In this vodcast, I propose to discuss the emerging ICT-based learning paradigm based on content management systems, mobile learning, social software, and constructivist learning and to delineate in rough outline the corresponding changes at the level of assessment. I begin with an overview of the features of traditional assessment, which, for the most part, consists in an individually-constructed, paper-based, teacher-oriented, reproductive, archive-destined, word-based, in-class assignment. Then, I argue that ICT-enriched assessment is a collaboratively authored, digitally hosted, public and consumer-oriented, multimedia-rich creation. This creation is subject to updating and involves a geographically dispersed, networked community of contributors. Finally, I focus on the challenges in the face of implementing such changes at the levels of learners, content managers and service providers.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
WHY GET PUBLISHED ON THE NET – PART THREE
I dedicated to the last two posts to where one can get published on the net and also wanted to press home the message that getting published is dead easy; it doesn’t require that you be a great connoisseur in ICT or an expert with international renown in the subject area around which you wish to talk. Assuming we all have enough knowledge of our native language, even being a language expert is not a precondition. There is now one more aspect that I wish to explore, and this has to do with the justification of why one would want to get published at all. This is a very wide domain of thought, but I would like to offer the following reasons. I am inclined to tease out those reasons into a number of motives that often overlap but that may have separate existence: personal, social, epistemological, representational.
***
Personal reasons
The first impetus for getting published is simply the sheer joy of it. Here, I wish to share a personal story. 1999 marked the first time at which I sought to publish poetry online. I came across a site maintained by a young man where he published his poetry and invited other people to publish theirs. I can’t recall the title or the URL, but you can be sure that the first time ever in my life I saw one of my poems published on www, I was more than excited. I probably congratulated myself a number of times! I frequently shared musings over the guy’s poetry on the site, and he too was keen on commenting on my and other people’s poetry. Back then, that was very exciting. Even now, as I publish on Blogger, I find it extremely rewarding and no less exciting. The knowledge that you are (or will be) reaching out to people all over the world still has something of a magic touch to it: you are not writing to some professor who will be assigning a grade on a commentary whose life ends the moment the grade is assigned. Unlike essays, poems or thoughts you that wrote on scraps paper which were condemned to the dustbin every time you moved house or cleaned your office, what you write on the net is for the most part kept in active memory, and can be easily retrieved once it’s archived.
***
Social reasons
The importance of being earnest, to use Oscar Wilde’s acclaimed title, and the importance of being taken earnestly by the other are additional motivations to get published. In effect, what this is saying is that I think I got something worthy of sharing. This is a process of enrichment for the originator and equally for the target recipient or participant, as we now wish to refer to the audience. I will speak in my next post about the theoretical and mental values of composing, but for the moment, the point I am making is that writing assumes a meeting of minds, an encroachment in the sense these are two worlds, the originator’s and the target participant’s, both coming together for a while, a collision, an encounter, a mental handshake if you prefer a voguish term. I am rather fond of images, so I will say that the originator, though publishing stuff on the internet, and through being read, viewed or heard, has given themselves the chance to emerge, much like a plane emerges on a radar screen, on the mental or representational theater of a reader/participant.
***
As a result of this process, the originator will have been recognized, at least for a while, and will have been given a name. The originator is thus no longer Mr./Ms. Incognito, but is an identifiable person with a name, a face, and a story. Simply put, when you publish and get noticed, you are nudging your CV one point upward. This doesn’t mean that the originator has become a full-fledged expert all of a sudden. Nobody can claim expertise on the strength of one or many encounters. This is a process, but this encounter is a step in the direction of developing a respectable say in the matters under consideration. And it feels good to develop a profile of a knower or an authority in one field of another.
***
Epistemological reasons
There are other reasons why a person should want to get published. One of these is that getting published is a way of sharing one’s representation of reality, and I mean this is a very serious sense. What does it mean that a person is giving expression to one’s view of the world? This will bring me back to two views of reality in epistemological discourse (see Crotty, 1998). There is one view of reality as something that has always existed, independently of the viewer, of experience, and the knower. In this sense, reality antedates the person; it exists in an objective world, quite apart from our individual or social awareness of lack of awareness of its existence. The example I like to borrow from Crotty is that trees, mountains, forests and the universe exist quite apart from our awareness of their existence. Against this essentialist definition of reality is another definition which carries a more human touch. This is the view that reality is what a person, any person experiences. Thus, we needn’t require that researchers hide behind an experimental toolset to conclude that today’s weather for instance is not convenient for fishing. It will be left to the senser themselves, the person, the experiencer, with their knowledge and intuition, to categorize reality as they see it. This specific understanding is one of the directions I am trying to convey as one reason for wanting to get published. When you get published, in any form, visual, audio, video, graphological, what you’re doing is to offer your perception of the world around you to exist side by side with other perceptions. Which perception will make it into textbooks and will acquire for itself the knowledge tag, I don’t know, but what is important is through a certain process of creation, you will have contributed to human knowledge and to the documentation of that knowledge. Unlike the limited volume of a paper journal where people fight for space, the internet has enough room to accommodate everyone. In this understanding, everyone is a knower, and as such, they are entitled to publicizing their own versions of reality.
***
Representational reasons
The other aspect that is closely related to this notion of representation of the world is what I would like to call self-representation. This only slightly differs from the point above by making what amounts to a statement of the obvious. Okay, well, listen to this tautology: no person is in better position to represent him/herself than the person him/herself. I hope that upon examining this somewhat vacuous statement, we will find that it isn’t totally devoid of substance. There is the traditional Arabian adage, that only (s)he/who treads on an amber will be able to feel its heat. Fair enough. Now, supposing that I had strong views about a particular topic, for example, the need to reconsider the curriculum in light of Information and Communications Technology developments, and supposing that I didn’t take the initiative of publishing those views anywhere, I would imagine it relatively difficult for someone else to translate and convey the ideas I had about this issue in the manner I personally perceive them. In other words, and without wanting to contribute another empty statement, not even the most sophisticated machine or person will be able to scan my brain to faithfully render, reflect or account for the dimensions of the issue under consideration. It is in this sense that engaging in the act of self-expression and self-represenation is a salutary exercise.
***
Remaining on the sidelines and failing to engage in the act of publishing means that somewhere or other, there is a vacuum, a vacuum of expression, meaning that there was an issue that one should have written about but fell short of doing. A natural law is for vacuum to get filled. Someone else would thus take charge of representing my case. There is a strong chance that the representation made by the second party of my own case will not square well with how I personally envision the matter. Even if that person were to be actuated with the best intentions, it will be likely that the person concerned whose case is being debated comes out dissatisfied, because the author, the writer, the expresser will have presented the issue from an angle of view that does not do justice to the person on whose behalf this representation is being made. My provisional working assumption here is that the writer or representer is not embarking on misrepresentation in the first place. When that assumption is wrong, when the person who has taken initiative to represent someone else who shuns the act of writing is a person whose business it is to misrepresent that person, the result is going to pretty grim. The fact of the matter is that the moment a person fails to represent themselves before the world, they will have to live with the consequences of being ‘unrepresented’, ‘under-represented’ or misrepresented.
***
CONCLUSION
I think I am going to leave off it here for today. Let me just summarize. I began this story by sharing ten ways to get published on the internet. What this means is that it getting published on the newfound space of the internet is easy and not taxing, averaging a computer and an internet connection. Getting published is not a random or erratic act. What I did in this specific post was to talk about some of the reasons for wanting to get published. I mentioned in particular the gains to be made on a personal level as a result of this process. I also spoke of the social value of sharing, in a world where the term ‘sharing’ has become more like an auxiliary or a helping verb. I alluded to the goal of contributing to knowledge making as additional motivation for publishing. Finally, I tried to explain the representational and self-representational values of any acts of publishing. In my next blog post, I wish to address myself to the kinds of gains the writer is likely to make at the level of mental representation, a sort of a theory of writing or publishing. Stay tuned.
***
Ali H. Raddaoui, University of Sfax, Tunisia
***
REFERENCES
Crotty, M. 1998. The Foundations of Social Research. Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process. Sage Publications.
