Artichoke

The truthiness of Te Kotahitanga and “Haven’t got a clue syndrome” in Art Galleries

An independent audit of the Te Kotahitanga project -  - "a research initiative commissioned in 2000 by the Ministry of Education under Te Tere Auraki and developed by the Māori Education Research Institute, School of Education, University of Waikato, and Poutama Pounamu Research and Development Centre" - is damning.

The “initiative developed to improve teaching strategies and the effectiveness of teachers to increase the engagement and academic achievement of Māori students within mainstream secondary schools” is exposed as having fundamental flaws in the data collection and in the project’s underlying assumptions which casts doubt on the truthiness of everything we have been reading valorising the projects design and outcomes in the Education Gazette and Te Mana Kōrero:

Nothing but positive spin offs for Tony (PDF, 180kb)
Project a "win-win" for teachers and students (PDF, 249kb)

The questions I’d like to ask are

How could a school of education at a New Zealand University design a research programme that fails to address such simple measures of reliability and validity in research design?

How could the Ministry of Education fail to pick up these research design flaws that have encouraged the conflation of opinion with fact for seven years?

Perhaps the answer lies in the areas of concern (p6) with respect to tertiary research in New Zealand identified by Adrienne Alton Lees in Iterative Best Evidence Synthesis:Strengthening Research, Policy and Practice Links to Improve Outcomes 4th Annual Policy Conference: Policy Evolution 29 March, 2006

Despite this optimism for the future, the need for R & D to improve practice for diverse learners is pressing, and there are areas of concern. These are:

• the uneven distribution of the excellent researchers across tertiary institutions;

• much of the quality research may not be oriented towards R & D (only a proportion of the available quality research focuses on improving educational practice which is small subset of the wide-ranging interests of academics in education);

• the relatively low prevalence of quality research in some teacher education institutions,

• research quality in New Zealand education was assessed as lowest in teacher education, e-learning and curriculum (with the exception of mathematics and science); and

• undermined social capital in the form of networks and relationships fostering trust and reciprocity in New Zealand educational research was identified as a national weakness in the OECD Review (2001)16.

Perhaps the answer is in our predilection for dogma and myth in educational initiative in education in New Zealand – elaborated upon in an opinion piece from Dr John Langley, Dean of Education at Auckland University,  in the New Zealand Herald 

"Recent headlines about the effectiveness of Te Kotahitanga highlight this country's failure to realise that successful initiatives in education must be founded on robust evidence and research. For many decades educational practice has been based on dogma, opinion and political agendas, ideas that add up to nothing more than empty slogans and pop psychology."

Or perhaps it is something darker

When I read about the lack of credibility in the claims made for the Te Kotahitanga project research initiatives it reminds me of other flawed initiatives designed to address disparate outcomes in education.

Like for example the ECE PPP project  – in my darkest moments these kind of revelations in the media make me suspect there is a deliberate strategy in place.  A strategy to ensure that MoE funded disparity interventions make not a jot of difference for those who need them most.  And that this strategy is condoned and supported by those who Omar Hamed  would undoubtedly describe as the guards of the system - parents of the "rich, white and privileged - the sons and daughters of the guards of the system" - those drawing academic salaries for their “expertise’ whilst all the while clad in Taleb’s “empty suits” who do and say nothing to challenge these initiatives. 

It would seem that the strategies we use in education to improve student learning outcomes for diverse learners are not that dissimilar from the strategies used by gallery owners to increase the price paid for works of art by gallery visitors. R Genn "Price floors and ceiling" October 26 2007 

We have the “Collapsing Floor Syndrome” – the intervention that introduces a whole load of cheaper items/ easier learning outcomes into the gallery/ education system.

“...One of my former dealers--no longer in the business noticed that a very high percentage of gallery visitors just came in and went out. Painting sales were so infrequent he had to do something about it. Thinking price was the problem, he introduced a lot of cheaper items into the gallery--ceramics, souvenirs, knick knacks.

The "Sky-High Ceiling Syndrome." – the intervention that introduces "name" and "dead" artists as well as "investment" art or scholarships for high achieving students from diverse backgrounds into the gallery/ private school education system.

