It's Deja Vu All Over Again
Thursday, September 11, 2003
We, Change, and Reproduction of the System
Like Colin, I have been thinking about this “we� thing. Selfe clearly indicates that this critical technological literacy “campaign� or whatever you call it needs concerted efforts from all parties. Actually she discusses “the individual and collective arts of paying attention� (p.146). I do think, however, she really wanted to emphasize the “collective�.
Later she states: “If teachers pay attention to technology and literacy problems on a local level, they can collectively work to construct a larger vision of these issues at a professional level� (p.147).
So it seems everything here boils down to teacher education and “our� concerted efforts for change, but earlier she said the system reproduces itself (p.113).
My question is: even if we “pay attention,� will the whole system still reproduce itself?� Can we really make changes? Just wondering. --Lu
Carbons to Computers: Typewriters
Just a little link to a history of typewriters and other business machines and spaces...another thing to think about.
I think Alexis brought up a good point about defining education (can we work on a working definition of education today, Samantha?) and our objectives as educators. Applying what she said to the specific context of using the computer technology in the composition classroom, I think we should ask ourselves first what's the purpose of using for example a particular piece of software or a certain kind of technology, what is it that we are hoping to achieve when we use that software in a particular way, and what criteria of evluation we can use that will help us find out to what extent we have succeeded and where we have failed and why. When I am typing these questions, I am thinking about the 102 class I taught in a computer lab in the spring. We built a class blog to keep the discussion going outside of the classroom, much llike what we are doing for this class. In the second week, shortly after I emailed everybody an invitation, I had my students each post a response to a personal essay we were reading for that week. We were talking about the use of humor in writing about a "serious" subject, and that essay which talked about the author's experience of losing beloved family members seemed to serve that purpose well. So basically, I asked everybody to pick out a particular line or paragraph from the essay that made him laugh and I asked them the question, what's funny about it? as a reader, do you think you will tend not to take the autor's story and his reflection on it seriously because of the comic tone of the essay overall? And on Mon. after everybody has posted, (I gave the assignment on Fri), I had each student respond to a post by another student in the class. That session seemed to work well. And the rationale behind this blog assignment is that each student will get a chance to pick out his or her favorite line or paragraph and talk about it,that way, we can gather as many contextualized examples as possible about the use of humor as a rhetorical device in that particular essay. Then on Wes, we talked about our experiences posting on a class blog, which many students hadn't done before. From what I heard, it seemed that the blog worked well for most of my students, and although they were required to respond to only one post of another student, many of them actually formed sub communities and maintained a dialogue around the essay for several weeks. But what bothered me later was that unless I assign a theme like I did the first time, my students seldom initiate a conversation, even those who brought up "burning" concerns in class and due to time constraints, didn't get their concerns addressed, would just "let it go" instead of using the blog as an opportunity for extended conversations. That makes me wonder, why did my blog become a sort of one-hit wonder? Was it because the way I set it up gave them the impression that the blog was supposed to be used for a particular assignment and if nothing is assigned, there is no need to post? Besides that particular assignment about the use of humore, what was my overall objective regarding the use of a class blog? Did I even have an overall objective to begin with or did I simply jump on the bandwagon? Now, looking back on my success at my class blog in the second week and failure after, I couldn't help asking myself, if I had pondered over these questions about objectives (as Alexis would suggest), what would and could I have done differently? and, what would and could my students done differently?
Jingfang
questioning we
"And if we could invent a technology that would ease or alleviate the disparity between the quality of education of poor and middle-class students, I’m sure we would gladly spend millions of dollars getting this technology installed into every schoolroom in the country."--Meg.H
I'm not sure "we" would (spend money on, even if we could find a, "sure thing"). Selfe's overarching concern is with how a technology-rich culture does not automatically translate into a literacy-rich democratic (equivalenced?) world (and i'm using "rich" here with a purpose). What Selfe points to for me in her mapping is that the cultural dynamics that define a technology-literacy-disempowering matrix are so hard to unpack, so wrapped up in a nebulous (or possibly), empty/floating idea of democracy (as an always already good teleology). She, in the end, wants what cultural studies gurus wanted when examining culture was "bleeding edge" composition pedagogy: "helping [teachers] [and in turn students] to understand and be able to assess the social,economic, and pedagogical implications of new communication technologies and the technological initiatives that directly and indirectly affect their lives" (152).