***
Personal reasons
The first impetus for getting published is simply the sheer joy of it. Here, I wish to share a personal story. 1999 marked the first time at which I sought to publish poetry online. I came across a site maintained by a young man where he published his poetry and invited other people to publish theirs. I can’t recall the title or the URL, but you can be sure that the first time ever in my life I saw one of my poems published on www, I was more than excited. I probably congratulated myself a number of times! I frequently shared musings over the guy’s poetry on the site, and he too was keen on commenting on my and other people’s poetry. Back then, that was very exciting. Even now, as I publish on Blogger, I find it extremely rewarding and no less exciting. The knowledge that you are (or will be) reaching out to people all over the world still has something of a magic touch to it: you are not writing to some professor who will be assigning a grade on a commentary whose life ends the moment the grade is assigned. Unlike essays, poems or thoughts you that wrote on scraps paper which were condemned to the dustbin every time you moved house or cleaned your office, what you write on the net is for the most part kept in active memory, and can be easily retrieved once it’s archived.
***
Social reasons
The importance of being earnest, to use Oscar Wilde’s acclaimed title, and the importance of being taken earnestly by the other are additional motivations to get published. In effect, what this is saying is that I think I got something worthy of sharing. This is a process of enrichment for the originator and equally for the target recipient or participant, as we now wish to refer to the audience. I will speak in my next post about the theoretical and mental values of composing, but for the moment, the point I am making is that writing assumes a meeting of minds, an encroachment in the sense these are two worlds, the originator’s and the target participant’s, both coming together for a while, a collision, an encounter, a mental handshake if you prefer a voguish term. I am rather fond of images, so I will say that the originator, though publishing stuff on the internet, and through being read, viewed or heard, has given themselves the chance to emerge, much like a plane emerges on a radar screen, on the mental or representational theater of a reader/participant.
***
As a result of this process, the originator will have been recognized, at least for a while, and will have been given a name. The originator is thus no longer Mr./Ms. Incognito, but is an identifiable person with a name, a face, and a story. Simply put, when you publish and get noticed, you are nudging your CV one point upward. This doesn’t mean that the originator has become a full-fledged expert all of a sudden. Nobody can claim expertise on the strength of one or many encounters. This is a process, but this encounter is a step in the direction of developing a respectable say in the matters under consideration. And it feels good to develop a profile of a knower or an authority in one field of another.
***
Epistemological reasons
There are other reasons why a person should want to get published. One of these is that getting published is a way of sharing one’s representation of reality, and I mean this is a very serious sense. What does it mean that a person is giving expression to one’s view of the world? This will bring me back to two views of reality in epistemological discourse (see Crotty, 1998). There is one view of reality as something that has always existed, independently of the viewer, of experience, and the knower. In this sense, reality antedates the person; it exists in an objective world, quite apart from our individual or social awareness of lack of awareness of its existence. The example I like to borrow from Crotty is that trees, mountains, forests and the universe exist quite apart from our awareness of their existence. Against this essentialist definition of reality is another definition which carries a more human touch. This is the view that reality is what a person, any person experiences. Thus, we needn’t require that researchers hide behind an experimental toolset to conclude that today’s weather for instance is not convenient for fishing. It will be left to the senser themselves, the person, the experiencer, with their knowledge and intuition, to categorize reality as they see it. This specific understanding is one of the directions I am trying to convey as one reason for wanting to get published. When you get published, in any form, visual, audio, video, graphological, what you’re doing is to offer your perception of the world around you to exist side by side with other perceptions. Which perception will make it into textbooks and will acquire for itself the knowledge tag, I don’t know, but what is important is through a certain process of creation, you will have contributed to human knowledge and to the documentation of that knowledge. Unlike the limited volume of a paper journal where people fight for space, the internet has enough room to accommodate everyone. In this understanding, everyone is a knower, and as such, they are entitled to publicizing their own versions of reality.
***
Representational reasons
The other aspect that is closely related to this notion of representation of the world is what I would like to call self-representation. This only slightly differs from the point above by making what amounts to a statement of the obvious. Okay, well, listen to this tautology: no person is in better position to represent him/herself than the person him/herself. I hope that upon examining this somewhat vacuous statement, we will find that it isn’t totally devoid of substance. There is the traditional Arabian adage, that only (s)he/who treads on an amber will be able to feel its heat. Fair enough. Now, supposing that I had strong views about a particular topic, for example, the need to reconsider the curriculum in light of Information and Communications Technology developments, and supposing that I didn’t take the initiative of publishing those views anywhere, I would imagine it relatively difficult for someone else to translate and convey the ideas I had about this issue in the manner I personally perceive them. In other words, and without wanting to contribute another empty statement, not even the most sophisticated machine or person will be able to scan my brain to faithfully render, reflect or account for the dimensions of the issue under consideration. It is in this sense that engaging in the act of self-expression and self-represenation is a salutary exercise.
***
Remaining on the sidelines and failing to engage in the act of publishing means that somewhere or other, there is a vacuum, a vacuum of expression, meaning that there was an issue that one should have written about but fell short of doing. A natural law is for vacuum to get filled. Someone else would thus take charge of representing my case. There is a strong chance that the representation made by the second party of my own case will not square well with how I personally envision the matter. Even if that person were to be actuated with the best intentions, it will be likely that the person concerned whose case is being debated comes out dissatisfied, because the author, the writer, the expresser will have presented the issue from an angle of view that does not do justice to the person on whose behalf this representation is being made. My provisional working assumption here is that the writer or representer is not embarking on misrepresentation in the first place. When that assumption is wrong, when the person who has taken initiative to represent someone else who shuns the act of writing is a person whose business it is to misrepresent that person, the result is going to pretty grim. The fact of the matter is that the moment a person fails to represent themselves before the world, they will have to live with the consequences of being ‘unrepresented’, ‘under-represented’ or misrepresented.
***
CONCLUSION
I think I am going to leave off it here for today. Let me just summarize. I began this story by sharing ten ways to get published on the internet. What this means is that it getting published on the newfound space of the internet is easy and not taxing, averaging a computer and an internet connection. Getting published is not a random or erratic act. What I did in this specific post was to talk about some of the reasons for wanting to get published. I mentioned in particular the gains to be made on a personal level as a result of this process. I also spoke of the social value of sharing, in a world where the term ‘sharing’ has become more like an auxiliary or a helping verb. I alluded to the goal of contributing to knowledge making as additional motivation for publishing. Finally, I tried to explain the representational and self-representational values of any acts of publishing. In my next blog post, I wish to address myself to the kinds of gains the writer is likely to make at the level of mental representation, a sort of a theory of writing or publishing. Stay tuned.
***
Ali H. Raddaoui, University of Sfax, Tunisia
***
REFERENCES
Crotty, M. 1998. The Foundations of Social Research. Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process. Sage Publications.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
TEN WAYS TO GET PUBLISHED ON THE NET - PART TWO
I guess the most important message to take home from Part One of this blog is that getting published has never been easier. Whereas in the past, before web 1.0 and before there was any web at all, disseminating any kind of work was limited to those who followed stringent writing standards that antedated them, with so-called web 2.0, being read, viewed or heard has become something within the reach of almost anyone with a computer and an internet connection. There is no unattainable technical knowledge to speak of that could stand in the way of communicating or transmitting content of any type. In a way, there were all those watchdogs, panels, editors, gatekeepers, who had for themselves a say on what was to make it to print and what was to be ditched. And you couldn’t do much about that either.
***
NOW, IT'S EASY TO GET PUBLISHED.
***
At this juncture, you are your own arbiter, to a very comfortable extent. It’s up to you to decide what you want to publish, when you want to publish and how you want to word, or, if you prefer a more general term, how you want to package what you want to publish. At a bare minimum, we can all do chatting. You might want to call that an informal, standard, and unmarked way of getting published. Then we can also comment on someone else’s writing, write a blog, make a podcast, or upload a video. You don’t need a cutting-edge digital camera to do that. Your regular webcam can do the job. Barring that, you can shoot video with your or your child’s mobile phone camera.
