar about my work developing “open learning” opportunities for High School students. Specifically, I have been thinking about how to integrate connectivist MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) into k12 learning environments.

My webinar can be found at this link: VIDEO of Webinar

At the end of the webinar,Dr. Lee Graham and Matthew Turner stayed to chat for a few minutes because they were surprised that I had transitioned into working with FNMI students. One of the next projects Sean Lessard and I hope to work on, is a project where the students go out on a camp for a week, and video their experiences. Then they will create their own cultural digital stories.

Matthew Turner has done a lot of work developing videos based on FNMI cultural experiences through video already and I hope to connect with him to learn more. Here’s the link to his webinar: Flipped Learning

His work with the Alaska Humanties Forum on Cross Cultural Standards is well done and I hope to learn more about his work integrating tech and place based based learning.

Some links to Matthew’s work include:

RUMEStandards: Click HERE

Alaska humanities Forum : CLick HERE

Lesson Learned : If you can….always connect with with people who want to talk to you about your work. The fact that I connected with Lee – led me to Matthew. I loved talking with Lee and I know I have another amazing connection. Open learning and connections can encourage such amazing learning opportunities! I am so thankful when people reach out.

The current state of the internet has the affect of amalgamating and democratizing information. This means that information consumers, can utilize this environment with an expectation of a level playing field for all opinions and sources of information.

Do Globalization and subsequent neoliberal economics care about culture? While Colonialism regarded new and different cultures as a subversive and dangerous threat, Neo-Liberalists approach opposing cultures with a slightly more practical but no less destructive mindset. In their approach, profitable sections of the culture define usefulness and necessitate amalgamation and hybridization into the Neo-Liberal ideal. In contrast Colonialism always clearly defined the pure from “other” or savage and exploited the latter’s beliefs and prejudices in order to assert dominance. Neo-Liberalism instead incorporates what it deems important/profitable, and discards the rest creating a lumbering and ravenous Frankenstein that will never be able to define itself completely.

An example of the pros and cons of Neo-liberal economic incorporation:

http://www.criticalpsychiatry.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/The-clash-of-medical-civilisations-Experiencing-primary-care-in-a-neoliberal-culture.pdf

The dangers of the neoliberal agenda infiltrating what it deem to be “useful” cultures. In this case LGBT:
http://sfonline.barnard.edu/a-new-queer-agenda/cripping-queer-politics-or-the-dangers-of-neoliberalism/

Put simply, Neo-liberalism cares about culture, but only so far as the benefits can be utilized to enhance the movement and subsequent profit margins. Everything else is treated as irrelevant and as such is discarded which is where the real danger for the weakened First Nations cultures exists.

When watching Nanook of the North, McLuhan’s quote about media and how it isn’t about the message but in fact has become the message, forced a consideration of the recent debate on net neutrality. One of the keys with regards to Nanook of the North’s pervasive message was that when it was originally created was there was no fact checking or opposing points of view to contrast the idea. The film industry at this time was in its infancy and had been around for just under thirty years, which is comparable to the current age of the operational internet, (operational meaning the general public was engaged in its consumption and operation). The real reason the two of these require a comparison, is because of two reasons:

1. Nanook of the North, directly due to a lack of contrasting viewpoints (not many people had the means to produce film, the interest in Inuit culture/people beyond the romantic other) existing within of the space, incorrectly defined an entire generation’s understanding of Inuit practice and culture.
2. The loss of internet neutrality would allow an active shaping of important and in this case, definitive information without any contrasting viewpoints and would be interpreted as authentic. The congealing of information and lack of discourse would allow the media, as an entity, to be exist as “truth” when in fact it is nothing but shaped opinion or propaganda.

The democratic nature of the internet has been both a boon for free speech and business, especially start ups. Reducing the fairness of the space would result in a boon for the neoliberal economic movement as right now government regulation forces ISP’s etc. and network infrastructure providers to share the space:

http://www.nber.org/chapters/c5302.pdf

Recently however there have been a number of attempts to reduce internet neutrality with the distinct focus in monopolizing the previously public space for private monetary gain.

http://cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/1886/1963

A reduction in neutrality would directly reduce the authenticity of both the message and the validity of the medium as a valid source of information in the same way that television information has become dominated by spin. John Stewart simultaneously coins the lack of variety in television information and the problems inherent in media monopolization with his spot on the now defunct CNN Crossfire in 2004:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE

The internet allows for retention of information without the nuance and context of an elder. In this model the information itself becomes more important than the vessel carrying it, which is a distinct and Eurocentric/colonizing approach to retaining the culture. Does the hybridization of the culture damage its authenticity or importance?