This generally involves dealers may even compete with one another to see who can get the highest prices. Supply and demand play a part in this environment, but it has to be said it's good for living artists to be associated with the high-end artists. Simply stated, this implies that someday your work will also be worth more. The downside for artists who work with high-end galleries is that a gallery may lose interest in the promotion of less expensive work.

And finally the "Haven't Got a Clue Syndrome." – the intervention that introduces a range of prices in a given gallery/ learning outcomes to suit all wallets/ education systems .

This generally implies that clients come into galleries with an idea of how much they want to spend, and it's the gallery's job to show them something in their chosen range. The variation in gallery capability in this matter is astonishing. Just as some artists have no business selling their stuff, some galleries show little or no natural talent as to how art placement works.

The telling observation is that “Some galleries show little or no natural talent as to how art placement works.”  And these galleries/ educational institutions will never improve learning outcomes for diverse learners (despite claiming "pedagogies of personalisation") when “best practice” is more “myth and dogma” than reliable and valid research   

Personalisation: learning outcomes with representation.

I was attracted to register for The Education Leaders Forum07  by the conversational promise of a mere 100 participants “representing early childhood education researchers, primary principals, intermediate principals, secondary school principals, the Minister of Education and Ministry of Education representatives, senior people from Polytechnics, Universities, National Library, The Royal Society, representatives from ITOs, NZTE, NZIM, educational new media companies, PTEs, corporate Learning & Development people, the Department of Labour”.

On the 50 minute drive from Christchurch airport through Yaldhurst, West Melton, Hororata, and the aptly named Windwhistle to Terrace Downs I lurched between hoping I might experience a Sidorkinian interhuman moment with a provocative mind as promised by the "Insights often arise at the boundary between communities" Wenger bit on the conference webpage and fearing that I was on my way to yet another expensive groupthink junkfest of tired edu_slogans and soundbytes cynically passed off as future framed dialogue.  And as is so often the case in the age of fast pedagogy I had to cram all my hopes and fears into the first day –prior commitments meant I’d be working in Invercargill with the Magnet on day two. 

Sidorkin’s analysis that “we have to band together in a rigid group in order to cooperate in coping with the challenge” of surviving a social event proved to be insightful in the context of the “jolly rumple”, the “over earnestness” the “determination”, the “alternative” and the “disgruntlement” groups present at the Forum on day one.  The dislocation afforded by my outsider status allowed me to escape the expectations of any group and to nudge up against a number of fascinating individual minds, whilst all the time observing the groups as carefully as any cultural anthropologist.

I can report that on Day 1 the “jolly rumple” of women from The Royal Society brought a collective optimism to the breakfast muesli and sliced peaches conversation unmatched by that occurring at any other table whilst in a similar but different way the “over earnestness” of National Library librarians (hell bent on distancing themselves from imagined charges of luddism), developed such a group sincerity in water fuelled conversation over dinner that it drove those adjacent to adopt desperate third drink dialogue survival strategies.

The “determination” of tech_marketers charged with teaching the audience how to use Interwrite Cricket Clicker RF based simple response feedback devices (when simply raising your hand would have given conference delegates the same learning outcomes) is best not reported on. Suffice to say the time allowed for this exercise suggests that technological determinism rules OK in future focused forums on educational leadership.   

The “alternative” of limited liability adolescents revealed their cynicism for the critical acumen and experience of the edu_audience present at the Forum by hyping up the “we are participating at the cutting edge in real world projects” value of uploading what appeared to be an unevenly edited dance video onto YouTube.  I wish that close viewing of the site by the (e familiar) educators at my table had not revealed an embarrassingly scant 1000+ views and only two comments - we were there.... cant wait 4 da next 1 and Looks fun, ps thanks for the comment in the vid to silvezstudio!

The group that interested me the most were the “disgruntlement” of representatives from ITO’s, NZTE, NZIM, PTEs, corporate Learning and Development people who, fed up at the prominence given to school presentations on day 1, challenged the primary and secondary educators present with embarrassing “What are you doing to so damage school leavers skills in numeracy, literacy and time management? and “Why if they go into school brimming with curiosity at five are they dead eyed about learning when you hand them over to us?” type questions.    

The conversation from the tertiary sector group (railing against the costs of training school leavers who are increasingly arriving in the workforce without basic skills in numeracy, literacy, or time management) led me to wonder if educators in the primary and secondary sector differ in how they talk about their jobs (training versus learning) because of the differing student choice and time frames available to the learners they work with. 

