relearning learning

If we start with knowledge and accept it’s not something we hold and carry around but something we access contextually we have knowing, not knowledge. We are knowing in different situations, knowing more in some contexts than others. If we expand knowing to learning and school, learning is something we are always doing, school is simply one context where learning occurs. So, teaching is making meaning in specific contexts with certain content. So what happens when we introduce technology to this equation. We clearly have individuals who are technophobic, some event has caused them to look at computers in a very specific, very negative way. How do we get them to look at technology situations, and computer situations as learning situations. The goal of teachers is not to teach and model learning, it’s something we always already do, the goal is to contextualize learning. How do you contextualize computer learning (what are commonly referred to as skills, but since we can’t carry knowledge, we can’t have skills, just ways of accessing knowing in context). How do we teach technophobes to look at computer usage as something like what we already do in everyday life? Are old dogs really less apt to learn new tricks, or are they simply out of practice? If they are out of practice then again, how do teachers demonstrating learning on the computer so students can mimic or scaffold to move away from their technophobia? Essentially, how do we introduce new contexts to the technology content so the learning associations can be rebuilt in a positive way? How do we teach teachers to approach learning in this way?

introduction to my comp paper

Online Composition Courses: Consideration of Space

With an ever increasing number of students enrolling in universities and community colleges, freshmen composition classes have been left with the task of accommodating this increase. Many universities have turned to online and hybrid freshmen composition courses to accommodate the large number of students without an increase in physical classroom space. The increase in these online courses allows for the teaching of a larger number of students without the need for additional classrooms, so in many ways, cost effectiveness is a key concern for universities implementing these courses. Hybrid courses offer similar benefits, since they only require limited classroom space for the limited time they meet face to face. This turn to online courses affects the delivery, pedagogy, as well as the place of the classroom. The following is a review of current literature surrounding the teaching of freshmen composition in hybrid and online environments. By understanding the current state of scholarship we can begin to see the place of online and hybrid courses within English departments, and the places and spaces of the actual classrooms when they are online.

Space and Place

The most significant difference in online and hybrid composition courses is the introduction of the computer for a large portion of the delivery of the course. To situate the current scholarship about online and hybrid composition courses it is helpful to consider the differences in space and place for both the teacher and students. Drawing on Christopher Keller and Christian Weisser’s explanation, “place is often seen as a modification of space; space is devoid of meaning, while place is endowed with meaning by humans, space seems open-ended and undelimited, while place is bounded and structured” (p. 4). It is places that have meaning, based on the use when occupied by people, and spaces that are created by places in use. Dobrin (2007) further expands Yi-Fu Tuan’s ideas of space and place finding that “places are spaces to which meaning and organization have been attached” (p. 15). Places and spaces are always connected, but places have order imposed on them, giving them identity and understanding, comfort. “Place is the temporal instance of observation of a site of ideological struggle and is written by whomever is winning the struggle at that moment” (p. 18). According to Dobrin, place is the site of the ideological struggle as determined by the winner of the struggle, while space is freedom, outside of struggle. Since places are infused with ideological ideas and identity, they are always already structured by both teachers and students and course material. When composition courses are moved from face-to-face interaction, their places are moved with them to the online environment. Traditional classroom spaces have a preconceived place, especially freshmen composition courses. Students come to class expecting to write, learn about writing and grammar. They also expect to interact with the teacher face to face, and with their peers. In online course spaces, the interaction is always mediated, changing the tools available in the space, and how meaning in endowed in the place. This is an important way to think about online courses, and will be revisited throughout the paper.

fashion

One of the big questions of the internet, especially for those who frequent Social Network Sites (like MySpace and Facebook) is “are you human?” One of the ways of understanding this question is through signaling theory, the way we signal to others that we are human, and the specific ways we interact with others in spaces to signal humanness. One of the ways to do this is through fashion, not just fashion of large fashion houses, but the route of fashion as an honest form of signaling group membership. Fashion is a way to show development along the trajectory of a society. It demonstrates social status, high fashion that no ones knows the label of will signal to certain people within the group. A Hello Kitty design will signal to most of society your access within society, your position as knowing Hello Kitty. Within online worlds this is particularly important. We, as humans, are always trying to determine if the asynchronous interaction we’re having is with a human or a machine, and we do that by socially contextualizing the interaction and the person we’re interacting with. If I interact with a person’s MySpace page who has Hello Kitty plastered across their profile background, and they’re number 1 friend is a Hello Kitty fan page, I have a specific idea of who that person is based on their identity signals. If I interact with someone who has PETA plastered across their page, and their number 1 friend is PETA2, I have a very specific idea of the identity of that person, and I know not to show them pictures of my fur coat (assuming I even owned one). Ultimately, it is through fashion, through our signal of social status in an online environment that allows other users to contextualize our humanness, and to present themselves in a friendly manner based on our signal of ourselves. Who knew fashion was such a form of information prowess?? what am i signaling about myself as a blogger, as a blogger on this blog with this photo? what does this signal about my understanding of who reads this blog?

lyrics save the day once again

So this week I’ve been reading about media literacy, which is problematic by itself. Media literacy as a concept assumes there is a skill set that can and needs to be developed (thereby privileging a certain way of being) about media. And, that this skill set will ultimately lead to an increase in civic participation, which is the end goal of most composition studies. So beyond privileging a certain way of being, media literacy as a concept also means there is one type of literacy, one way of reading information, one skill set, not multiple skill sets for different contexts. So, obviously problematic. Different students learn different things, different individuals will be drawn to different contexts. Finally, current media literacy studies are pushing for participatory media consumers, calling them various terms, but ultimately active media consumers.