I need to further unpack how Selfe's democratizing goals are not something we can just plug-and-play. But i'll have to do that in a bit...
I liked Selfe’s call for critical technological literacy and her calling us to pay attention to the technology-law link. Because of the belief in technology-profess link, people who are not familiar with new technologies or are resistant to certain technologies almost feel guilty (at least I do). I welcome the idea of “paying attention” instead of readily embracing all forms of new technology.
Reading Selfe also reminds me a lot of Baudrillard (the TV is watching us): “Even worse, Heidegger points our, when we fall into the habit of ordering the world’s resources into a standing reserve at our personal disposal, without realizing that we can even come ‘to the very brink’ of seeing other humans as part of this standing reserve, as objects to be put to the service of technology’ (27). In this sense, we fail to understand ourselves as ‘the one spoken to’ (27) by our limited understanding of technology and our relationship to it” (p.142).
Selfe also echoes with Winner in her calling for the merging perspectives of people in the humanities and sciences (p.145).
I guess these kind of answer my earlier question about who decides there is the need for upgrading. My answer is: we, the users, have every right to decide whether is the need. Critical technological literacy will help us to become informed decision-makers. --Lu
Has it occurred to Selfe that there is more to educating people to partipate in democracy than insuring that they will be capable of getting 21st century, high-paying technology jobs?
I found Selfe’s chapter on education particularly disappointing, mostly because it seems to be a continuation of her former chapter on the role of the government. It cannot be stressed too much that must American schools are run by the government—funded by government money (either through direct contribution or the distribution of taxes), run by elected school board officials, and standardized according to lists of standards that have been developed according to educators who have long since found themselves work outside the K-12 classroom.
And if we could invent a technology that would ease or alleviate the disparity between the quality of education of poor and middle-class students, I’m sure we would gladly spend millions of dollars getting this technology installed into every schoolroom in the country. Before computers, it was newer textbooks, better quality supplies, safer buildings that advantaged middle and upper class kids. Moreover, middle and upper class students are probably more likely to have adults in their lives who have successfully navigated the game of school themselves.
So, Clinton and GW Bush and Cindy Selfe, hit us with your best shot. Because I’d really like to see a bigger list of standards, more costly machines, and a group of academics “paying attention” make a better life for some poor kids.
Good Morning,
Since we spent class time on Tuesday trying to define technology, I think we also need to define what we mean by education? What expectations do we have as teachers, mentors? First we need to know what are our objectives are as teachers, and then relate those ojectives to technology. Or perhaps technology and our objectives go hand in hand. Whichever the case, I think we need to first understand ourselves as teachers, and then as technology teachers or teachers using technology.
Lex
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
PAY ATTENTION
First thought:
How does is definition of technology (mis)construed by administrators to feed the (mis)conception that technology based work is indeed easy? Who benefits from this? At the cost of whom? How does this play into the notion of invisible labor?
Want to think about how this will become more and more important to you as budding digital rhetors? Click here.
Second thought:
If the purpose of distance education is to make an education available to those who might not otherwise have access to the university (mothers, people employeed during the day, people in remote areas, people unable to pay for commuter or residential schools) what does it mean that the hardware and software requirements for a school like Ivy Tech (per 3 different course syllabi currently being used in their distance ed. courses) are dictated by the recommended requirements of Microsoft Windows XP Professional on a personal computer with a Pentium III processor and 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM and some Office XP features have additional requirements?
Re: question on “other countries” posted by Alexis
I think it would be interesting to respond to Alexis. Here is the part I want to quote: “I have a few questions about Selfe. Her book has a very Americentric viewpoint, and I wonder, what role is technology playing in other countries? Are other countries also struggling with the role of technology in the educational setting and what that means for literacy in the 21st century?”
As a Chinese, I know that the Chinese have mixed feelings about utilizing technology in literacy education (the second definition of technological literacy in Selfe’s book). Chinese kids used to learn to write the Chinese characters stroke by stroke with paper and pen. Traditionally this process or literacy education is considered good because it “instill virtues” such as hard work, self-discipline. It also trains them to memorize difficult stuff (the characters). Furthermore, I believe the ideographic system of Chinese characters somehow shape how the Chinese think. But with computers, kids now input characters by using Pin Yin (a system composed of Roman letters and tones used to help the Chinese remember the pronunciation of characters) instead of the characters per se. Because computers can prevent Chinese kids from memorizing and writing the strokes of Chinese characters, some Chinese educators warn against a new kind of illiteracy, i.e., kids who grow up writing on computers in Chinese may not be able to actually “write manually” the strokes at all. Because of this, they argue that the Chinese might be losing part of their cultural legacy. Other scholars argue that the characters are like Greek and should be reserved for scholars only in the days to come. Computers may actually facilitate language reform and change literacy education profoundly in China. --Lu
Question: Who decides that there is a need for upgrades and who benefits most?
