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Monthly Archives: October 2013

LLED 558 – Week 10

2006 © Touchstone and Warner Bros.

“Are you watching closely?” is the haunting question that opens up Christopher Nolan’s excellent 2006 movie, The Prestige, in which two rival magicians try to outwit each other using a common tool of the trade: distraction. While there is much in the film’s story that is worthy of discussion, especially in connection to the visual literacy theories written about by Gunther Kress, Theo van Leeuwen, Gillian Rose and Mary Hamilton, it is one of the behind-the-scenes details that I will connect with most in this post. The film is set at the end of the 19th century, mostly in London, England. One of the details the production designer wanted to get right was the number of posters and their typography that filled the city’s streets at that period. Much of this relates to the rise of “ocularcentrism” in European countries. The on-set image below shows the posting board that were frequently seen on busy London streets, full of flyers of an increasingly visual nature. Production designer Nathan Crowley describes the look of London he recreates (on a Los Angeles backlot) as “the Victorian version of Tokyo” with advertisements everywhere (Conjuring the Past, DVD Bonus Feature). Crowley is just one of the many crew members involved, as his departmental positions suggests, with the production of the movie. As director and co-producer, Christopher Nolan deserves full recognition as the auteur of everything that appears on screen, while his wife and frequent collaborator Emma Thomas takes care of everything surrounding the movie (from securing the screenplay rights to getting it onto screens around the world) as another of the co-producers. Christopher’s brother, Jonathan, incidentally co-wrote the screen adaptation of Christopher Priest’s 1995 novel. So many layers of production to consider when discussing who really made the movie.

Christopher Nolan directs Hugh Jackman
in The Prestige (2006) © Touchstone and Warner Bros.

According to Rose, a film’s production crew is just one part of the equation in making meaning from a movie, and as sprawling and time-consuming as it is to produce a feature film, the audience should take credit for creating the film as well. The Nolan brothers and Thomas were in between highly acclaimed Batman movie, and were able to secure the talents of that series regulars like Christian Bale and Michael Caine to take on roles in The Prestige, and it may have been a surprise for audiences of the art house (ie. middle to low budget) team that produced Following (1998), Memento (2000) and Insomnia (2002) before capturing more mainstream audiences with Batman Begins (2005). For dedicated followers of this team’s work, The Prestige was something of a surprise, soon to be overshadowed by the genre-defining The Dark Knight (2008) comic book adaptation. Asides from critical praise and awards nominated, and in a few cases won, the fans of Nolan-Thomas-Nolan films are growing in number and interconnectedness. The audience created the need for each one of their films, and as their style and production values began to increase with each success, the larger the audience for their films become. One of the demands of the audience is to be surprised by technical innovation, yet too much CGI (computer-generated images) spoils the lucky streak they appear to have – much like how way too many lightsaber battles in the most recent Star Wars movies has deadened audience response as compared to the classic Obi Wan vs. Darth Vader multimodal (sound and visual) treasurebox. In The Prestige, the rival magician both learn to make their illusions look good, but not too good. As the last lines of movie suggest, the best part of the illusion, and I would add visual literacy in general, is offering the audience just a bit more than is the image presents, they want to find what they think is the real truth behind the artifice. It is best summed up by the last lines of this wonderful movie:

Every magic trick consists of three parts, or acts. The first part is called the pledge, the magician shows you something ordinary. The second act is called the turn, the magician takes the ordinary something and makes it into something extraordinary. But you wouldn’t clap yet, because making something disappear isn’t enough. You have to bring it BACK. Now you’re looking for the secret. But you won’t find it because of course, you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to work it out. You want to be fooled.

Reference
Nolan, C. (dir), (2006). The prestige [film and DVD commentary]. Los Angeles: Touchstone and Warner Brothers.

