I wonder when I forgot that this eduspeak thing with ict is all a game?
The Mistress of the Template will be amused … she has always complained about my nihilism
Perhaps my enthusiasm for joining grandpa’s lala_laden conversations, means I have unconsciously lowered my delusional beliefs’ firewall.
Perhaps that schizophrenic head hammering on Queens Birthday Monday has put a hairline fracture in my vat of flippancy, allowing lightness and levity to leach out.
Whatever the cause, cj is right,
"Why on earth would one bother to survey the silliness that passes for using computing and related technologies in schools?
This new found Artichokean “belligerence in a beer bottle” must be quashed, I’ve got to crank up the cynicism pump – I am at risk of believing in something that doesn’t exist.
I need rescuing from the pervasive, the ubiquitous, the egregious (e)learning cult before any significant damage is done –
I know it is technocentric to do this – is symptomatic of my (e) contamination - but I blame technology for my drift into Modern Stupid
Modern Stupid
It’s much easier
To be stupid these days
Than in previous times.
Back in the old days
They had to do it all by hand.
It was sheer drudgery.
Now we can do it faster
And with more comfort,
Thanks to modern methods.
You can fit it into a busy life,
It’s available to everyone,
It’s right at your fingertips.
Michael Leunig
Poems 1972 - 2002
oops
Posted by: cj | July 30, 2006 at 01:06 AM
The ICT in schools thing is a distraction. It's not the main game. Which does not mean that playing that game is a problem. It is just not very interesting. Thirty years of experience should tell us that.
Posted by: cj | July 30, 2006 at 01:22 AM
I'VE HAD IT! I'VE HAD IT with universities! Goddamn those corporate pieces of cow dung! Goddamn those capitalist sons-of-a-b%#*hes!! If there's a God, next life I want to be a red-back spider so that I can crawl into the sheets of John Howard's children's children and spell "karma" on their asses!
80% of all classes in the Humanities of Western Australian universities have been cut down from two hours to an hour. For what good reason? So that my students may spend more time doing online assignments and logs. My classes have been effectively truncated into a tutor-student consultation rather than to teach. Imagine presentations in class that takes up 15-20 minutes of the 50 minutes of class time. What's left is less than half-an-hour of tutorial for first year students! And the justification of such idiocy? They say they have no money. They - the poor bastards that runs the universities - say John Howard is intending to make a pay-to-pay system that corporatises the academic environment so that the government would no longer have to give monetary support to universities in the future. What is the effect of such stupidity? The down fall of critical pedagogy and the rise of the digitalisation of academia. Lose your arms and legs ladies and gentlemen. It's no longer needed. Just hold a stick between your teeth and type on your keyboard "teacher" when you log into ICT/WebCT.
Who we fooling? Who are we? Universities and schools don't need the embodiment of teachers! Bodies that matter! What bodies? Students never heard of them. Students don't need them. Don't call yourself a teacher. Call yourself a facilitator. That's what we are ladies and gentlemen. Facilitators! Hah! I don't call myself a University prostitute for no reason. We're intellectual hustlers that are battling on the wrong end of the field honey. Universities and schools don't need us. We should be in Tibet writing about the life and death of pedagogy. And while you're at it, bring the family along.
The modern stupid! That's it Arti! That's exactly it! But the funny part is we're the modern stupid! Why, you say? How dare I say, you say! It's the simple truth. Those big guns up in their penthouse suites in the Chancellery department don't give two-hoots about what we say or how we say our politics. As long as we're saying it in Internationally recognised journals and money flows into the bank accounts, it's all dandy. Who we kidding? We, the modern stupids, can't do anything to stop them. They don't listen. They don't care. Who they, you ask? Honest to God(s), I have no idea. But we trot along like the good old stupids we are because we need to pay our morgage and car loan. We play the game, we silly stupids, because our kid needs milk and our partners have to buy a new fishing rod for next week's picnic. The stupids rule because we have no bodies to object. We're going to have no bodies to give em' the middle finger. Ever tried to sue someone online? Every tried to complain about the canteen food online? Have you ever tried to tell the Prime Minister to eat your shoes online? You get this reply,
Thank you for posting your complaint to the Human Resource Department. We appreciate your opinions and will try our best to process your point-of-view with as much speed as possible. If you don't hear back from us, you should write another complain email. Most probably it ended in our Spam files. But that should not be a deterrent to the expression of your angst. Alternatively, you may write a bitchy online journal. But we might sue you for defamation. Anyways, do try, try again.