We talked about the pace for upgrades etc., but I really wanted to ask the question: Who decides that there is a NEED for each upgrade? Do we have to have these upgrades to make things better? Do these upgrades really improve our lives or are they only one of the musts for a consumer society? The new versions cry out to us: “BUY me and keep up with new technology!” As I mentioned earlier, as we use new software, we will need new hardware, blah blah blah. New jobs are then created.
My husband did his internship in Hong Kong this year, working for one of the largest banks in the world, HSBC (Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation). He said they are still using Win98 there. When he came back to Purdue, he was so impressed with the upgraded technologies at Purdue. Keeping up with the Joneses, yeah. Is that universal across cultures? HSBC is a British bank and they use Win98 and are doing well. Maybe the upgrades are necessary for Purdue because we are an engineering school? What is the attitude towards upgrades in other contexts in the US?
I just cannot help wondering who decides that there is a need for upgrades and who benefits most from the endless consumption and “Planned Obsolescence.”
Is tech literacy, then, just another pharmakon? Not that tech.lit is necessarily directly related to negative effects on literacy as a whole, but that it is exclusionary. Selfe discusses the social exclusion of low income and minority students. It seems to me that the exclusion of these students is precisely what Clinton and Gore were trying to prevent by instituting NII, but what happened between policy and practice? The poison is not just that tech.lit is exclusionary, but that is a danger to the stability of education and teaching (not all teachers are tech literate either).
Does technological literacy not include “real” literacy? How could we use technology in the classroom in the first place when so many students still do not have basic literacy skills. Is technology supposed to replace reading and writing instruction? Is that where the cure of the pharmakon comes in? Computers are supposed to save our nation from illiteracy?
Ok, too many questions. Basically, my concern is similar to Selfe’s. I want to know what my responsibility is as a teacher and citizen, what other people’s responsibility is (including government and “big business”) and what we must all do to ensure the tech.lit success of all students. It takes the whole village, and I am not sure our village is prepared.
So, like Jennie said that we academics must do, I ask – what now?
Reading Langdon Winner
Winner and the Ancients
Foremost among their concerns is the belief that technical affairs constitute an inferior realm of objects, knowledge, and practice, one that threatens to infect all who aspire to higher things. (67)
Winner argues that the big three of ancient philosophical rhetoric (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) believed that practical arts, while producing innovation, are detrimental to the development of humanity. Of course, I cannot argue that Plato (and, ostensibly, Socrates) did not believe that, say, writing as a technology was detrimental to human memory--he did. Furthermore, I realize that Aristotle believed that there was work fit only for "slaves and barbarians." (an interesting extention of this is the short story "Aristotle and the Gun," which I can post if you want me to, in which Aristotle becomes convinced that science is not work fit for Greeks, only for slaves and barbarians.) Furthermore, I suppose that it is telling that even medicine was, in the Hellenistic world, work for slaves, and most practical arts were reserved for non-citizens, work like this being beneath the citizen and the upper classes.
All of this said, however, I'm wondering about the idea that rhetoric is (for Aristotle) a techne. For Aristotle, rhetoric is the art (techne)of persuasion usign all available means. Plato, of course, is rather ambivalent about rhetoric, and might throw it in with all of the other "arts and crafts"--except as it serves philosophy.
To be continued...
I might be reiterating someone else’s post, please forgive me. I’m not sure I have time this morning to read through everyone.
I had some problems while reading Selfe with the notion that “we” in the academy can impose our standards for literacy or our opinions of what is happening in the world of the unseen, unheard, faceless poor people on this group of people that we never really access or talk to. Maybe I am not familiar with enough of the literature to make this type of a statement, but I am bothered by the lack of communication with this group that we want to talk about. This isn’t just happening within the academy, but within government and the public in general. No sh*t the digital divide continues to grow and technology remains a major barrier. The higher ups are making the rules, dolling out the money, and imposing their standards. If I was a poor black kid I would resist computers just to resist that dumb old white guy who is making the rules (now, we have established that I am not a poor black kid, but an upper-middle class white female with an excellent education and therefore, I have the vocabulary, access to technology, and power to make these statements).