Primary and secondary school learners do not have the same freedom of choice when it comes to course options, teacher selection, or even attendance that tertiary learners do.  Which means primary and secondary teachers work with a captive audience – and because the audience is captive and without any authentic critical voice, (apart from www.ratemyteachers.com), teacher performance (good bad or indifferent)  lacks any real consequence. If we avoid gross moral turpitude, we can wallow in the shallows of eduspeak with similar class sizes and little fear of job loss for years and years and years. Tertiary educators do not appear to have that luxury, it seems they have to deliver quantifiable outcomes in tight time frames, else the students vote with their feet.   

I will acknowledge that tertiary students may exercise greater choice in learning but bear the consequence of poor decisions in a much more immediate and financially savage way than secondary and primary students.  Education is ostensibly free for secondary and primary students in NZ State schools - the consequence of their learning outcomes are years away.

I have been made anxious about attributing cause ever since reading Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan   but I reckon the absence of consequence for the adults working in school explains why we are not very practised in giving students choice in primary and secondary schools – not good at providing environments that encourage decision making – we simply don’t have to bother.  We pretend to offer choice yet if we audited our current pedagogy for choice  -  “inquiry learning” - in terms of student learning outcomes it would most likely be revealed as an affectation, an act designed to camouflage. And if the kids had to put the money upfront and could vote with their feet, as they do in tertiary, many of us would be run out of town like commessi  dell'olio del serpent. 

It worries me that in primary and secondary schools we continue to understand personalisation  through “Institutional Provision and Procedure” initiatives like AssTle rather than “Production, reception and relationships being supported by the system but determined by the user” like for example SOLO coded student self assessment rubrics.

When will we share with the learner/user the criteria to enable them to determine their own needs and identify and access the interventions that will make real shift in their learning? 

As educators who lack real consequence in the day job we are fluent in the rhetoric that denies the learner a voice - skilled at exercising the tyranny of institutional control and pretending otherwise.  Which is why I am enjoying viewing the contributions to The Edge "WHAT IS YOUR FORMULA? YOUR EQUATION? YOUR ALGORITHM?"

Drew Endy’s - Evolution equals Tyranny formula -  encouraged me to think again about the process of evolution and my tendency to “just because we could, should we?” thinking with respect to transgenic organisms. 

Evolution equals Tyranny
(mutation without representation)
ATCG ....0101.... ATCG
Sequence                    Synthesise
Sufficiently mature DNA sequencing and synthesis technology will allow us to decouple the designs of life from the constraints of direct descent and replication with error.

Endy’s formula is provocative.  Interfering in natural process seems so much a part of how we understand ourselves in the 21st Century that his formula made me wonder why we have allowed “evolution” such a different framing from other natural processes like those of famine and disease. I wanted to ask ... 

When is human interference with a natural process hailed as freedom, and when is human interference with a natural process framed as tyranny?  

I used this formula to provoke new ideas about the natural process of learning – “the constraints of direct descent and replication with error” seemed such a good description for much of the learning that goes on in school.    If evolution is tyranny because mutation occurs without representation, then perhaps we can argue that learning is tyranny when “institutional provision and procedure” means learning outcomes occur without representation.  If evolution escapes charges of tyranny when it can be decoupled from “the constraints of direct descent and replication with error”, then perhaps we must struggle to uncouple learning from the constraints of the past and replication with error – that results from institutional provision and procedure

Perhaps schooling will escape charges of tyranny when “representation” is defined as individuals having the “choice” to determine their own learning in a process that ensures them access to teachers who have the ability to scaffold chosen learning at an appropriate level of challenge ( a significant proviso given our predilection to default to minimally guided instruction when faced with calls for student choice in schools). 

Edu_conferences: Just looking for an excuse to be together

To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
To be yourself is all that you can do
Audioslave Be Yourself

I love the comments on the Bogong Moth post from Roberto, Lucychili, Josie, Ailsa and Stephen.  They have helped me unpack and clarify the “flocking sentiment” of edu_bloggers attending conferences" better than defaulting to any Oscar Wilde quote could. 