Richard Handler’s opinions on the importance of authenticity:

http://www.depts.ttu.edu/museumttu/CFASWebsite/H7000%20folder/Readings%20Heritage%20Tourism%202010/Dissimulation_Authenticity&Living%20history_Handler%201998.pdf

The connections between Culture, Id and contemporary paradigm:

https://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/Authenticity_in_Culture_Self_and_Society_Ch1.pdf

Is authenticity necessary in post modern culture? It depends on your previous understanding and how you process knowledge, because if McLuhan is right, the authenticity of the message and the allegory therein (moral is how we build understanding about connections between self and society) have a direct impact on how the information is received.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImaH51F4HBw

Cultural Hybridization, whether intentional or forced is a direct result of a Globalized population and the inherent neoliberal capitalist belief structure therein. It is both Eurocentric and Colonial in its inception and practice. The embedded Darwinian methodologies of letting the strong aspects of the culture define the culture totally speak both to the offensive and romanticized ideal of “The Other”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_other (Look at the Imperialism section)

The environmental debate and it’s connection to “The Other”

http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~brullerj/env_politics-Brulle.pdf

Historically, not all cultures have approached hybridization from a negative point of view. Japan, India and China are three cultures that were forced into compliance and subsequent hybridization by Colonial powers but have since embraced it and flourished. The choice was not always theirs however. China and India were subjugated by Britain who controlled the Silver triangle through Hong Kong:

http://clairepetras.com/silvertriangle/

Japan have been forced by the Americans twice to open their culture for trading and the hybridization that occurs with it. First with their “Black Ships” 200 years after their first experiment  with hybridization ended poorly with worries of foreign power (The Portuguese) meddling in their culture and politics (converting their Daimyo to Christian through Jesuit missionaries). The second was after World war two when their culture and people were effectively decimated by the war and the atomic explosions that they produced. Left without a choice, they embraced the new culture of unregulated neo-liberal capitalism and effectively hybridized their culture.

Black Ships

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Ships

Tokyo Stock Exchange

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Stock_Exchange (see the post war section)

In the end, cultural hybridization being defined as positive or negative is entirely dependent on the opinion of the Authenticity’s importance and necessity to the culture. Japan, China and India’s cultures were strong enough to maintain their authentic roots while incorporating mostly beneficial aspects of the new culture despite colonial adversity, but the First Nations situation is a little different especially with regards to Japan, India and China because neither country were ever weak enough to be invaded completely in the way that the Americas were.

I think as a society we need to get away from the idea of “Growth” being the most important factor in economics. One of the questions considered for the indigenous educational goals section of Module 2 were the differences between Eurocentric and Aboriginal approaches to education. During my investigation, I kept coming back to the root motivations behind the two systems, growth and sustainability. While Eurocentric education focuses on the accumulation of knowledge (associate, undergraduate, masters, PhD degrees etc.),  and a need for more in order  to be successful (letter grades and standardized tests), Aboriginal education focuses on the retention and examination of existing education. Eurocentric education values the information itself, whereas aboriginal focused education values  the knowledge and the person who retains it. So with growth defining the origins of our understanding of how to learn any subject, is it really surprising that the idea is so entrenched in our understanding of Economics?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONXpaBQnBvE

The need for growth creates a system where greed is an acceptable and often desirable trait which is unfortunately in direct contrast with how a healthy society functions. If instead we focused on sustainable business structures where people and employees are valued involved it’s possible that we might have a system that doesn’t rely on exploitation to be successful.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/04/17/walmart-pays-workers-poorly-and-sinks-while-costco-pays-workers-well-and-sails-proof-that-you-get-what-you-pay-for/

I worked at Costco for most of my college career and was always impressed at how seriously everyone took their job there. People worked harder than most of the other places that I had previously worked and were happy to do so. Although this is admittedly not the best example because Costco, like most successful companies in the capitalist world function on a growth model when I worked there people appreciated that they were valued and I’d like to believe that it’s a step in the right direction.

The following is an article about the ethics behind the Enron debacle:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A%3A1024194519384#page-1

The following is an article about how one would go about changing a destructive business culture from within the company:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A%3A1006093713658#page-1