LLED 601 – Week 10

One of the most fascinating aspects of this week’s topic is that much of it deals with respectful and holistic connection to native land (in this case the place where someone is born) as well as Native land (belonging to Aboriginal ancestors who lived harmoniously with nature until Europeans messed thing up). So much of Archibald’s writing examines her connection to UBC and Vancouver, my native land, and I am compelled to include one of my favourite hometown heroes, David Suzuki, into this discussion. Around the same time as her book was being published, I began my studies at UBC, and I will have to look back through my notes to find moments in my Bachelor of Education program where Jo-ann Archibald presented her research to teacher candidates. She may have also been part of the lecture David Suzuki gave at UBC’s Longhouse, a few weeks before his Legacy lecture at the Chan Centre. It was an especially rare treat to see Suzuki in person, and hear how much he connects with First Nations culture. Someone, perhaps Archibald, presented Suzuki with a talking stick. Reading about its importance to Indigenous storywork empowers me to include a few more details about the pre-Legacy lecture I attended. Firstly, since his audience was mostly student teachers, his focus was on the importance of teaching. He made a comment about the Japanese word sensei, which has a fascinating connection to Elders of whom both Archibald and Suzuki discuss; there is also a punning Tricksterish side of Suzuki’s identity as sensei: the word sansei mean “third generation” which is also who Suzuki is: third-generation Japanese Canadian. Yet it is not so much his connection to Japan, or his family’s internment during the Second World War that identifies him now as his environmental activism, prompted by his connection to Native people and their relationship to the forests, rivers and especially coastlines.

From the Suzuki Elder’s WordPress site
The Suzuki Elder Perspective

The unfortunate history of Indigenous people in British Columbia, other parts of Canada and the United States is a difficult topic for many to understand fully. So much of the background of Archibald’s storywork methodology comes out of a murky, even haunted past of residential schools, punishing legislation and genocidal attempts to civilize the land and its people for Eurocentric purposes. Perhaps being an “outlier” and racially oppressed person in Canada gives Suzuki an empathetic understanding of how much is at stake the more that government and corporate interests place the economy over land and all things living on it. The subtitle of his 2009 Legacy lecture is “An Elder’s Vision for Our Sustainable Future” and aligns his interests found in Archibald’s Indigenous Storywork. The respect and patience both have for Elders’ knowledge and guidance from a more spiritual place (something that may seem at odds with Suzuki background in the field of science). One final mention of recall to the Legacy lecture with McCarty’s article, particularly when she describes how Navajo language became operationalized during the Second World War, similar to Suzuki’s claim in the documentary film of the Legacy lecture, Force of Nature: A David Suzuki Movie that one contribution to the pool of science (in this case anthropolgy/linguistics) raises the water level, and floats all boats, whether they be used for military purposes or for peace.

One more thing, I have attached my outline for this course’s final project: LLED 601 Research Paper Outline

LLED 536 – Week 9

Sinclair writes about the challenges of presenting performance-based research in various locations, from outdoor patios and courthouses to the conference rooms. Flexibility is the key element here, and as artists one would expect creative solutions to the problems encountered. Yet the practical realities really hit home, projectors that don’t work, chairs that aren’t available, unrelated events (like a raffle contest) happening at the same time as the performance. It takes a dedicated performer to make the magic of theatre work in these conditions, and the audience must have a willingness to overlook the shortcomings and allow themselves to be entertained. The research parts are a given, the raison d’être for putting on the this performance instead of that production of Les Mis or Disney On Ice.

Attached to this post is the one-page reflection of the world premier of Inside the Seed which was on stage earlier this month at the East Vancouver Cultural Centre’s Cultch Lab. Inside the Seed reflection. For a look at how the event was reported on the Cultch’s website, click on this link: Playwright Predicts Future?

LLED 601 – Assignment 2

Mapping Multiple Literacies: An Introduction to Deleuzian Literacy StudiesMapping Multiple Literacies: An Introduction to Deleuzian Literacy Studies by Diana Masny

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Here is a brief glimpse at the review mentioned in my Goodreads post, that will soon be published in the Canadian Journal of Education: CJE Book Review Masny and Cole

LLED 558 – Week 9

Thanks to Dr Gunderson for
75% of the team names!