"Most people are other people.
Their thoughts are someone else's opinions,
Their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." Oscar Wilde

Stephen’s "networks and groups "comments saw me deliciously distracted - imagining ways in which I might enhance the conditions of value for interaction rather than experience – the “Back Propagation and Boltzmann associationism” in my life.  And if it does not present an impossible internal contradiction, imagining how we might enhance conditions for Back Propagation and Boltzmann associationism in the dialogic design of our classroom, staffroom and conference interactions.

“1. Hebbian associationism. People are connected by common interests. Affinity groups, religions, communities of practice - these are all examples of similarity-based association.
2. Accidental, or proximity-based, associationism. People who are proximate are connected. You may have nothing to do with your neightbour, but you're connected. The mind associates cause and effect because one follows the other (Hume). Retinal cells that are beside each other become associated through common connections.
3. Back-propagation. Existing structures of association are modified through feedback. Complain about the 'me too' posts, for example, and they decline in number. Adversity creates connections.
4. Boltzmann Associationism. Connections are created which reflect the most naturally stable configuration. The way ripples in a pond smooth out. This is how opposites can attract - they are most comfortable with each other. Or, people making alliances of convenience.

Two of these forms are qualitative. They are based on direct experience. They are not critical or evaluative. They tend to lead to groups.

The other two - Back Propagation and Boltzmann associationism - are reflective. They are created through a process of interaction, and not simply through experience. They are critical or evaluative. They tend to lead to networks.” Stephen Downes

I was particularly taken by the idea of connecting for stability – it explained the attraction I have for people whose ideas I reject,– I love to be undermined, to be made uncertain and actively seek individuals who can challenge the ideas I hold most dear.   Deep friendships result from adversarial difference and respect.

And then I read Teemu’s post - Do not localise make your own - and I sensed another  perspective, another connection on the reasons for my initial disappointment.  Teemu, in response to David Wiley’s “Few Framing Thoughts – About Localization and Learning” in the Open Education 2007 conference,  challenged the assertion “that content is educational infrastructure and for this reason localizing open educational resources is important when we try to expand global access to education.”  He argued that “Content is infrastructure only when it is made locally. The key is not localizing some existing content but doing unique local content. “

Teemu helped me see that edu bloggers posting on conferences are too often simply “localising existing content” rather than making links from the conference to "unique local content". And as such cannot be seen to develop infrastructure.

Stephen’s comments made me focus on the ways in which an edu_conference might enhance (or betray) the conditions of value for “interaction” versus  “experience”.  And this led me to re-read something Adam Lefstein recommended at ULearn06  The Pedagogy of The Interhuman Alexander M. Sidorkin University of Washington

Sidorkin argues that

The main paradox of the interhuman is that we cannot just get together to relate to each other. As Buber noticed, we must instead become partners in a living event. Consequently, the event must be present first. But ironically, almost any event of our social life is so challenging that we have to band together in a rigid group in order to cooperate in coping with the challenge. We cannot relate without some reason, and the reason makes us unable to communicate.

We come together to work, and the demands of work cast us in a work institution. We gather in a school, and schooling lays its heavy hand on our ability to see each other as humans. Even having fun, if taken as a goal, handicaps true dialogue. Yet when we try just to build a relation, it reeks of falsehood and boredom. Now, in nurturing communities people get together as if they wanted to work, or to solve some problem. In reality they are looking for an excuse to be together, to experience the interhuman.

We educators, teachers, and parents take the job of upbringing too seriously. Schooling should, in reality, just be an excuse for human beings to get together. What we really should do is to give ourselves fully to the children, to catch that simple moment of direct encounter with a child, and just hold on there. As I mentioned, the curious Third will soon be knocking at our door, and we will let her in. If we do it persistently enough, we will discover that our multi-voiced selves start resonating. It happens because we will have some common people and shared events in that flock of ghosts we bring into a conversation. We will develop a community that does not limit our freedom more than we want to allow.

It all makes me wonder if the best outcomes for interaction (and Downes’ networking) will come from those edu_conferences where we don’t take the conference itself or the inherent power hierarchies of keynoters, spotlighters, presenters and attendees  too seriously. 