What I am getting at is that I think technology is great, but perhaps everyone is going about “imposing” it on a culture we (academy, government) are not capable of, or in reality are not comfortable with, understanding. Does anyone bother to ask the teachers (and Samantha can help me out with this one) what they think will help their students? Samantha talked about the Detroit school system and how they gave all of their teachers laptops. Wouldn’t it have made better sense to start by asking who wanted one, who was willing to learn how to integrate technology, and then to spend the money educating those teachers, and then perhaps the technology would have spread. Instead everyone throws their computers in the closet. The money was not allocated in a productive way and there was no communication between the administration and the teachers. I bet the administration went home to their houses in Troy and Rochester Hills at the end of the day and the whole blunder just proved to them what they already thought. Sorry I am getting cynical.
That’s it for now. Just like I’m not big on theory that doesn’t work, I am not big on academics and administrators painting pictures and enacting change without asking what is needed.
Monday, September 08, 2003
I blazed through Selfe today--and I guess my basic and really disheartening reaction to it was both "duh" and "absolutely." The "duh" was more directed at myself--it's amazingly easy to ignore issues of access when I've got my PocketPC on my lap, my cellphone in my pocket *ring* and a laptop on my office desk in front of me. Then of course there's my machinery at home...access feeds itself. Access blinds the user (me) to the fact that others are denied access...
Except, of course, when I'm facing a situation like tomorrow's (which is why I won't be terrorizing the class for one afternoon): I'm going to teach a workshop on digital writing and digital portfolio construction at my small liberal-arts alma mater, Millikin University. At least at the time I was there, there were only three computer labs on campus...as I was envisioning what I would do with these students, I suddenly realized that the many insitutional-access niceties we enjoy at Purdue (big projectors in every instructional lab, coordinated accounts, wireless networking) are simply not as developed at other institutions. God knows what kind of hell I'll face when I have to leave Purdue and teach somewhere else--who knows if I'll even be able to use my PocketPC to check email on that new campus?
One argument that I have yet to encounter in Selfe (though maybe it's there, later in the book) is that computers, networked computers, are analogous to those corny leadership conference-style truisms, e.g., "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link." Talk 'till you're blue in the face about the democratizing powers of technology, but the fact remains that substandard or non-existant technology diminishes the overall power and effect of what even high-end users do. E.g. when I send a picture I've shot with my digital camera to my aunt, who still runs her monitor at 640 x 480 pixels...
So again we see the reestablishment of the old social hierarchies and prejudices that Selfe is investigating--high-end users developing and exchanging with other high-end users: a digital power-elite.
One final, depressing thought before I leave (and I think it's related to Alexis' question of the Americentric nature of Selfe's inquiry--which is of course forgiveable in that Selfe is concerned in her monograph with the state of American Policy and technoliteracy)...with every year that passes, the digital divide is exacerbated. Even if we could take every penny of the $76 billion that ol' G.W. is requesting for continuing his little war and instead invest it for computer equipment, brand-new computer equipment mind you, for the poorest schools in the country--and maintain that technology for the foreseeable future with upgrades, etc.--the divide will still remain. For WASPy SOBs like myself, technology has become an invisible and indespensible part of the culture in which I live...the situation with technology access is quickly taking on the character of Burke's parlour--the conversation goes on and on, and no one has the time to explain to newcomers just what the hell is happening...there was a point to all of that, but now I'm just frustrated and depressed. More soon.
I too, found myself deleting an entire post, a la Colin. My earlier post was looking at the divides that play prominent roles in our readings-Feeberg's divide between ancient and modern ideas about technology and arts, and Selfe's divided between technology as boon or bane . I wasn't sure what to do with that observance, other than note that when speaking of technology, it appears easiest to first describe technology in relation to some polemic and then discuss how that dichotomy does not do justice to the "real" role of technology within our 21st century lives. Perhaps, to bring a little Baudrillard into the mix, this is what he means when he notes that we speak of oneself through denial (19). Technology moves forward so rapidly, that the best way to get a handle on it, is not to understand programs, per se, but to understand what it can offer, what it cannot offer, how we can adapt to it and how it can adapt to us. I see Selfe continually pointing to the realization that we cannot think of technology on in black and white or only in pragmatic terms because that is too confining and too easy to overthrow. We need to understand technology in abstract terms. (I am not sure where I am going with this, and who knows if it makes any sense, just throwing the idea out there).