***
In this wide and easy sense, getting published means leaving a visible or audible footprint or mark on the web as digital global theater. And instead of submitting your content to editorial filterers, you now have a community of intelligent and informed consumers to prop you, to give you feedback, to offer you alternative views, and to engage with you, albeit negatively. Actually, the term ‘consumers’ is not a correct characterization of today’s readers and viewers. As Dan Gillmor aptly remarks, the term ‘audience’ has now given way to ‘participants’, in the sense that the relationship obtaining between you as content producer and the viewer/reader is no longer one where viewers are passively watching or listening. They too, are actively involved in interpreting what they come across, and you are very likely to see them respond to your input.
***
Nor is internet space to host your production at a premium either. In the early days of the web, one needed to get webmaster certification to start your one's own website and many tutorial hours on how to use html, how to upload pictures, how to tweak the margins, how to pad cells, how to upload files into an FTP, etc. Now, you really can do without much of this stuff. Space is free for those who want free space. Otherwise, it’s no longer prohibitive. Ready-made, free and open-source templates are available, big time. We can all become citizens of the web, or as Peter Coffee puts it, ‘webizens’.
***
There are other signs of ease, averaging an internet-rich environment. The fact of the matter is, these days, all opinions count. You needn’t be versed in esoteric theory to publish. There is like an unwritten rule which says that when you publish on the web, you are indeed publishing to communicate. Your target is to touch Mr. and Ms. everyday person in the street, in the field, in the locale, and anywhere people walk or talk. Actually, you would be doing yourself a disservice if you decided to speak ‘above people’s heads’, if you pardon the expression. In the new medium, you publish to be read, to be heard, to be viewed. Also, anything counts. Your opinion is as good as anybody else’s. Your views matter. They may not matter to everyone who comes across them, but they will matter to some people, those that are interested in the issues of concern to you, and there should be no dearth of them, planet-wide. Seeing eye to eye on these issues isn't a precondition for communication either; in fact, quite the reverse is very often also true.
***
Before I’m done for this post, I must stress that the web, as is, may be furnished with possibly 85% of stuff English. But whoever said you can only publish in English, or only in the major languages of the world, those that boast more than 100 millions speakers. The web is decidedly multilingual, and thankfully so. There are translation and localization engines all over the place, and interesting content will make its way to those who find it interesting across languages and despite language barriers.
***
Ultimately, the object of this blog is to tackle the question of why one should wish to get published at all. I think I will leave this for Part Three. Subsequently, I hope to look into the implications of this irreversible trend for communication and curriculum.
***
KEYWORDS: Web 1.0; Web 2.0
REFERENCES
Dan Gillmor. We the Media. Retrieved from the World Wide Web, January 2, 2008: http://www.authorama.com/we-the-media-3.html
Peter Coffee. Webizens of All Ages. Retrieved from the World Wide Web on January 4, 2008:http://blog.sforce.com/sforce/2007/06/webizens-of-all.html.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
TEN WAYS TO GET PUBLISHED ON THE NET - PART ONE
GET PUBLISHED!
The central idea for this blog post comes from a podcast where a gentleman from the Buckinghamshire educational district in England made a point about the new-found freedom the world wide web has given people to publish their views and ideas without intermediaries. In traditional academe, publishing was the monopoly of refereed or peer-reviewed journals entry to whose clubs was highly filtered. In the world of mass communication, getting published even in a local daily newspaper was a big deal. I remember the first time I had one of my poems published by a Riyadh newspaper. That was a grand moment. To be invited on a radio or television talk show is not given to everyone; you had to be a recognized expert of some level of renown. With the internet revolution, getting oneself published has become an unmarked, regular event that everyone and his sister could do without pain or fatigue.
***
I would like to elaborate on this issue of empowerment through offering concrete examples drawn from my personal experience for the most part. Below is a list of internet means and spaces where virtually anyone with an idea can virtually see themselves published. What is important to highlight is that this idea does not have to be at any level of maturity, sophistication, and 'far-fetchedness' if you will. It does not have to go through the filter of a jury or an editorial board to be given the seal of approval. In a globalized and wired world, it is never a question of one's ideas being simple, naïve, banal, immature or irrelevant. There is thankfully plenty of room for all, and all of our thoughts are always at some level of elaboration. The point is that it's through interaction, tossing around of ideas, getting feedback on those ideas from circles and persons that you least expect to be interested in the issues raised that ideas change, grow, gather moss, and see the light. I guess I am addressing myself basically here to those that never tried the following avenues for speaking their minds out. The list I produce is certainly not an exhaustive one, but it's a place to begin the sharing journey.
***
1. Make a youtube video
I begin with www.youtube.com because of the ease with which anyone, techie or not, is capable of airing video material for the world to see. You needn't be a member of any association, nor do you need green light from anyone. A fair representation of youtube is that it is, like many other spaces that do the same function, an open space for use by the most erudite, the shrewdest, and most sophisticated people as well as for anyone that has anything to share, be it even a view of the city or country where they live, a show of talent they possess, a news story they have witnessed, a drive or walk through an island, or a novel trend or a fad, or a parody or whatever. All you need is a sequence of video of your own making, or for which you have right to publish, and there, in just a few minutes, you can share it with the rest of the world.
***
2. Start your own web site
This may be a little bit more demanding, but given that there are more web hosts that allow you to build your own site than I know of or care to name, it is tempting for anyone to try and make a representation for themselves, without having to go through third parties. Of course, if you'd rather give the contents of your web site to a company that specializes in building web sites, that's fine, but otherwise, you can go it alone. There is normally plenty of online support to guide you through the process, and with some dedication, it is normally possible for anyone to have a working web site of their own possibly within minutes. For a free web site, try 0catch: http://signup.0catch.com/signup?p=0catch , or try the more popular geocities, also for free: http://geocities.yahoo.com/
***
3. Make your own blog
Blogging as a way of networking and communicating with a wide audience on specific or general areas of interest for the blogger has been gaining popularity for at least the past three to four years. You can make your blog as high-tech or academic and high-brow as you like, but that is not the intention at all. If the content you wish to publish in your blog is in the form of a rigorously composed research piece with a systematic review of the literature and a principled section on data collection method, and so on, then a traditional journal article will be a better venue. If, however, you mean to communicate informally or semi-formally, and wish to share your ideas in a more personalized way than is usually permissible in the world of academic publishing, starting your own blog is the answer. There is no dearth of free blog hosts but here are two, just for the record. The first is where you are reading this very posting: https://www.blogger.com/start . Another celebrated space is: http://wordpress.com/signup/. Try them out. They will give you a voice that would have cost dearly only a few years ago. Now, they are free, and free for all.
***
4. Create a podcast
Podcasts are similar to blogs except for one difference. Whereas blogs are pieces of writing for the most part, podcasts are defined as: 'a n audio broadcast that has been converted to an MP3 file or other audio file format for playback in a digital music player or computer. Basically, all you need is a microphone connected to a computer, and a sound-recording software available by default in all versions of MS Windows or Linux. For MS Windows, simply do the following: START>PROGRAMS>ACCESSORIES>ENTERTAINMENT>SOUND RECORDING. Click the recording button, improvise or read out what you wish to say, save it, and find a podcast host for it. There are many such services available for free. I am certainly not here into the business of recommending any particular podcast host, but following is the URL for one that I have used, which requires very little technical knowledge: http://www.ziddu.com/register.php. For the price of entering your contact information, you get to publish your podcast, and you may even get paid for that if you wish.
***
5. Contribute an audio podcast of material written by someone else before 1923.
This is a variation of creating your own podcast. Whereas in 4 above, you go ahead with authoring the very words of your own podcast and express your own point of view, what you are invited to do here is to read out excerpts or full chapters of books that are considered to be part of the public domain and for which copyright laws are no longer applicable. In your own voice, you can read and store for public use sections of ancient and pre-1923 poets, philosophers, thinkers, novelists, mathematicians and whomever you think should be introduced to the wide world. Take for instance Open Culture as a repository of educational and cultural podcasts, Make your voice heard by choosing an author of your choice and be part of an international community of readers that is intent upon making classic books and writings available on a wide basis. The address to contribute is: http://www.oculture.com/2006/10/audio_book_podc.html.