Conferences where we give ourselves fully to the first person we meet by the coffee urn, or in the smokers hideout, at the conference dinner, or outside in the conference venue lobby who challenges our thinking, disagrees or offers feedback – where this moment of direct encounter (that we hold onto), attracts others – attracts Sidorkins curious third, and fourth and fifth other … Conferences “Where to be yourself is all that you can do”. 

What would we blog about then?    

Bogong Moths in Sydney, Starlings in Rome and Edu_Bloggers at Conferences

After Navcon2k7 we snuck in an extra day in Sydney before returning to New Zealand on what turned out to be a flight of interruptions, postponements and delays.  To listen to more seasoned Aerolineus Argintinas travellers it would seem that these cheaper flights always come at a cost. We could have flown most of the way to Auckland during the 3 plus hours we spent watching wait weary kids run amuck in the departure lounge.  Smearing Bogong moths across the departure lounge plate glass windows with PEP bottles proved a popular activity with the under fives.   The cries of exuberance, whilst smudging moths suggests that moth smearing counts as an engaging and authentic learning experience.

A day unleashed in Sydney (with no expectations about learning outcomes for the 21st Century Learner and no need to communicate anything to an audience of educators) was a lot of fun – my only regret being that my inability to look at my life more than one day ahead of the calendar meant I missed connecting with the ever fabulous RoseG.

The best part of the unleashed day was not the Mediterranean feta cheese, tomato and olive tossed  breakfasts beside Darling Harbour, the shopping, the architecture or the diversity of landscape and seascape – the best part was the plague of Bogong moths.     The moths were everywhere we ventured - inside and out - the Magnet could not search through a clothing rack or lift up an alarmingly pointy nosed shoe without releasing a flutter of moths into the air.

The size of the flutters fascinated me.  The population biologist buried deep within emerged – I wondered - how do we track the distribution and behaviour of moth flutters? What influences the Bogong moth’s  decisions of where to flutter? How do they organise the fluttering?  How do Bogong moths manage to keep together in flutters rather than spreading themselves randomly across the city?

All this thinking about fluttering meant I was alert to the 3Quarks article on the flocking behaviour of starlings in Rome.

Inspired by the aerial displays, a group of scientists led by theoretical physicists in Rome set up StarFlag, a multidisciplinary, multinational collaboration to study the birds' flocking behavior. The main aim was to determine "the fundamental laws of collective behavior and self-organization of animal aggregations in three dimensions," says Cavagna, the project's deputy coordinator. 

If we can track starlings and determine the fundamental laws of collective behaviour - could we not track the collective behaviour of Bogong moths?

And then I wondered if we can determine the fundamental laws of collective behaviour and self-organization of Bogong moth aggregations in three dimensions," what would we make of the "collective behaviour and self organisation" of edu_bloggers posting on their latest conference experience on Hitchhkr?

I’ve been trying to find posts of critical analysis on the ULearn07 conference many of our teachers attended in Auckland during the school holidays.  I wanted to read any critique of the new learning on offer.  So it was disconcerting to read through the 427 Ulearn07 Hitchhkr links and find so little analysis and so much flocking sentiment.   If I was reliant upon Hitchhikr alone for feedback on the conference I’d be tempted to conclude that ULearn07 attracted educators of such similar minds that they shared the same emotional response to all the experiences on offer - or perhaps I must conclude that blogging about an educational conference induces a  Josie Fraser described homophily in educators.

Given that Hitchhikr was “invented, to provide you with a virtual space where, thanks to blogs, podcasts, and RSS, we can connect, share, respond, and grow knowledge out beyond the place and time of the event” it would be a shame if homophily amongst edu_bloggers meant that the posts collected at the site were more remarked upon for their mimicry  than for their critical analysis.

And this made me wonder if there was some way we could represent the 2-D text blog opinions offered in 3D -  a spatial aggregation of blog comments and podcasts - with diversity of opinion offered represented in three dimensions?

All this thinking about collective behaviours and how to represent them means I am looking for a new collective noun for bloggers who blogthink in synchrony about a shared learning experience like a conference ..