I have a few questions about Selfe. Her book has a very Americentric viewpoint, and I wonder, what role is technology playing in other countries? Are other countries also struggling with the role of technology in the educational setting and what that means for literacy in the 21st century? Also, in terms of the literacy project Selfe uses as her case study, I kept thinking about poorer school districts. I wonder is it better for these financially strapped districts to cut back on other programs (or teacher salaries) to fund technological advancements?
Also, Selfe continually notes that we, teachers, humanists, educators of all kinds, need to turn a critical eye towards technology. But from the perspective of a teacher, one with a decent handle on technology, it is difficult to feel mastery or even a level of competence with technology. And I think that such ability or non-ability can translate into an unease or reluctance to name ourselves expert enough to teach students about technology, let alone offer critical perspectives on it. Again, there is a divide between those who know and those who don't. I can see Selfe's point though, calling for people like me, who are kind of in the middle to theorize technology, someone who doesn't feel too much alligience to any one side (boon or bane). Again, not sure where I am going with this, just some thoughts that came to me while reading.
Have a good night, Lex
Per an earlier email exchange with Jennie B. here's a link to Langdon Winner's testimony to the Committee on Science of the U.S. House of Representatives on The Societal Implications of Nanotechnology.
He writes:
"What factors influence the successful adoption of new technologies into society? What questions should be asked during the research and development phase to help minimize the potentially disruptive impact of transformational technology developments?"
Nanotechnology is an emerging technology with enormous potential to alter our way of life in decades ahead. It is by no means the first emerging technology to generate sweeping changes in society and the environment, nor will it be the last.
check it out
From the OED Online which does still seem to be available to Purdue Subscribers if you are on a machine on campus or on a VPN from home.
Jerrybuilt:
Built unsubstantially of bad materials; built to sell but not to last. Also fig.
1869 Lonsdale Gloss., Jerry-built, slightly, or unsubstantially built. 1875 RUSKIN Fors Clav. V. 263 Rows of jerry-built cottages are creeping up. 1900 G. C. BRODRICK Mem. & Impr. 316 It would soon be overspread by vulgar jerry-built villas. 1901 Daily Chron. 13 Aug. 3/2 In an age of jerry-built books it is refreshing to come across a volume that has taken forty years to compile. 1903 Ibid. 20 Feb. 3/2 Fiction, he said, was now jerry-built. 1933 J. BAILLIE And Life Everlasting (1934) i. 15 That great cataclysm undoubtedly came as a rude shock to many jerry-built philosophies of life.
[Origin not ascertained.
That jerry-builder and jerry-built originated in some way from the name Jerry is probable; but the statement made in a letter to the newspapers in Jan. 1884, that they commemorate the name of a building firm on the Mersey, has on investigation not been confirmed. The earliest example yet found is that of jerry-built 1869.]
Jerrybuilt
After some quick checking (not with the OED, since we here at Purdue don't believe in that anymore, but with the The American Heritage Dictionary with less exhaustive, but usually as accurate etymologies), here's what I have learned:
Jerry-build (still usually hyphenated) means shoddily constructed, and there seems to be an element of the swindle here. The best etymology the AHD can come up with was that some 19th century builder in England was named, well, Jerry, and associating his name with his poor quality work became the thing to do.
Jerry-rig, though, is an admixture of jerry-build and jury-rig (a nautical term meaning assembled in an ad-hoc, emergency situation, with 'jury' coming from either injury or the Old French ajourie, not the legal sense of jury at all--in other words, fixing one's broken ship at sea using whatever was available).
So, it seems that Jerrybuild did not originally contain an ethnic slur, though it's (almost) certain that it took on that meaning during WWII.
Sunday, September 07, 2003
I am extremely bothered by Feenberg's use of the term "jerry-built" on coursepack page 22, second paragraph, in sentence "produce jerrybuilt policies." I've been unable to locate the history of this word - other than an 1885 origin. I know that "Jerry" was a negative slang term for Germans, but I'm not sure if these two are connected. Can anyone with OED access help me out.
Bender
More thoughs on Baudrillard
here's an article from the Journal of Popular Culture. It uses Baudrillard and The Simpsons to talk about pomo identity formation. Click here for the article. The password is: simulation.