***
6. React to other people's writing
This actually can take many forms. Look for example at the bottom of this blog, and you will find a comment's button. As you read this blog, there may be ideas that pop into your mind by way of endorsing or questioning what I am saying here. The privilege will be all yours to just air your views in writing, and sometimes in video, as you now can, after watching a youtube video. The only rules to follow when responding to whatever is being posted is that you should avoid offensive language, and using other people's ideas or words without acknowledging the source. Otherwise, you will be free to leave a trace of your take on what you read, and this is precisely what the author wants you to do. I had a chance to react to tips sports people gave on how to stay healthy. While this is only a response to what someone has written, you may actually develop your response to be a full entry in its own right. You can use a nickname or your real name, and voila, your are getting published, and are sharing your views with the Smiths, Saeeds and Su Chis of the world.
The central idea for this blog post comes from a podcast where a gentleman from the Buckinghamshire educational district in England made a point about the new-found freedom the world wide web has given people to publish their views and ideas without intermediaries. In traditional academe, publishing was the monopoly of refereed or peer-reviewed journals entry to whose clubs was highly filtered. In the world of mass communication, getting published even in a local daily newspaper was a big deal. I remember the first time I had one of my poems published by a Riyadh newspaper. That was a grand moment. To be invited on a radio or television talk show is not given to everyone; you had to be a recognized expert of some level of renown. With the internet revolution, getting oneself published has become an unmarked, regular event that everyone and his sister could do without pain or fatigue.
***
I would like to elaborate on this issue of empowerment through offering concrete examples drawn from my personal experience for the most part. Below is a list of internet means and spaces where virtually anyone with an idea can virtually see themselves published. What is important to highlight is that this idea does not have to be at any level of maturity, sophistication, and 'far-fetchedness' if you will. It does not have to go through the filter of a jury or an editorial board to be given the seal of approval. In a globalized and wired world, it is never a question of one's ideas being simple, naïve, banal, immature or irrelevant. There is thankfully plenty of room for all, and all of our thoughts are always at some level of elaboration. The point is that it's through interaction, tossing around of ideas, getting feedback on those ideas from circles and persons that you least expect to be interested in the issues raised that ideas change, grow, gather moss, and see the light. I guess I am addressing myself basically here to those that never tried the following avenues for speaking their minds out. The list I produce is certainly not an exhaustive one, but it's a place to begin the sharing journey.
***
1. Make a youtube video
I begin with www.youtube.com because of the ease with which anyone, techie or not, is capable of airing video material for the world to see. You needn't be a member of any association, nor do you need green light from anyone. A fair representation of youtube is that it is, like many other spaces that do the same function, an open space for use by the most erudite, the shrewdest, and most sophisticated people as well as for anyone that has anything to share, be it even a view of the city or country where they live, a show of talent they possess, a news story they have witnessed, a drive or walk through an island, or a novel trend or a fad, or a parody or whatever. All you need is a sequence of video of your own making, or for which you have right to publish, and there, in just a few minutes, you can share it with the rest of the world.
***
2. Start your own web site
This may be a little bit more demanding, but given that there are more web hosts that allow you to build your own site than I know of or care to name, it is tempting for anyone to try and make a representation for themselves, without having to go through third parties. Of course, if you'd rather give the contents of your web site to a company that specializes in building web sites, that's fine, but otherwise, you can go it alone. There is normally plenty of online support to guide you through the process, and with some dedication, it is normally possible for anyone to have a working web site of their own possibly within minutes. For a free web site, try 0catch: http://signup.0catch.com/signup?p=0catch , or try the more popular geocities, also for free: http://geocities.yahoo.com/
***
3. Make your own blog
Blogging as a way of networking and communicating with a wide audience on specific or general areas of interest for the blogger has been gaining popularity for at least the past three to four years. You can make your blog as high-tech or academic and high-brow as you like, but that is not the intention at all. If the content you wish to publish in your blog is in the form of a rigorously composed research piece with a systematic review of the literature and a principled section on data collection method, and so on, then a traditional journal article will be a better venue. If, however, you mean to communicate informally or semi-formally, and wish to share your ideas in a more personalized way than is usually permissible in the world of academic publishing, starting your own blog is the answer. There is no dearth of free blog hosts but here are two, just for the record. The first is where you are reading this very posting: https://www.blogger.com/start . Another celebrated space is: http://wordpress.com/signup/. Try them out. They will give you a voice that would have cost dearly only a few years ago. Now, they are free, and free for all.
***
4. Create a podcast
Podcasts are similar to blogs except for one difference. Whereas blogs are pieces of writing for the most part, podcasts are defined as: 'a n audio broadcast that has been converted to an MP3 file or other audio file format for playback in a digital music player or computer. Basically, all you need is a microphone connected to a computer, and a sound-recording software available by default in all versions of MS Windows or Linux. For MS Windows, simply do the following: START>PROGRAMS>ACCESSORIES>ENTERTAINMENT>SOUND RECORDING. Click the recording button, improvise or read out what you wish to say, save it, and find a podcast host for it. There are many such services available for free. I am certainly not here into the business of recommending any particular podcast host, but following is the URL for one that I have used, which requires very little technical knowledge: http://www.ziddu.com/register.php. For the price of entering your contact information, you get to publish your podcast, and you may even get paid for that if you wish.
***
5. Contribute an audio podcast of material written by someone else before 1923.
This is a variation of creating your own podcast. Whereas in 4 above, you go ahead with authoring the very words of your own podcast and express your own point of view, what you are invited to do here is to read out excerpts or full chapters of books that are considered to be part of the public domain and for which copyright laws are no longer applicable. In your own voice, you can read and store for public use sections of ancient and pre-1923 poets, philosophers, thinkers, novelists, mathematicians and whomever you think should be introduced to the wide world. Take for instance Open Culture as a repository of educational and cultural podcasts, Make your voice heard by choosing an author of your choice and be part of an international community of readers that is intent upon making classic books and writings available on a wide basis. The address to contribute is: http://www.oculture.com/2006/10/audio_book_podc.html.
***
6. React to other people's writing
This actually can take many forms. Look for example at the bottom of this blog, and you will find a comment's button. As you read this blog, there may be ideas that pop into your mind by way of endorsing or questioning what I am saying here. The privilege will be all yours to just air your views in writing, and sometimes in video, as you now can, after watching a youtube video. The only rules to follow when responding to whatever is being posted is that you should avoid offensive language, and using other people's ideas or words without acknowledging the source. Otherwise, you will be free to leave a trace of your take on what you read, and this is precisely what the author wants you to do. I had a chance to react to tips sports people gave on how to stay healthy. While this is only a response to what someone has written, you may actually develop your response to be a full entry in its own right. You can use a nickname or your real name, and voila, your are getting published, and are sharing your views with the Smiths, Saeeds and Su Chis of the world.
***
7. Review a product
This is yet another way to make your voice heard on products that you have purchased and have formed an idea about it. Here, I think there is room for espousing an extended view of the term ‘product’ to include electronic gadgets that you have bought, like a notebook computer, a microphone, an iPod or washing machine, or books or articles that you have read, and on which you wish to share your view, expert or not. Just look up the exact name of the product, give a clear idea about its specifications or contents, and say exactly what you feel about it. Another place where you can make such reviews is, for language scholars, an electronic publication called 'linguistlist': http://linguistlist.org/. When you subscribe to this publication, you can avail yourself of books for review. The review process is rigorous but it is generally less demanding than getting published in a regular print journal.
***
8. Author an article in Wikipedia
Wikipedia is 'The world's largest encyclopedia available on the Web at www.wikipedia.com’ that relies for its contents on material jointly authored for the most part by regular people writing in 253 languages of the world. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia). As such, anyone with a computer and an internet connection is entitled, if they so desire, to start, edit, or improve upon an article or an article stub. The working and empowering assumption seems to be that authoritativeness in creating and producing information and knowledge is no longer the privilege of the expert and that the average person is capable of sharing their own representation of reality. Knowledge is thus no longer only constructed by those in the know so to say, but is being levelled democratically. Thus, if you wish to give information about the school where you studied in any part of the world, or if you have some true information about someone you think readers might be interested in, then, the privilege is all yours to write about that person or that issue.