The lecture that Dr. Margaret Early gave based on her research into innovative arts-based learning in high school English Learners’ classroom had some connections to the presentation Eury Chang and I gave for LLED 536: Drama and Literacies in Education. One fond memory I was able to recreate for this presentation on Johnny Saldaña’s textbook was a list of team names, based on Dr. Lee Gunderson’s comments (a few years back) on the tendency for teachers to group language learners together in a classroom, so that no one learns from another. He splits up the class into three aptly named groups: the go-getting Screaming Eagles who need little support with language and race ahead of others in the class; the chatty Bluebirds who could make more of an effort to learn but are perched comfortably on top of the bell curve; finally, the Mudhens, who are all sinking together in a mire of misunderstanding and miscommunication. To these three, I added the Angry Birds to categorize the language learners who would rather just be gamers. A lot of my research for LLED 601 and 558 will examine virtual worlds in video games and their influence on students, and one discovery I made through games like Angry Birds is the self-efficacy of players: when they get to tricky puzzle or face a challenge in the game, they can keep trying until they get it right and advance to a more challenging level. The game design even uses gold stars, and it is very similar to an A (or an E) for effort, rather than the Mudhen-teaching strategy where it all of it is too confusing and learners don’t bother learning anything. Even for part of the game that the player already finished, there is the choice to go back and replay the level, earning a higher rank (three gold stars instead of one) than just getting by with the bare minimum. True that this game is part of a corporate machine that has got merchandizing on its mind, there is even a reported daycare centre in China decked out with Angry Bird activities, but it also has some educators talking about new learning strategies, such as this blog post on A Lesson in Assessment FOR Learning. Fine for Team Angry Birds, but what about the Mudhens?

A New Hope FOR assessing students?

Back to the research. One word that stood out in Marshal and Early’s case study was “force” the students admitted to feeling when they worked on literacy mandela: they were forced to speak English, forced to work together, forced myself. While the researchers reflect on these comments and give them an optimistic interpretation of the students’ word choice, there is still something about students admitting that they would not have done this sort of activity unless there was external pressure. On the one hand, it is an effective strategy to make students groups where at least one member had to speak a different language that the others, and English becomes the default language of communication. On the other hand, it still is an artificial situation common enough for the only student in the classroom who speaks Farsi or Russian, but seems to knock away the support Cantonese or Tagalog speakers would normally rely upon: others who understand them. The students need to feel the force from within, rather than feeling singled out because there are too many of “you guys” in the classroom. Cummins et al. present a slightly more student-driven format for learning the language by making it part of their identity creation. It was a little disorientating to read about the No Child Left Behind policy as it relates to Canadian students, but nevertheless, still impressive. Got to hand it to Marshal and Early, howevr, for creating and implementing a wonderfully visual literacy exercise based on student-made mandelas, and three gold stars for referencing Carl Jung at the end of their paper!

Life Magazine show Carl Jung at his Mandela

LLED 601 – Week 9

Like Vygotsky would say, had he lived until the the mid 1990’s, I am entirely in the zone with this week’s readings on multiliteracies. It is hard not to view other theorists (especially the earnest NLSers) as a bit behind the curve. Yet as much as New London Group, Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear and Leu seem to be applying an operational theoretical framework, there are plenty of unanswered questions. The biggest one for me, which might have to leave until next term, is what have the digital literacies people been doing to differentiate from multiliteracies? I expected to find an answer to who they are in Geneviève Brisson’s proposal, but instead found a timely recapitulation of multiliteracies’ development up to a certain point. Brisson hits all the right “multi” buttons with her proposed research, yet there is also a slight disconnect between her framework and the case study itself, as most of the theorists mentioned in the former section do not entire reappear in the latter. In their introduction to Deleuzian literacy study, Masny and Cole (2012) present similar findings in their second chapter, pointing to the transcendental empiricism where virtual experiences in literacy are not tied to any one particular representation, as “[r]epresentation limits experience to the world as we know it – not to as a world that could be.” (p. 27) Perhaps Brisson picks up on the transcendental-ness by exploring what her case study students are becoming, rather than fitting into the model provided by a plethora of multiliterate scholars.