We enjoy a flutter of moths, and a murmuration of starlings .... so what would fit best for a collection of like minded homophilic bloggers ... 

a herd, colony, army, state , swarm, shrewdness, pace, drove, culture, cete, battery, shoal, colony, cloud, sloth, sleuth, family, drift, hive, swarm, bike, drift, cluster, erst, nest, flock, flight, parcel, pod, volary, brace, dissimulation, sedge, sounder, singular, chain, brace, clash, chatter, troup, gang, obstinacy, drove, swarm, rabble, kaleidoscope, flutter, wake, caravan, train, drove, drift, mob, clowder, pounce, kindle, litter, intrigue, clutter, comfort, coalition, brood, flock, clutch, run, peep, chattering, bed, quiver, intrusion, rag, covert, gulp, flight, kine, pack, train, band, bushel, siege, congregation, sedge, bask, float, murder, horde, litter, cowardice, bevy, troop, kennel, school, pod, trip, pace, flight, dule, dole, pitying, raft, paddling, bunch, team, brace, bed, flight, flock, fling, convocation, congregation, array, parade, crash , mob, business, charm, draft, nest, school, run, stand, flamboyance, cloud, hatch, business, swarm, dazzle etc ...   

Navcon2k7 and "Just trying to keep my customers satisfied, satisfied."

Adam Lefstein’s Navcon2k7 keynote focussed on the challenges facing teachers charged with “keeping my customers satisfied, satisfied” in generation.com classrooms each day.

Lefstein framed his keynote “Interacting with generation.com in the classroom: popular culture, policy and the promise of dialogue.” around two questions –

1.  How if at all are classroom communication regimes changing? 
Adam provided transcripts of generation.com classroom exchanges that clearly revealed a breakdown of the pervasive IRE (initiation/ response/ evaluation) classroom genre – a rejection of the IRE communicative regime – and a refusal of the generation.com students to accept the monologic classroom discourse (discourse where classroom talk is closely monitored and controlled by the teacher).

The transcripts provided showed that the IRE exchanges pasted below

MR THOMPSON: So, the first part of the story is always important… if you’re a writer… to try and do what with the reader?   What sort of things might you be trying to do when you’re writing something?  Yeah, Lucy?
LUCY:  Draw the reader in.
MR THOMPSON:  Draw the reader in.  What do we call that?   A::A – beginning with ‘H’… Might be something (you’ve thought about).  Yeah?
-:  A hook.
MR THOMPSON: A hook, you want a hook in the story, possibly, some way of drawing them in.

... had been replaced by exchanges whereby the teacher has clearly relinquished authority to the group 

After listening to some generation.com student classroom exchanges (and unpacking the written transcripts) it was obvious that the generation.com students (the customers in the classroom) were far from satisfied.

It was easy to imagine teachers staggering from their generation.com classrooms each day to grasp the mike in karaoke bars and belt out that old Simon and Garfunkel classic ... Keep the Customer Satisfied

It’s the same old story
Everywhere I go,
I get slandered,
Libelled,
I hear words I never heard
In the Bible
And I’m one step ahead of the shoe shine
Two steps away from the county line
Just trying to keep my customers satisfied,
Satisfied.

After setting the scene Lefstein asked

2.  How should we change classroom communication regimes (if at all)?

He elaborated on the tensions that might drive teachers to grab the mike in karaoke bars each evening – It seems that in trying to keep the customer satisfied we are charged with

•    Establishing (and preserving) conditions for dialogue
•    Opening up content
•    Maintaining conversational flow
•    Encouraging participation
•    Insuring fair access to the floor;
•    Probing others’ thinking;
•    Protecting "weak" -- either socially and/or academically – pupils
•    Undermining own content authority
•    Exemplifying in own actions dialogic dispositions
•    Inviting pupil criticism of and participation in directing the dialogue

In conclusion Lefstein challenged the keynote audience to think about

•    Why is it so difficult for us to change our ways of talking?
•    What will we lose if we manage to get rid of IRE?
•    Should we give up on whole class discussion?  Can we afford to? 
•    How can we develop new models of classroom communication and participation (e.g.    
     rotating stage, student facilitation)? and finally and provocatively   
•    Why not lecture?

  In an hour and a half keynote we didn’t have enough time to more than a cursory exploration of the difference that participatory Web2.0 media might bring to classroom communication regimes and new models of classroom communication ... which I regretted - this is an idea that that I reckon we should be exploring further in the context of “dialogue” in classrooms.