***
9. Publish your course on a free VLE
Virtual learning environments, also called learning management systems (LMS) are the catchphrase in the corporate circles as well as in primary, secondary and tertiary education environments. These represent the perfect place for any teacher or trainer to host their material and make it available for their students or trainees. You won’t need to know too much about how to furnish these learning spaces. And if you do need to, there are communities of users who will provide plenty of explanation for you to start your first steps in making use of web-based instruction. Nor do you need to pay fees. Many high quality VLEs are free, open source platforms, Your school, university or company administrator may install the platform for you, and you will be able to author your course. For those who are still technophobic, you can try the user friendly Internet Classroom Assistant (ICA) called Nicenet at www.nicenet.org. Within a few clicks, you will find yourself in an environment that is intuitive and self-explanatory. You can make a difference in the lives of learners who may not have the time to travel all the way to the training or study site. For others who are ready to explore a bit before populating the platform, there is a most celebrated learning platform called Moodle. Just visit www.moodle.org. Install a local version on your PC and familiarize yourself with this promising space.
***
10. Contribute an article to an online journal
This is not a challenge by any stretch of imagination. The grip print journals once had on what is considered publication-grade is weakening. Internet readership seems to require a different level of writing with a less dense style. E-zines and e-journals are proliferating by the day. Even print-based journals are shifting to having electronic versions of their journals, and sometimes electronic only. To be sure, online refereed journals do have their own standards and follow recognized, if still negotiable formats, but they represent a real chance for young researchers to publish their work and get read by a wider audience than they were capable of, say ten years ago. The Reading Matrix, http://www.readingmatrix.com/ is one such journal that you can try for your next article or paper in the area of second language acquisition and more generally in applied linguistics. You can also try the Internet TESL journal http://iteslj.org/ and send research articles, lesson plans, book reviews, and activities for students of English.
***
Virtual learning environments, also called learning management systems (LMS) are the catchphrase in the corporate circles as well as in primary, secondary and tertiary education environments. These represent the perfect place for any teacher or trainer to host their material and make it available for their students or trainees. You won’t need to know too much about how to furnish these learning spaces. And if you do need to, there are communities of users who will provide plenty of explanation for you to start your first steps in making use of web-based instruction. Nor do you need to pay fees. Many high quality VLEs are free, open source platforms, Your school, university or company administrator may install the platform for you, and you will be able to author your course. For those who are still technophobic, you can try the user friendly Internet Classroom Assistant (ICA) called Nicenet at www.nicenet.org. Within a few clicks, you will find yourself in an environment that is intuitive and self-explanatory. You can make a difference in the lives of learners who may not have the time to travel all the way to the training or study site. For others who are ready to explore a bit before populating the platform, there is a most celebrated learning platform called Moodle. Just visit www.moodle.org. Install a local version on your PC and familiarize yourself with this promising space.
***
10. Contribute an article to an online journal
This is not a challenge by any stretch of imagination. The grip print journals once had on what is considered publication-grade is weakening. Internet readership seems to require a different level of writing with a less dense style. E-zines and e-journals are proliferating by the day. Even print-based journals are shifting to having electronic versions of their journals, and sometimes electronic only. To be sure, online refereed journals do have their own standards and follow recognized, if still negotiable formats, but they represent a real chance for young researchers to publish their work and get read by a wider audience than they were capable of, say ten years ago. The Reading Matrix, http://www.readingmatrix.com/ is one such journal that you can try for your next article or paper in the area of second language acquisition and more generally in applied linguistics. You can also try the Internet TESL journal http://iteslj.org/ and send research articles, lesson plans, book reviews, and activities for students of English.
***
What I have shared with you above are tried and tested ways of getting published by sidestepping academic gate-keeping mechanisms. Writing that is composed following scholarly submission guidelines will remain important. However, students and young researchers will have much to gain from reaching a wider audience than the audience the print-based article is limited to. To be sure, there are dividends accruing from being read by highly specialized panels and boards, but there is also a way of growing and maturing through sharing with the average reader. In a private communication following the 2003 CLTELT Conference held in Dubai, UAE, Pr. Robert Phillipson insightfully wrote about the necessity of having experts speak to journalists in order to be able to communicate their messages to a wider audience: At professional conferences of this kind in many parts of the world there might be a press conference towards the end, at which the effort would be made to ensure that journalists, who cannot be expected to be experts in the area, can be properly briefed. Next time? There are advantages in having a team of people talking to the press rather than a single 'expert' being interviewed. Phillipson 2003. Personal Communication.
***
KEYWORDS: VLE; LMS; youtube; blog; product review; nicenet; moodle; wikipedia; podcast.
***
REFERENCES
Interview with Ian Usher, E-Learning Co-ordinator for Buckinghamshire County Council's School Improvement Service about 'The use of Moodle authority wide’. Conducted by Leon Cych. Retrieved from the World Wide Web at: www.l4l.co.uk/mp3/L4L003.mp3
Phillipson, R. Personal Communication. May 12, 2003.
Interview with Ian Usher, E-Learning Co-ordinator for Buckinghamshire County Council's School Improvement Service about 'The use of Moodle authority wide’. Conducted by Leon Cych. Retrieved from the World Wide Web at: www.l4l.co.uk/mp3/L4L003.mp3
Phillipson, R. Personal Communication. May 12, 2003.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
DIGITAL NATIVES VERSUS DIGITAL IMMIGRANTS?
There are two types of distinction that have to be made in relation to the so-called digital divide. The first operates on a planetary level and concerns the division between countries or blocks of countries where high bandwidth internet is available on a wide scale, and other countries where the rate of internet social penetration is still low. What I am equally interested in another type of divide that is said to exist within countries that boast high internet coverage. If you consider the level of expertise in and ease with information and communications technology among the populations of those countries, it is commonly said that there is a distinction between the younger generations of those countries and the older ones. The point is that younger generations have an innate understanding of and practice with information and communications technology, while the members of older generation cannot find their ways as easily and as intuitively as the younger ones. This is often referred to the distinction between digital natives and digital immigrants.
***
In the first part of this blog, I will try to explain, illustrate and also analyze this distinction. I will then argue that the labels ‘native’ and ‘immigrant’ do not always convey an accurate representation of this alleged divide. Finally, I want to critically examine the distinction from the point of view of the wider divide and show that this categorization fails to capture the complex and evolving realities in the countries where information communication technology has a lower level of penetration.
In the first part of this blog, I will try to explain, illustrate and also analyze this distinction. I will then argue that the labels ‘native’ and ‘immigrant’ do not always convey an accurate representation of this alleged divide. Finally, I want to critically examine the distinction from the point of view of the wider divide and show that this categorization fails to capture the complex and evolving realities in the countries where information communication technology has a lower level of penetration.
***
Let’s first take the distinction at face value. Mark Prensky was the first to coin these labels when he referred to twenty-first century students a ‘“native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet’. Digital immigrants, he adds, are “[T]hose of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology’. Without wanting to complicate matters, we can possibly say that what we have here is a pair of variables, one of them socio-biological, which is age, and the other one sort of linguistic, which is intuitive knowledge of and ease with the internet, computers, and other media of storage, retrieval and distribution.
Let’s first take the distinction at face value. Mark Prensky was the first to coin these labels when he referred to twenty-first century students a ‘“native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet’. Digital immigrants, he adds, are “[T]hose of us who were not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in our lives, become fascinated by and adopted many or most aspects of the new technology’. Without wanting to complicate matters, we can possibly say that what we have here is a pair of variables, one of them socio-biological, which is age, and the other one sort of linguistic, which is intuitive knowledge of and ease with the internet, computers, and other media of storage, retrieval and distribution.