James Paul Gee in digital woodcut

Determining who the multiliterates are becomes a Herculean task, not impossible (especially as they frequently cite their own individual work throughout A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies) but nevertheless daunting to figure out who said what. The strongest voice for me, merely as I more familiar with his writing than most of the others, is James Paul Gee. It is understandable that his earlier work with in critical discourse analysis and NLS needs to be understood fully to appreciate where he comes from, yet I have always pictured him as more concerned with where literacy is going. I suspect there will be a lot more of him when I take Prof. Asselin’s Digital Literacy course next term. It is Gee’s voice, seconded by Gunther Kress, that worked out the design parts of New London Group’s Pedagogy and I am sure once I get a copy of Coiro et al.‘s Handbook (would make a nice Christmas gift, in case family or friends are searching this blog for hints!) they will have more to say about which voice says what. In any case, Gee and Kress have lots to say about how things are designed, as well as the redesign of what technology is available, or as Kress often mentions “to hand”. Taking video games as the obvious lead in to design, recent developments with mobile games (Angry Birds being one of the prime examples), gamers no longer need to read instruction booklets but learn as they play, sometimes with in-game tutorials or often with the option to replay the level once completed. Nearly every video game emphasizes the just-in-time learning, where the skilled needed to defeat the level boss get introduced throughout the same level, allowing the player to hone their skills before facing off with the end of level challenge, the test if you will. The redesign, however, is the most interesting feature of multiliteracies pedagogy as skilled “readers” are able to switch modes to make more personal meaning. Remixing is something that has been around for ages, but has experienced a boost in activity thanks to the availability of digital video, on-line file sharing (YouTube and other websites) and a receptive audience (Facebook’s Like button seems to be the new standard of assessment). It always impresses me how much the New London Group got right back in 1996, at least with connections to what would be possible in the year 2000 and beyond, for the available technology at least.

Andy & Conan predict the Year 2000

What most teachers struggle with is the pedagogical predictions of the New London Group, how much the classroom is changing due to the invasiveness of the Internet, therefore Julie Coiro and Donald Leu teamed up with Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear to produce the Handbook of Research on New Literacies well into the first decade of the 2000’s. Their purpose seems to be to make multiliteracies operational for classroom teachers while also raising awareness of literacy’s newness (and multiplicity). Their prediction of nearly half the world’s population being on-line by the year 2012 fell a bit short with the latest census (dated July 30th, 2012) holding at 34.3% of the world having access to the Internet. The graph below shows the two most highly populated countries, Asia and Africa, are below the world average which can be argued from a statistician or even an economist’s point of view, but I would put forth that educators around the world may be partially responsible. For every BCTF conference or workshop I have been at (I work as a facilitator for such Teaching Teacher On Call (TTOC) workshops as “Reality 101: A day in the life of a TTOC” or “Classroom management”), there is always one or two teachers who insist that children have way too much screen time, and the best place for a student’s smartphone is in the locker, or not purchased from the store in the first place. While I admit there is a tendency for students to get off-task with games and other distractions on the web, it is something the teachers will have to push through, hopefully in a constructive way. It would make for a nice Boxing Day if I could start reading up on Gee’s response to Facer, Joiner, Stanton, Reid, Hull, & Kirk 2004 case study of the mobile game “Savannah”. Perhaps after the nine-hour marathon screening of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Extended Version. The research project I had intended to write for this class would have been on mobile learning through virtual world games, but as this is a case study I am conducting in LLED 558 and more details will emerge from the research rather than frontloading the methodology with expectations based on the framework – as Brisson herself keeps the questions open until she has a better understanding of what is going on with her students under observation. Look forward to connecting to my LLED 558 final assignment when more of it is written.

Downloaded from Internet World Stats

LLED 536 – Week 8

Presenting Chapter Six – But Is It Art?