Our class guest speaker is a journalism professor, who was using this definition to critique contemporary journalists who use an us against them model. So journalists frame issues as two sided, and lay out the two sides. They never leave room in the middle for the middle ground between issues. They never expect issues to be multidimensional.

So, as I was leaving class an Against Me song came on my iPod that was so fitting:
And we rock,
Because it’s us against them.
We found our own reasons to sing,
And it’s so much less confusing
When lines are drawn like that,
When people are either consumers or revolutionaries

So if we look at media literacy from an Against Me standpoint, the alternative to being a consumer is being revolutionary. They are clearly mocking the two sided set up of arguments, and their two groups are especially important for media literacy. With an increase in the number of blogs and web news sources many feel that news is becoming revolutionary, so we need media literacy, or a critical discourse about our news consumption. Other believe media literacy is a critical participation in the news discourse, and in seeking out information and its source for clarification. But, using the Against Me analogy, I feel this is just a way to make metadata less confusing, instead of truly talking about how to develop critical thinking skills about our consumption of information, especially when we actively participate in finding that information.

literacy is problematic

Literacy is a word drenched in political meanings. For most it is a gateway from non-educated social status to a more educated social status with the economic rewards. For others it is a highly contested space where hierarchies are reinforced and certain ways of thinking and being are privileged over other ways of thinking and being. Most notably, the question and response (Homeric) way of learning is privileged within the school system. This is not the same learning style taught to many non-white kids in their homes. That makes schooling difficult. But, when we add technology to the mix, this whole equation becomes even more problematic because we now have issues of access as well as know how.

Recently I read an article that called for increased digital literacy as a way to empower digital users in managing with the copious amounts of information now provided by various sources via the web, including news sources, blogs, and special interest group websites. Rheingold finds that literacies are ways that humans make sense of (transmit and receive) information that helps them understand power and knowledge, and can eventually lead the individual to understand and participate in community. For starters, redefining literacy for the millionth time is problematic to me. There has to be another way to think about these things. Most importantly he calls for increased awareness about the different technologies and the information afforded in different spaces, and the communities that evolve in those spaces. He finds that literacy is the link between technology and sociality. What I wonder is if we really need another call for increased literacy. If we as humans are being expressing sociality in these spaces, we will probably flock to spaces of groups with interests similar to ours so the time between finding the community and being able to participate in the Discourse is small. As we find that community we will probably be exposed to various media that are new to us, and we’ll learn how to use them to remain a current participant in that community, or we’ll find a new one to join. But, we’re not hyper-aware of the literacies we’re developing. In Gee’s terms we’re acquiring Discourses instead of learning Discourses. So, when we call for increased attention to, focus on, and specific teaching of digital literacies (which presumably are held by the teacher transmitting the knowledge) are we really helping more people participate, or are we simply drawing attention to what we as researchers are studying? Am i validating what i do by teaching it to my students, or am i actually helping them acquire the skills they need to participate in democracy in the new shape it has taken online?

fanfic

So I recently discovered fanfiction. I read a book, originally published in 1855. I didn’t think the ending was enough, I wanted more, we’d been talking about fanfiction in my class so I googled book title fanfic. Because of course, in the ‘scene’ its fanfic not fanfiction. Fanfiction.net is amazing. The amount of time spent reading and thinking about the characters to try to write an accurate depiction. Some of the brutal honesty when the depiction is not accurate in the comments, it’s all astounding. This is what some people do for fun, and they enjoy it. While I, lurk. So, the moral of my story is, if you ever thought a story didn’t go far enough, check out fanfiction.net. Make sure to check the rating, some stories are rather graphic. Some pair characters in unexpected ways, some just tell the story of barely seen characters. It’s a great way to continue a book, and think about what you would do next with the characters.

Critical pedagogy

So I’ve been reading about critical pedagogy for a class. For the most part critical pedagogy encourages students to challenge domination, and creates assignments that allow students to build critical consciousness. Of course some professors implementing this type of teaching pedagogy are not critically aware of their position, and what they’re pushing students to do by selecting the overarching theory they believe will create critical pedagogues. What is especially troubling is examples of use of critical pedagogy are most often from urban schools where teachers encourage and privilege the use of hip hop and poetry slams to expose students to the use of their own voice. Reaching out to a student through a communication method they’re familiar with is useful, but at what point is teaching teachers to reach out in this way just another way dominant culture is co-opting expression on the margins?