Yours Sincerely,
The HR Manager (aka) Piss-Off-cause-We-don't-really-care-about-you.
I'm stupid. I feel stupid to be teaching. And I'm teaching stupidity to my students. Oh, how I do hate University!
Insouci the GRUMP
PS: Don't listen to me - cause I admit it now, I'm Stupid with a capital "s".
Posted by: Insouciantfemme | July 30, 2006 at 09:14 AM
Ahh Insouci, “modern stupid” you and I both,
We got it wrong, it is not about the money it is all about changing relationships
You probably missed the NZ Government Press Release on Tuesday launching a $50 million spend up on e-Learning in schools
Apparently the money is not just about new technology – the money is needed to change the relationship between teachers and students.
"What's exciting about the Tablet project is not just that it's new technology but that it allows children to take charge of their learning. It changes the relationship between teachers and students, and means teaching can more easily be shaped around the way different students learn.
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/ViewDocument.aspx?DocumentID=26566”>
$50 million plan for e-Learning in schools. Tuesday, 25 July 2006, 9:43 am Press Release: New Zealand Government 25 July 2006 Hon Steve Maharey
$50M Funding for e-Learning Action Plan Project 2006/07
Te Kete Ipurangi and Digital resources including computer recycling $2.3M
ICT Professional Development clusters $11.8M
Software licensing $8.7M
ICT Helpdesk $0.70M
Principals’ laptops, leadspace and online network $3.83M
E-Learning Fellowship $0.60M
Learning Software $0.21M
ICT Schools Network Upgrade – operational and capital $11.7M
ICT Strategic Framework $0.19M
Internet Safety $0.80M
Learning Federation $1.37M
TELA (Laptops for all teachers) $17.58M
Digital Opportunities projects $1.13M
Virtual learning network (video conferencing) $0.78M
Managed internet services $3.1M
Satellite broadband $0.35M
As a fellow modern stupid commented I love the announcement of $780,000 for video conferencing on the same day as skype’s free global video service is announced. Heh. Keep up guys.”
You can see how the video conferencing spend fest lobbying played out below in the Leunig's cartoon exchange
Thank you for your time Minister. My company would like to erect a big (e) learning video conferencing initiative.
I like the word “big” and I like the word “erect”
We want to get it up fast, what’s more …
I like the words “up” “fast” and “more”
We must stay abreast with change – if we pussy foot we’ll all fall behind
I like the words “breast,” “pussy” and “behind”
I want to conclude with the following words: global change, 21st century learner, knowledge based society, economic growth, cash is king
These are magnificent words. This is an excellent submission. This is an EXCITING VISION …. do it!
With apologies to Leunig Strange Creature 2003
Posted by: Artichoke | July 30, 2006 at 12:20 PM
Hey Arti, it may not sell a million or is that link a million? Whatever, the erotic writing is way more phun than the sombre record of your taxes at werk.
Posted by: cj | July 31, 2006 at 12:24 AM
O.8 MILLION for Internet safety?! I'm in the wrong profession hon. I definitely am.
I'm going to Catalina and getting myself a pornstar job. Then at least the money to Internet Safety would come in good use.
BASTARDS!
Posted by: Insouciantfemme | July 31, 2006 at 01:59 AM
As I 'follow' the threads in this and other blogs, I am reminded of a poem by Denise Levertov.