LLED 558 – Week 8

An interesting topic that combine Indigenous learning with multiliteracies. When I came into the PhD program, I was certain that digital literacy was the place I need to be, exploring the possibilities of Web 3.0 (way beyond what is currently happening with socially mediated Web 2.0) but came to understand that the most innovative approach to digilit research (at least in North America) is a near impossible task of making the Internet perform like paper. It is as if someone is theorizing about Literacy 3.0 by advocating for a return to Literacy 1.0 (pencil and paper, chalk and chalkboard etc.). I don’t want to get too worked up about this back to basics attitude, but will mention how Hare’s article builds upon the idea of “knowing paper” both the affordances and limitations in an Indigenous context. To paraphrase Robert Service, there are strange things done in the academic world by the mostly white and mostly male researchers who ploy their papers. Little connection to land, especially the forests that produce the raw materials. At least there is a connection to the land through paper, who knows where all the plastics and silicon that make our laptops and other mobile devices comes from?! Nevertheless, there is attempt to know better what literacy then and now may mean, and it is refreshing to read how Hare engages her discussion with connection to lived experiences.

Marshall and Toohey continue this exploration of lived experiences with their literacy project using MP3 recorders and hand-drawn storybooks, a case study for representing Punjabi Sikh heritage in primary school. The term used to describe where children are drawing life experiences from is “funds of knowledge” which might cause alarm for critical discourse theorists inspired by Freire to watch out for any for of “banking education”. But the way the term is used here, and gets mentioned in a couple more articles this week, is harmless. In this case study, mostly harmless; the students really seem to enjoy representing violent images. I’ve already posted on the strange attraction students have toward stories that end with death, that can be accessed her with this link, so I don’t want to go over what was already said there. But something I will pick up upon from Marshall and Toohey’s research is smiling characters. Most children draw characters, even in the most strenuous and life-threatening situations, with big smiles on their faces. Not that I want to give too much credit to Piaget’s theory of developmental stages, but there is a point in a child’s artistic life where anything other than a smiling character does not occur to the young artist. Of course, to prove the rule through an exception, one of Gurvinder drawings show her grandfather crying, wearing a frown on his face. Here I will point out that the girl deliberately chose to depict sadness, and it did not take too much effort for her to turn that smile upside down. It is something wonderful to see, when children express theirselves on paper, that they choose more often than not to depict happiness. James Paul Gee (2004) states that the work of childhood is play, and Richard Louv and other play-based researchers agree that a happy frame of mind is best for children’s development (take that, Piaget!).

LLED 601 – Week 8

This week’s readings are circling back to my Master of Educational Techonology (MET) program recently completed “at” UBC… I know, I should have used the ampersat symbol to accentuate that most of my studied occurred on-line, but in my first year it was hard to know where to place the Community of Practice among on-line learners (some of them were studying in such exotic locations as Jamaica, Thailand and Turkey etc.), so hardly a community in the traditional sense. I believe both Wenger and Heath were some of the authors we looked at during the program, and the concept map was my first attempt to make it all make sense. And not-so surprisingly now, as I press on with my reading of Masny and Cole (2012) in preparation for my book review (Assignment 2), many of the same themes are coming together. The idea of mapping to show the connections between related ideas was also a big idea when I started my Bachelor of Education here at UBC. One of the instructors wrote about it in his textbook, Engaging Minds (Davis, Sumara & Luce-Kapler, 2008), and while students were not required to actually map anything in Brent Davis’ class, the introduction that I got from him led me continue on with the Education 2.0 studies in the MET program.

One of the most challenging courses in this program was ETEC 530: Constructivist Strategies for e-Learning, and while the readings were a lot to get through, what made this course especially difficult was the expectation to be constructivist while learning together. I should also hasten to add that it was the second term in the program, and perhaps I was still a bit green with on-line collaboration. My partners for the group presentation, however, were resistant to the asynchronous affordances (the techie way of saying we didn’t always have to be on-line at the same time to communicate) this course was trying to support. Rather than working with these teammates, I found myself racing around town (between teaching on call in North Vancouver and tutoring after-school at various homes) to find a free wifi area (usually Starbucks) to connect with the others. There were definitely a few missing components from this community, and more squabbling than social learning from my team members. It even got to the point where the instructor had to intervene, asking each of us to write out what we expected from the others. I am sure that file is saved somewhere, but from that point onward, my group projects became less social, more networked. The oddest thing about this whole ordeal in ETEC 530 was it ended up being my first A+ (95 over the class average of 92) in the MET program, so whatever my partners were claiming I wasn’t doing, my instructor at least thought otherwise!