***
Basically, the argument is that in societies where high-speed internet connection is taken for granted, younger people are sort of born and bred into the digital medium. They are if you will natives of the medium, or, to follow Prensky’s metaphor, native speakers or users who navigate their ways easily and intuitively in electronically ubiquitous environments. Let’s think, for the sake of clarification, of information and communications technology as a language in its own right, with its own vocabulary and rules for figuring out how to use correctly it to make things work. This language, call it, digilingua, has stabilized enough and has spread among a significant fraction of the population. In fact, some members of this population use so fluently and so naturally that you might argue that it’s their native language. They don’t need to consult any dictionaries, glossaries, or do-it-yourself manuals to find out how a software program or an electronic machines works. They won’t ask their teacher either because they know that their level of competence in this language is probably higher than that of their teacher. To cut a long story short, they are, so to say, native digilingual speakers.
***
Those native digilingual speakers who were born using this medium are generally aged 2-25 years. Here, I am choosing the year 1982 (2007-1982) as a cut-off point somewhat arbitrarily to sift those that were born in the era of computers and information and communications technology and those that were born before the advent of computers on a wide scale, that is those who were born before 1982. What this means is that those who were born in the past 25 years or so are native digilingual speakers. They stand in binary opposition to those who started learning digilingua just as it was evolving. Those would be the digital immigrants. They are sort of permanent learners of the medium, and as Prensky (2001) argues, they speak digilingua with an accent. This means, among other things that by the time they have started using and learning the new medium, they have already gone beyond what is called the critical period, and they will never speak digilingua like a native speaker; there will be perennial errors and imperfections in their knowledge of the language, and they will not able to develop the feel, the intuition, the ease and richness characteristic of native speakers of the language. Even their brain, Prensky’s argument goes, might be differently formed. So, if you are a person, say from Europe, North America, Japan, Korea, or Australia, and are aged forty, the label ‘digital immigrant’ applies to you. If you’re five or fifteen, you definitely are a ‘digital native’.
Those native digilingual speakers who were born using this medium are generally aged 2-25 years. Here, I am choosing the year 1982 (2007-1982) as a cut-off point somewhat arbitrarily to sift those that were born in the era of computers and information and communications technology and those that were born before the advent of computers on a wide scale, that is those who were born before 1982. What this means is that those who were born in the past 25 years or so are native digilingual speakers. They stand in binary opposition to those who started learning digilingua just as it was evolving. Those would be the digital immigrants. They are sort of permanent learners of the medium, and as Prensky (2001) argues, they speak digilingua with an accent. This means, among other things that by the time they have started using and learning the new medium, they have already gone beyond what is called the critical period, and they will never speak digilingua like a native speaker; there will be perennial errors and imperfections in their knowledge of the language, and they will not able to develop the feel, the intuition, the ease and richness characteristic of native speakers of the language. Even their brain, Prensky’s argument goes, might be differently formed. So, if you are a person, say from Europe, North America, Japan, Korea, or Australia, and are aged forty, the label ‘digital immigrant’ applies to you. If you’re five or fifteen, you definitely are a ‘digital native’.
***
On to my second point about the rigor of this distinction. There is, of course room for sustaining this definition, at least for a while. Prensky makes the point that contrary to what adults would do when they purchase an electronic gadget, which is to look for the operations manual, children would in fact just hop into it. They would be able to put every cable or cord in place and start the system almost anticipating the instructions, and even without looking at them; the next logical steps sort of come naturally to them , much like native speakers who do not hesitate so much about how to use a word or continue a sentence.
On to my second point about the rigor of this distinction. There is, of course room for sustaining this definition, at least for a while. Prensky makes the point that contrary to what adults would do when they purchase an electronic gadget, which is to look for the operations manual, children would in fact just hop into it. They would be able to put every cable or cord in place and start the system almost anticipating the instructions, and even without looking at them; the next logical steps sort of come naturally to them , much like native speakers who do not hesitate so much about how to use a word or continue a sentence.
***
Well, well, well, not quite. This distinction will appear to stand on shaky ground if think in terms of expertise. Who is more of an expert than the other? Is it the person who uses gadgetry so easily or the person who has invented this gadget? Which of the two was contemporary to technology as it was being designed, publicized, piloted, and made available on a wide scale? It wouldn’t be off the mark to claim that someone who has witnessed the rise and spread of technology might be able to better understand it than someone who just takes it for granted. Let me illustrate this idea. If we think of consciousness as a mental theater that events and things actually populate, it will be easy to see that a digital immigrant is someone who used to have certain pre-technological ways of transacting and operating. At some point, this immigrant started to realize that there were alternative ways to get things done. They then start to follow up on that, and gradually adopt and adapt some new ways. At the same time, a young person is someone whose birth came after technology invaded most facets of life. As this person’s consciousness was being formed, there was no question for them about whether or not to use the gadgetry around. By default and without the least bit of hesitation, they would just use what is on offer without questions, reservations or hesitation. In effect, it may be legitimate to claim that use and manipulation of electronic gadgetry is naturally imposed upon that person. Thus, the older person who slowly moved into adopting that technology is better framed and better placed to understand it, evaluate it and contextualize it.
Well, well, well, not quite. This distinction will appear to stand on shaky ground if think in terms of expertise. Who is more of an expert than the other? Is it the person who uses gadgetry so easily or the person who has invented this gadget? Which of the two was contemporary to technology as it was being designed, publicized, piloted, and made available on a wide scale? It wouldn’t be off the mark to claim that someone who has witnessed the rise and spread of technology might be able to better understand it than someone who just takes it for granted. Let me illustrate this idea. If we think of consciousness as a mental theater that events and things actually populate, it will be easy to see that a digital immigrant is someone who used to have certain pre-technological ways of transacting and operating. At some point, this immigrant started to realize that there were alternative ways to get things done. They then start to follow up on that, and gradually adopt and adapt some new ways. At the same time, a young person is someone whose birth came after technology invaded most facets of life. As this person’s consciousness was being formed, there was no question for them about whether or not to use the gadgetry around. By default and without the least bit of hesitation, they would just use what is on offer without questions, reservations or hesitation. In effect, it may be legitimate to claim that use and manipulation of electronic gadgetry is naturally imposed upon that person. Thus, the older person who slowly moved into adopting that technology is better framed and better placed to understand it, evaluate it and contextualize it.
***
Well, I don’t know. I hope I am not making this argument just to defend my position as a digital immigrant who came to adopt it deliberately and consciously. After all, I have seen many people my age who refuse to have anything to do with it. Ah, but hang on. Actually, this distinction doesn’t even apply to me. I have lived most of my life in environments where the use of internet and computers is not available on a scale as wide as it is in the technologically advanced countries. I am of course not in the business of personalizing this issue. Rather, what I want to do is to examine the distinction from a unique point of view. The first ground on which this distinction is weak stems from its limited range of applicability. What I mean by that is that it is reductionist in its categorization of reality. The world, humanity, those who have technology on a wide scale, and those who have it to an average extent, and those who have very little (if any) of it, are not included or representedin this binary opposition. It would perhaps be a more accurate description of technological reality to think about knowledge of and ease with information and communications technology as a continuum, with, at one end those for whom technology is second (or is it first) nature, and those whose knowledge is lagging very much behind at the other end. The continuum would serve to characterize individuals and not whole societies. To be sure, there are pockets of people in the technologically developed worlds who are still on the sidelines of digital revolution. They may not be many, but they are not statistically insignificant. Likewise, there are, possibly in countries with very low per capita incomes, certain individuals and groups who are on a par with their counterparts in the most developed of worlds. It is the material and social conditions of people that determine where they place themselves on this continuum, and not necessarily their geographical belonging.
Well, I don’t know. I hope I am not making this argument just to defend my position as a digital immigrant who came to adopt it deliberately and consciously. After all, I have seen many people my age who refuse to have anything to do with it. Ah, but hang on. Actually, this distinction doesn’t even apply to me. I have lived most of my life in environments where the use of internet and computers is not available on a scale as wide as it is in the technologically advanced countries. I am of course not in the business of personalizing this issue. Rather, what I want to do is to examine the distinction from a unique point of view. The first ground on which this distinction is weak stems from its limited range of applicability. What I mean by that is that it is reductionist in its categorization of reality. The world, humanity, those who have technology on a wide scale, and those who have it to an average extent, and those who have very little (if any) of it, are not included or representedin this binary opposition. It would perhaps be a more accurate description of technological reality to think about knowledge of and ease with information and communications technology as a continuum, with, at one end those for whom technology is second (or is it first) nature, and those whose knowledge is lagging very much behind at the other end. The continuum would serve to characterize individuals and not whole societies. To be sure, there are pockets of people in the technologically developed worlds who are still on the sidelines of digital revolution. They may not be many, but they are not statistically insignificant. Likewise, there are, possibly in countries with very low per capita incomes, certain individuals and groups who are on a par with their counterparts in the most developed of worlds. It is the material and social conditions of people that determine where they place themselves on this continuum, and not necessarily their geographical belonging.