I suspect that in terms of the presentations at Navcon2k7 (and for that matter at ULearn07) we are running behind on this thinking  compared to what is going on in other professions... check out the ideas developing at Ailsa Haxell’s blogspot a musing space; a performance in progress – where she is exploring “Issues of heart and soul using IT.

I'm doing a doctoral thesis in education about change and changes in using computers and communication technologies to communicate care. “ – or how new media (txt messaging) might mediate communication regimes (counselling) in the health sector.   

I think I’d like to hear Adam unpack “dialogue” in the context of the “new media” available to “generation.com” through the lens of McLuhan’s 4 Laws of Media

The 4 Laws of Media

1.    What human trait or experience does the new medium ENHANCE?
o    What is the intended function of the new medium or technology?
o    What does it improve or make more efficient?
o    Does it extend part of the human body, or one or more of the senses?
o    Does it extend some aspect of the human mind (such as memory)?
o    Does it amplify some human capability or augment some form of human action?
o    Does it extend the individual, the group, or society?

2.    What pre-existing technology, method, system, or medium does the new medium OBSOLESCE?
o    What older technology does the new medium replace?
o    What does it render unnecessary?
o    What procedures does it “short-circuit” or by-pass?
o    What happens to the old medium that is rendered “obsolescent”: does it disappear entirely, become an art object, or find a new niche?

3.    What technology, method, system, or medium that was previously obsolesced or abandoned does the new medium RETRIEVE?
o    What archaic elements are made relevant again?
o    What previously marginalized or repressed ideas, practices, artifacts, or cultural aspects are brought forth and revived?

4.    When fully utilized or pushed to its extreme, what will the new media or technology REVERSE into?
o    What effects will the new medium create that are OPPOSITE to what was originally intended?
o    What are the contradictions inherent in the new technology? What is the “ecological”/”environmental” impact of the medium on its contemporary media environment?

Until then you can find me in the local karaoke bar wrapped around the mike belting out "I'm one step ahead of the shoe shine."

PAPER 33: 'Dialogue in Schools: Towards a Pragmatic Approach'
Adam Lefstein (King's College London), 2006 (pdf, 432 KB)

Navcon2k7, fruit bats, Terrigal Beach and love poems

Bruce: "Just because we're travelling, I don't think that Dick should neglect his studies, so we brought along one thousand key works of literature, his biological specimens, and also his own desk."
Dick: "Yes, I expect to study hard."

I brought along “my one thousand key works of literature, my biological specimens, and also my own desk" but the reality of the “connecting through webmail” experience in the lobby of the Terrigal Sails Apartments meant that I sought other adventures (like watching the bushfires across the water whilst eating fish and chips on the beach at night) during Navcon2k7.

Each night, the Magnet, the “Not a Normal Principal” and I made our way from the diverse Terrigal beachside eateries to stand underneath a large tree below our apartment complex.  Listening carefully to the learning community of large fruit bats hanging in the foliage, saw our Megachiropteran  expertise grow each night – until by the last night our “performance for understanding” meant  we were able to pretend to sounds that precipitated bat flight – claiming title as The Terrigal Fruit Bat Whispering Trio  –   

Listening carefully to what is said is valuable behaviour for educators – it helps you avoid falling in with those futuristic edu_forecasters, crystal gazers, visionaries and 21st Century Learner astrologers who frequent edu_conferences talking about the needs of “generation.com” (if we allow that generation.com exist as a discreet group)

“generation.com:- Critical thinkers or non critical consumers?  the title of Dr Yoram Harpaz’s opening keynote at Navcon2k7 was different from the usual "we are living in an uncertain age" and "we must beware the populations in countries that outsource our jobs" keynotes I have listened to at other educational conferences this year.   

And yet the title made me wonder.  I started by thinking about what happens to our thinking when we frame generation.com as future “consumers”.  Would our thinking be different if we instead dichotomised generation.com as “Critical thinkers or non critical producers?” 

Next I wondered if in creating a dichotomy between non critical consumers and critical thinkers, Harpaz had been too simplistic in his analysis? Perhaps generation.com would be better described in terms of predator and prey, than producer consumer,  perhaps generation.com cannot be faithfully dichotomised.

But it was when Harpaz's Navcon2k7 opening keynote asked delegates to focus on “What are we educating for?” that I was startled into other thoughts.