Being a MET student living in Vancouver was not such an uncommon thing, as many of the other teachers in the program were from here or at least around the Lower Mainland. Every once in a while I would chat with other teachers and health care workers across the province and a few from other parts of Canada. It was a great introduction to the needs of teachers in rural and developing areas. Yet while there were some strange things done in the hinterland, not once did I encounter a teacher from any place resembling Trackton. Perhaps because even the enrolled teachers in the United States were more Mainstream-ish, leaving the former plantation land far behind. Anyone left in these communities, according to Heath, would either be working in the factory or preaching at the church. And yet, despite the numerous setbacks economic or otherwise, the children of Trackton develop a strong sense of self and literacy (perhaps self-literacy, if there is such a concept) because there is a community. The point I believe Heath makes is that children should not be placed in further difficult situations because the Mainstream standardized test scores, but a more thorough investigation of the circumstances the children are raised in is necessary.

When I first encountered Heath, my attitude was dismissive, and now I cannot claim being completely won over, at least there is a bit more understanding of her way and her words. And through the MET Program, which began shortly after Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games, I discovered that my hometown had begun its slow descent into Tracktoniness. There is no major industry left for Vancouver’s brightest, most engaged minds: the film industry is slowing down, video game and animation left for other parts of Canada, forestry, fisheries and mining (all damaging the earth) also in decline. It got to the point where the two things Vancouverites seemed to care passionately about were legalizing marijuana and rioting to get rid of a certain goalie. Most of the local teachers enrolled in the MET program got a bump in their salaries, with Teacher Qualification Services raising them from level 5 to level 6 (the highest a teacher in this province gets before moving into administrative positions). Would have been nice for me too, if I had a full-time teaching position. And don’t get me started on the plateauing of public school teacher salaries due to the budgetary schemes of oil-crazed politicians (both provincial and federal). The light at the end of the tunnel, through the MET program at least, was that it allowed me to get into the PhD program at UBC.

SMART/bored: A cartoon created in the first year of MET studies

Lastly, Brian Street. After venting as much as I did about the lowered prospect of anyone who wants to build a career in Vancouver, there is hardly enough spirit left to discuss the academic hit-job the anthropologist Street enacts. Page after page, he sets up one theorist after another only to knock down Olson, Hildyard, Greenfield, Goody, Watt, Bloomfield, Lyons etc etc etc, while Street cunningly never (or at least not yet) offers any counterargument to his theory of literacy. The bottom of this blog page has a transcript of Street comment at the 2011 AERA conference in New Orleans, which are particularly revealing of his continued stand-offishness towards ideas that aren’t his. Enough said on that.

Reference

Davis, B., Sumara, D. and Luce-Kapler, R. (2008). Engaging minds: Changing teaching in complex times. 2nd Ed. New York: Routledge.

Masny, D. and Cole, D. R. (2012). Mapping multiple literacies: An introduction to Deleuzian literacy studies. New York: Continuum.

LLED 536 – Week 7

Kind of a weird week to place, with Thanksgiving cutting off one of the classes (Labour Day and Remembrance Day also taking their toll on the Monday-night classes), but in this lull I was able to read more of Saldaña and Chekhov, preparing for the presentation at the end of the month. I also presented a Trailer Making workshop in the Digital Literacy Centre (same classroom as where the Drama and Literacies course happens. For my example, I selected the excellent 2006 Christopher Nolan movie, The Prestige, and demonstrated the steps for making a trailer based on David Bowie’s performance of Nikola Tesla. Will try to upload the presentation on this post.

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