Module 6: Fostering cultural change in schools with ICT
Autopoiesis: self-creating properties of human beings
“I enjoyed all the “circle of life” comments and I do agree as we are sociable creatures and dependent upon the planet to sustain us. That being said, how can we get the powers that be to listen to the teachers and embrace the change around us? If admin and policy makers ignore the outside world they will make the formal educational system obsolete and irrelevant. We have had our moment – blog posts to complain – state – vent, but now what can we do about it? What are some possible solutions to help and be heard?”
Structural coupling: “Change, growth, and mutation are part of human evolution. Why wouldn’t this apply to the systems and institutions we create?”
If we as sentient beings can respond to our environment, then why are Educators and education policy makers so slow or reluctant to do the same? We make conscience decisions daily to make changes and adapt, then why is the system of Education lagging behind? Cognitively it I s changing the way we think and being analytical in our through process; while culturally it how we decided to cooperate and share information. When it comes to technology everything that humans have made to make life easier is technology, from flint tools, to wheels, to simple machines, the factories of the industrial revolution, and now to ICT which is the newest form of that “Homo Faber – man the maker” intuition. Technology has allowed the world to become a smaller place, as language and cultures are shared. Food and flights are more international and common place. The importing and exporting of commodities is now global and faster than ever before, and ICT helps further these connections and processes. Information is now global and “out there” for all to see, use, adapt, and improve on. We are no longer living in isolated communities thanks to ICT and the human desire to create and explore.
Linguistic Cognitive Domains: fostering and sustaining connectivity
“I love learning new languages! Growing up on “Indiana Jones” movies (and being in a trilingual primary school) taught me that when you are in a country; learn the language, as it will make life better for you. I can agree to this first hand; as I have learnt the language of each of my host countries over the past 10 years to varying degrees. It has helped me communicate with people, learn the local culture better, and understand my own mother tongue better too!
Plus look at how humans crave to communicate with one another via language! Language has evolved with us both historically and linguistically.
Every business or job has its own language or jargon too: pro-d, PD, CCA, IDU, PYP, MYP, DP, IGCSE, SAT…)
Every “technology cycle” has added words into our daily language as well. Tools change over time: chisel, hammer, pestle, machine, cog, factory, workhouses, debtor’s prison, union, strike, automobile, telephone, television, aeroplane – airplane, vacuum cleaner, Swiffer… ICT will just become another dialect and set of acronyms to add to our already multiculturalist twisted tongues!”
Linguistic cognitive domain is a way of consciousness; it is how our use of language allows for connections and meaning to be made. Everything we say with words (as well as body language) helps to convey our meaning and make our thoughts become understood by others. It is how we make sense of what is being said to us, and by us. With that, we then learn that we communicate in different ways, to different people or audiences depending on the reason. Our language and vocabulary change depending upon our reason for the conversation, for example there is often a large difference between how we talk with our friends versus our professional conversational at school and with our students. ICT is now another realm in which a new vocabulary is beginning to enter our daily linguistic skills and conversations. When we think about how we want to connect with others using ICT, the words we use will change, as well as how we actually use ICT to contact and connect with others out there on the WWW.
The following bullet points are my thoughts and notes based upon a video I watched of an educational speech given by Dr. Danah Boyd; a leading ICT researcher from Microsoft, that was given at Harvard University…
“Embracing a Culture of Connectivity – Danah Boyd”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB_D6FE9z-Q&feature=related
Use of social media in academia
Changes around us influence how we teach & do research
The rate of change and how it influences us in education
People are having a hard time keeping up
How are colleagues thinking of ways to change
How do our thoughts processes change?
Locate social media
What do these services do?
“Profile” your being – presence online a place to express yourself
An embodiment of identity
Collection of images and materials to show off who they are
“Like” showing your personality
“Friends” a way of writing the audience into being. Negotiating whom their public or audience is
“Public conversation” social grooming (monkeys)
Details of what I do in daily life, noticing people’s patterns, and routines.
Data creation is being present
Why be online? Being a part of their social circle
Showing up online as well as in person
Everybody is on it! Sense of community
Keeping in touch with people longer over time
Aware of what’s going on, a scrapbook of their social lives, and their world around them
“Networks Publics” where people come together to socialize
Persistence: automatically archived. Changes our concepts of time
Replic-ability: content duplicated copied and not always known
Search-ability: visible content, everyone can see you!
Scal-ability: content can be accessed through searches
Just because it is online, doesn’t mean that EVERYBODY has seen it
Tension over the “headliners” blood, sex, violence…
Invisible audience: not all audiences are visible nor are they necessarily co-present
I grasp the context yet who is on the other ends of the computer/camera.
Usually the audience knows what you are talking about – what about outsiders or talking to them
Collapsed contexts: lack of spatial, social, and temporal boundaries makes it difficult to maintain distinct social contexts
Different environments have different norms and are coming together online, how do you balance that?
Public/private blurring: without control over context, public and private become meaningless binaries, are scaled in new ways, and are difficult to maintain as distinct
(I.e. the dumb stuff people do online thinking that it won’t get to them or hurt them or that it is not important)
Privacy & publicity: social control over the situation and asserting that control
“I don’t have anything to hide” but still want a private life
Redefining what people find acceptable to put out there about themselves
Privacy is choosing what you want to keep to yourself
How we negotiate privacy
Interactions are public by default and private through effort
Making conscience choices when to keep things private
Trying to create intimacy online in various layers
Lack of details, not sharing everything
“The more I make things public, the less you look at things that I care about the most.” Angelina Jolie
Similar move in YA
Dealing with power boundary (parents, teachers)
Performing for certain audiences
Innovations of privacy (over use of pronouns – teen code language)
Being judged out of context – caring for privacy “keep out”
Learning & higher education: interpretations of images
Implications in the classroom
Born digital – digital natives – nope, different levels of skills, understanding, experience of environments and what they trying to do with it
Can’t assume that young = understanding
Search engines – but how do they think through it – media literacies
Creating content but lack of understanding of implications
Copyright issues vs. being creative “why is this a problem?”
Wikipedia looking at the end result – not the process of creation – as a living document
Blogs wikis and collaborative learning coming into the classroom
Publishing their students’ “thinking in action” on line – on permanent record in the digital era – yet are amazing feedback possibilities…
Social media = social dynamics, not everyone gets along in real life too!
Academic space, people may not want to be there
Teacher involvement “getting you good at learning how to learn,” community building, life lessons
Teachers being available 24-7, relationships with students, when does it begin, end, and blur
When and where to judge the young people?
Implications as online face is only one facet of themselves
Be curious about this new public space, as it is constantly evolving
Do this dance (experiment & experience) with them!
Out dated in 6-9months
“Question everything”
Unstable or get out there
How thing have sped up?
Help them explore things that are moving fast
Academics traditionally sit back and think for a long time for the long term, we can’t do that anymore
Need to engage with a rapidly changing environment
The more conservative we are, and ignore the outside world, the more we make ourselves irrelevant
Access to Internet variables
Lower Socio Economic Status kids, access at school/libraries = restraint in time, filters and restrictions
Urban vs., rural divide, less in rural (lack of towers and 3G)
Various levels of skills & knowledge “participation gap” no curve, but a mess
What are the pedagogical goals for your class?
Reputation online is a challenge
A private space vs. public domain
One size NEVER fits all!
Professors concerned over lack of focus and sophisticated conversation, lack of listening skills aftern20 minutes…
Worried about education in the middle & high schools changing faster than the technology
Harvard gives social networks and connections to students, now how can it compensate for “no child left behind” the underlining education system