***
Further, I submit that this gradated technological competence continuum may not necessarily be a function of age, with the younger generations being better performers than the less digitally-savvy elders. The fact of the matter is that the leaders of change, innovation, and technology are to be found among all ages groups, possibly more among the generations that Prensky refers to as digital immigrants.
Further, I submit that this gradated technological competence continuum may not necessarily be a function of age, with the younger generations being better performers than the less digitally-savvy elders. The fact of the matter is that the leaders of change, innovation, and technology are to be found among all ages groups, possibly more among the generations that Prensky refers to as digital immigrants.
***
By way of summary, it looks as though there is room for rethinking the digital native/immigrant divid. To be sure, the age factor can yield certain clues, but it is oblivious of certain facts relating to creativity, innovation and leadership. Neither is the digital divide between countries that are technologically advanced and others that are at some level of development, beginning or intermediate, an accurate representation of reality. A view of technological competence as a continuum of competencies seems to be a more tenable and defensible position, leaving open the possibility of upgrading one’s skills, deepening one’s understanding and bridging one’s lacunae of technology at social as well as individual levels.
***
मैं REFEREENCE
By way of summary, it looks as though there is room for rethinking the digital native/immigrant divid. To be sure, the age factor can yield certain clues, but it is oblivious of certain facts relating to creativity, innovation and leadership. Neither is the digital divide between countries that are technologically advanced and others that are at some level of development, beginning or intermediate, an accurate representation of reality. A view of technological competence as a continuum of competencies seems to be a more tenable and defensible position, leaving open the possibility of upgrading one’s skills, deepening one’s understanding and bridging one’s lacunae of technology at social as well as individual levels.
***
मैं REFEREENCE
Marc Prensky. 2001. Digital Natives Digital Immigrants. In The Horizon. NCB University Press, Vol. 9, No. 5, October 2001. Retrieved from the World Wide Web, December 28, 2007: http://www।marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
WHAT AM I? TEACHER OR TECHNOLOGUE?
HOW A TEACHER IS COPING IN THE ERA OF DIGITAL LITERACY
This time, I really want to do some open and candid thinking about my position as an academic in today’s technologizing world. Well, here I am, an associate professor of applied linguistics, mostly interested in English language teaching, sociolinguistics, teaching methodology, and research methodology, among others. Quite apart from all other considerations having to with image and how one wants to be perceived, the one issue I want to deal with is the following: for at least the past five months, I have been trying ‘doggedly’ to upskill on technology as much as possible. I am more and more inhabited with e-learning, and as I visited University of Georgia in Athens some two years ago, and the International Korean Cooperation Agency, Seoul, last June (2007), I received ample training in technologies relating to virtual learning environments. Ever since, it has been my express intention to host my course in a course management system, and indeed, I spent the best part of this past summer getting to know about Moodle. I’m happy to say that I have my courses there, and I can think of that as one of my accomplishments. Here is where I want to raise an issue that I find burning, to a great extent. As I have allocated time to get to know about the various technologies involved in creating a more or less successful online course, I find that I have spent in parallel very little time on my areas of interest.
***
What does that mean? Well, the content that I have uploaded in the Moodle virtual learning environment LE is one that I have basically prepared during the past three to four years. It has never remained quite the same, because my knowledge of my areas of interest has grown, albeit in slower steps that I would have liked. The fact of the matter of is that much of my time has been siphoned into technology. In a word, I will say that though I strive to produce learning content that is up to my expectations in terms of quality, substance, relevance, and depth, I find that I am more and more preoccupied with technology. Which brings me to the main point: instead of the teacher who should seek to be more and more versed in his field of specialization, I have found me more and more like a technologue. I’m going to have to find alternative ways of expressing this concern, because my spellchecker here flags the word ‘technologue’. What the term means in French is ‘someone who specializes in technology’ (www.mediadico.com). That however is not my job. There are plenty of people in town, engineers who work for various commercial and educational establishments whose job description it is to design systems, solve technology problems, and prepare nice tables and graphs using smart softwares.
What does that mean? Well, the content that I have uploaded in the Moodle virtual learning environment LE is one that I have basically prepared during the past three to four years. It has never remained quite the same, because my knowledge of my areas of interest has grown, albeit in slower steps that I would have liked. The fact of the matter of is that much of my time has been siphoned into technology. In a word, I will say that though I strive to produce learning content that is up to my expectations in terms of quality, substance, relevance, and depth, I find that I am more and more preoccupied with technology. Which brings me to the main point: instead of the teacher who should seek to be more and more versed in his field of specialization, I have found me more and more like a technologue. I’m going to have to find alternative ways of expressing this concern, because my spellchecker here flags the word ‘technologue’. What the term means in French is ‘someone who specializes in technology’ (www.mediadico.com). That however is not my job. There are plenty of people in town, engineers who work for various commercial and educational establishments whose job description it is to design systems, solve technology problems, and prepare nice tables and graphs using smart softwares.
***
If I were to try to catch up with this technician/engineer, this computer guru, I will never be on a par with them. They know so many tricks and their fingers are so dexterous on the keyboard. I can’t possibly compete with them, nor do I want to. And yet, having given up for a while my interest in my academic fields of specialization, I find I am becoming a sort of Jack of all trades, possibly master in none. There is on the one hand the great urge to be able to prepare academic content that is updated and relevant to my students. On the other hand, the demands of producing a good online course are such that I need to develop as much of a horizontal and vertical understanding of the technological gadgetry involved in designing a course. Under normal circumstances of, say, two decades ago, my consolation would have been that, okay, I have to learn something about these emerging technologies, for a while, and then, at some point, I will have gotten beyond that, and I can continue to privilege my areas of academic interest. The only thing is that in today’s technological whirlpool, there is no saying that you will allocate some time to learn about today’s technology to be able to allocate the rest of your time or life to academe. Changes are occurring at this very instant in learning technology, and I owe it to myself to continue, nay, to persevere in updating my technology skills, almost day in, day out. And if I were to do that, chances are that I will fail in the other call. Eventually, in today’s academic environment, it seems that there is more and more coalescence between academe and technology. This is not only true for teachers, but also for students. In order for my students to have access to the content, they have to find their way in the medium. And thus, the same applies for me. The medium, or the channel, is determining the content. In fact it is determining it so much that we could possibly argue that it is over-determining it, meaning that the distinction we like to make between technology as channel on the one hand and content as substance or matter to be dealt with on the other hand is becoming blurred.
If I were to try to catch up with this technician/engineer, this computer guru, I will never be on a par with them. They know so many tricks and their fingers are so dexterous on the keyboard. I can’t possibly compete with them, nor do I want to. And yet, having given up for a while my interest in my academic fields of specialization, I find I am becoming a sort of Jack of all trades, possibly master in none. There is on the one hand the great urge to be able to prepare academic content that is updated and relevant to my students. On the other hand, the demands of producing a good online course are such that I need to develop as much of a horizontal and vertical understanding of the technological gadgetry involved in designing a course. Under normal circumstances of, say, two decades ago, my consolation would have been that, okay, I have to learn something about these emerging technologies, for a while, and then, at some point, I will have gotten beyond that, and I can continue to privilege my areas of academic interest. The only thing is that in today’s technological whirlpool, there is no saying that you will allocate some time to learn about today’s technology to be able to allocate the rest of your time or life to academe. Changes are occurring at this very instant in learning technology, and I owe it to myself to continue, nay, to persevere in updating my technology skills, almost day in, day out. And if I were to do that, chances are that I will fail in the other call. Eventually, in today’s academic environment, it seems that there is more and more coalescence between academe and technology. This is not only true for teachers, but also for students. In order for my students to have access to the content, they have to find their way in the medium. And thus, the same applies for me. The medium, or the channel, is determining the content. In fact it is determining it so much that we could possibly argue that it is over-determining it, meaning that the distinction we like to make between technology as channel on the one hand and content as substance or matter to be dealt with on the other hand is becoming blurred.