Yoram challenged educators to identify the choices behind what we do to make things happen in school .... and  to isolate, clarify and understand how these choices are extracted from/ derived from our goals, our ideologies

He proffered three meta ideologies that teachers commonly adopt that make things happen  - socialisation, acculturation and individuation

• Socialisation – the challenge of adapting the child to society – that Chomskyian “taming the young of the bewildered herd” stuff – imparting useful behaviours and qualifications –that will prepare students for the careers favoured by the middleclasses - where you get to wear a suit, and sit behind a desk in a high rise building.
• Acculturation – the challenge of conveying  the essence of a culture – that moulding the child’s character in the light of the values and truths of the preferred culture, was well exemplified by the Navcon2k7 stage display of candle and crucifix, the frequent reference to the splash of one time excommunicated for inciting  the sisters to disobedience and defiance but later blessed Mary Mackillop’s oars   and the alarming student art work on the classroom walls of the conference venue classrooms.
• Individuation – that educational fostering of autonomy and authenticity in each child – the developing of each child’s unique personality is harder to find within our existing educational institutions. We pretend to individuation, we claim to find value in personalisation, we valorise the “autonomous learner” in our rhetoric whilst favouring  group work, and collective experience in our classroom practice.  

Harpaz argued that we have a contradiction within schools because we have fused these three ideologies and because these ideologies helplessly contradict each other  - we never progress.  Alienation and anarchy await education that does not resolve its ideological focus.

In asking “What should we choose for generation.com?” Yoram expressed a personal preference for individuation suggesting in the question time that the choice may not be ours (teachers) to make for much longer with students increasingly choosing their own educational outcomes.

It was interesting analysis, well argued and entertainingly elaborated - and yet the question “What should we choose for generation.com?” is revealing –

I suspect that who is doing the choosing is key here as it is in other arguments about personalisation – and individuation - I will argue that in choosing "What should we choose" Harpaz reinforces assumptions of institutional hierachies, power and control -

The fertile question for generation.com is more likely to be “What will generation.com choose for themselves?”

And as an aside in my thinking here - no one unpacks personalisation and individuation better than Josie Fraser

Harpaz claimed that we should not trust the diagnosis based on ideologies – “diagnosis is biased by utopia – strategy turns to dogma – utopia has no rational and empirical basis – ideology is irrational” , in doing this he seemed to undermine his own argument – for when you think about it the “What should we choose?” question  is in itself an ideology - an ideology bounded by institutional thinking -

The essential contradiction in Harpaz’s keynote comes from an assumption that when we educate we make something happen.   Causal thinking aligned to institutional practice.  In this way his “What should we choose for generation.com?” reminded me of Miller Williams’ “Love Poem With Toast”.

Some of what we do, we do
to make things happen,
the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc,
the car to start.
The rest of what we do, we do
trying to keep something from doing something,
the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting,
the truth from getting out.

Both think in terms of our ability to cause “expected outcomes” rather than acknowledging our inability to influence or even predict probable outcomes (in education). Both "pretend" to causal thinking rather than face the possibility that what we do (in education and over breakfast)  is best exemplified by the tyranny of the accidental.

In this way Leigh Blackall’s deliciously scrambled stream of consciousness keynote – framed as “Is it fascism yet?” and claiming he learned nothing from school created a useful counterpoint.

In this way Navcon2k7's choice of keynoters guaranteed its place as an educators conference that provoked thinking in 2007.     And I haven't even got to the ideas in Adam Lefsteins keynote presentation on dialogue and participatory technologies.

Love Poem With Toast
Miller Williams
Some of what we do, we do
to make things happen,
the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc,
the car to start.
The rest of what we do, we do
trying to keep something from doing something,
the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting,
the truth from getting out.
With yes and no like the poles of a battery
powering our passage through the days,
we move, as we call it, forward,
wanting to be wanted,
wanting not to lose the rain forest,
wanting the water to boil,
wanting not to have cancer,
wanting to be home by dark,
wanting not to run out of gas,
as each of us wants the other
watching at the end,
as both want not to leave the other alone,
as wanting to love beyond this meat and bone,
we gaze across breakfast and pretend.

from Some Jazz a While: Collected Poems, 1999
University of Illinois Press