Overland to the Islands
Let's go-much as the dog goes,
intently haphazard. The
Mexican light on a day that
'smells like autumn in Connecticut'
makes iris ripples on his
black gleaming fur-and that too
is as one would desire-a radiance
consorting with the dance.
Under his feet
rocks and mud, his imagination, sniffing,
engaged in its perceptions-dancing
edgeways, theres nothing
the dog disdains on his way,
nevertheless he
keeps moving, changing
pace and approach but
not direction-'every step an arrival'
Denise Levertov 1958 in Postmodern American Poetry.
Are we all 'sniffing' our way to an arrival? is howling at the moon the destination?
Posted by: Elaine Newton | July 31, 2006 at 10:18 AM
Dear Elaine,
I am anxious that you have located a “Fred” in the Artichoke blog. If you can help me I promise to locate and delete him. The presence of such an openly gendered individual can only bring the blog into further disrepute.
Your success in isolating “Fred” is a first for me - other bloggers have been quite “Frank” - disparaging the Artichokean “his/her” narrative style, and expressing their dislike for the “Fredlessness” or absence of sequential flow in the posts, something I have been quite chuffed about.
Fredlessness is not just simple vanity. Fredlessness restricts the blog commenters to other "Fred_bear” individuals. School is after all a dangerous ursine technology (DUT), and to identify too closely with the hairiness of it all may compromise some of the thinking I want
to share online.
What do you think about the $50M cost of changing relationships between teachers and students?
What do you think are the reasons for changing the existing relationships?
Do you think (e) Learning can change relationships?
Do you believe students learn in different ways?
Do you believe that “different ways of learning” can be isolated, linked to an individual and are stable?
Do you believe that they can be consistently identified and then targeted by different pedagogical approaches?
Do you believe (e) learning as experienced in most schools is a pedagogical approach?
And if changing the relationship between teacher and student is such an imperative why do you think we forgot about “pre-service” teachers when we were answering the many calls of “where’s the money honey?”
Perhaps your experience of working with “pre-service” teachers is that they already have the relationship thing sorted?
So many questions ..
Regards
Arti
PS Whilst I am “dancing edgewise” with all this you might enjoy Judson Laipply on The Evolution of Dance – The perfect preparation for ULearn06 – I’ll be checking in to see if you have picked up all the moves.
Posted by: Artichoke | July 31, 2006 at 01:50 PM
hmmmmmmm...........
50 million dollars to change the way we teach and learn?????
8.7 big ones for licencing (read slush money for bill and his mates)
but only 0.2 mill for "learning software".
nearly half of all monies to be used in providing laptops (and leadspace???? wtf is leadspace) for teachers and principals but less than a quarter on hardware for students....
some bugger knows which side their bread's buttered on.
botts
Posted by: botts | July 31, 2006 at 02:25 PM
The Evolution of Dance - seems to involve a lot of practise raising the right arm - maybe instead of Jump Jam we could all be doing this at school - the New Entrant teacher's job would be much easier if they could all do that on entry!!!
As to changing the relationship between teacher and student, it's not that the Emporer has no clothes, its just that they are newer and an awful lot more expensive!! As to your other ponderings - I shall contemplate my (middle-aged) navel a little longer - when I find it!! - HP must be rubbing their hands together in glee at the thought of whole schools being 'equipped' with their tablets in irder to make all this happen!?!
Posted by: Elaine Newton | August 01, 2006 at 10:29 AM
I wondered why I no longer have full use of my right arm and shoulder - just got to cut back on playing that "The Evolution of Dance" video whilst I write ict_pd facilitation reports - the reports might be punchier but the subliminal exercise is causing unwanted muscle strain.
I want to know what was wrong with the old relationship between human beings - and then I want to know how the insertion of technology can improve how humans relate to each other. And by improve I am not looking for measures of "efficiency" I am looking for measures of "quality".
Posted by: Artichoke | August 01, 2006 at 02:15 PM