***
This is an initial take on the issue, which I still grapple with; as much as there are innovations in the field of educational technology, I am positive there are new ideas being tossed around in the fields of applied linguistics. Which one should get the upper hand, and which one should get the best of me, or which one should I get the best of, is another way of putting the question.
This is an initial take on the issue, which I still grapple with; as much as there are innovations in the field of educational technology, I am positive there are new ideas being tossed around in the fields of applied linguistics. Which one should get the upper hand, and which one should get the best of me, or which one should I get the best of, is another way of putting the question.
***
I think I would like to resolve this matter, at least for tonight, by saying that the changes that have taken place in the field of learning and instructional technology are irreversible. I don’t think we are entitled to saying, ‘well, let’s just take a breather, to evaluate the situation and see where we’re going’. We are going straight into more of the same, and I bet that in a few years time, the instructional landscape will be unrecognizable to those who wish to turn a blind eye on technology, and pretend to teach as if nothing had happened on this front.
I think I would like to resolve this matter, at least for tonight, by saying that the changes that have taken place in the field of learning and instructional technology are irreversible. I don’t think we are entitled to saying, ‘well, let’s just take a breather, to evaluate the situation and see where we’re going’. We are going straight into more of the same, and I bet that in a few years time, the instructional landscape will be unrecognizable to those who wish to turn a blind eye on technology, and pretend to teach as if nothing had happened on this front.
***
Where is my solace? For now, I think I am happy in the realization that there is ample room for marrying my academic profile with my technological penchants. Learning of all types, including language learning, skill learning, has always been at the core of linguistics, theoretical and applied. Institutions of learning that were created and continue into today on the basis of walled classrooms have played their part, and to a large extent, my colleagues and I are the by-products of our ‘walled’, face-to-face schooling experiences. Now that a new paradigm is ushering itself in, with or without our consent, a new or at least modified understanding of learning has to be sought and investigated. Call it online learning, e-learning, technologically-assisted learning, internet-based learning, computer-mediated learning, what you will. A description of this new environment, together with an understanding of its actors, its tools, its advantages, as well, as of course, its limits, has to be embarked on. Eventually, much in the way institutions of learning are having to reinvent themselves, as a result of technology that have invaded our very private lives, so too, my field of specialization, and any field of human knowledge, will have to mutate and renovate itself, short of becoming extinct or irrelevant.
Where is my solace? For now, I think I am happy in the realization that there is ample room for marrying my academic profile with my technological penchants. Learning of all types, including language learning, skill learning, has always been at the core of linguistics, theoretical and applied. Institutions of learning that were created and continue into today on the basis of walled classrooms have played their part, and to a large extent, my colleagues and I are the by-products of our ‘walled’, face-to-face schooling experiences. Now that a new paradigm is ushering itself in, with or without our consent, a new or at least modified understanding of learning has to be sought and investigated. Call it online learning, e-learning, technologically-assisted learning, internet-based learning, computer-mediated learning, what you will. A description of this new environment, together with an understanding of its actors, its tools, its advantages, as well, as of course, its limits, has to be embarked on. Eventually, much in the way institutions of learning are having to reinvent themselves, as a result of technology that have invaded our very private lives, so too, my field of specialization, and any field of human knowledge, will have to mutate and renovate itself, short of becoming extinct or irrelevant.
***
Ali H. Raddaoui
Ali H. Raddaoui
University of Sfax, Tunisia
Night of December 22, 2007.
Friday, December 21, 2007
KNOWLEDGE MAKING IN THE NEW ERA
I wish to begin by thanking Hajer for her post to my previous blog. I hasten to add that I like its genuine nature. What Hajer seems to be doing is to put part of the blame on students themselves for being lazy. I would like to take issue with this interpretation. My impression is that at our students are every bit as serious and as studious as students in many parts of the world. When they are not focused on my online course, it doesn't mean that they are wasting their time, doing nothing. Quite the contrary, they may be reasoning as you have in the following way: 'Well, this teacher's course notes are available. That's all I need. What I got to do is make sure I collect other course notes in the meantime'.
***
Though I understand this attitude, I sort of feel short-changed, for when I make my course notes, readings and assignments available online and on paper, I reason in a different way. Between myself and my soul, I say: 'Let students have the full course from the very beginning. Why should I trickle this course, one lecture a week or something. My students will be better off because they won't have to wait for my next lecture. They can read the whole thing, do the assignments, complete the readings, and further search for additional information to make them ahead of the teacher, and ahead of the game.' If things happen otherwise, it unfortunate but understandable.
***
I think the whole point of e-learning is that learning is not about what the teacher makes available for students, by way of lecture notes or even readings. Lecture notes on any course that you can imagine are now widely and freely available. Just click on MIT open courseware, and you will find an array of courses all free, for all students and people all over the world. Other universities have followed the steps of MIT. In a word, knowledge is available, everywhere. What matters is not only the acquisition of this knowledge, but also, and more importantly the ability for students, teachers, and regular citizens to contribute to this knowledge. Thus, it is not through learning by heart the notes that I have made available for you that I am going to be able to make a difference in my students' lives, but through imparting unto them the message that they too have knowledge, that this knowledge is worthy of being shared and formalized.
***
In order to reach this goal, you as well as I have to understand that the ultimate goal of the schooling enterprise as we know it has changed. Over are the days when the teacher came to school with two or three pages of notes that he/she shared with students and went home, 'happy and content', as we say in Arabic, that the job is done, and that the students have had their dose of knowledge for that day or that lecture. The new goal is now such that learners, young and old, have to do apply a measure of independent learning through seeking knowledge and information from all possible and available sources. This is the first goal. The second will be, henceforth, to work toward producing and authoring knowledge, and as we shall see in a future blog, this is being done, more and more, with online and offline collaboration, working on your own and within a group, to generate new knowledge that is reflective of what you collectively and individually know at this point.
***
Though I understand this attitude, I sort of feel short-changed, for when I make my course notes, readings and assignments available online and on paper, I reason in a different way. Between myself and my soul, I say: 'Let students have the full course from the very beginning. Why should I trickle this course, one lecture a week or something. My students will be better off because they won't have to wait for my next lecture. They can read the whole thing, do the assignments, complete the readings, and further search for additional information to make them ahead of the teacher, and ahead of the game.' If things happen otherwise, it unfortunate but understandable.
***
I think the whole point of e-learning is that learning is not about what the teacher makes available for students, by way of lecture notes or even readings. Lecture notes on any course that you can imagine are now widely and freely available. Just click on MIT open courseware, and you will find an array of courses all free, for all students and people all over the world. Other universities have followed the steps of MIT. In a word, knowledge is available, everywhere. What matters is not only the acquisition of this knowledge, but also, and more importantly the ability for students, teachers, and regular citizens to contribute to this knowledge. Thus, it is not through learning by heart the notes that I have made available for you that I am going to be able to make a difference in my students' lives, but through imparting unto them the message that they too have knowledge, that this knowledge is worthy of being shared and formalized.
***
In order to reach this goal, you as well as I have to understand that the ultimate goal of the schooling enterprise as we know it has changed. Over are the days when the teacher came to school with two or three pages of notes that he/she shared with students and went home, 'happy and content', as we say in Arabic, that the job is done, and that the students have had their dose of knowledge for that day or that lecture. The new goal is now such that learners, young and old, have to do apply a measure of independent learning through seeking knowledge and information from all possible and available sources. This is the first goal. The second will be, henceforth, to work toward producing and authoring knowledge, and as we shall see in a future blog, this is being done, more and more, with online and offline collaboration, working on your own and within a group, to generate new knowledge that is reflective of what you collectively and individually know at this point.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)