CHICO: Collaborative, Hybrid, Innovative, Creative, & Open Learning Resources

Storytelling is something that humanity has done for generations. For as long as we can remember, people have relayed history and culture through storytelling. In looking at a social media network such as Instagram, the viewer sees an interesting approach to storytelling. Instagram is storytelling through pictures: as the participants post these pictures, they are making a statement about their lives, perspectives, beliefs, and opinions. Each picture is capturing a moment in time for each participant; they are sharing what they are experiencing with family, friends, and complete strangers. Another intriguing aspect to this form of storytelling is that it takes place on multiple levels of time and space. In the article “Narration in Film” by Markus Kuhn and Johann N. Schmidt, they state that “narration in cinema has to deal both with the representational realism of its images and its technical devices in order to integrate or dissociate time and space, image and sound, depending on the artistic and emotional effect that is to be achieved.” While this article discusses the idea of storytelling in relation to cinema, there are some key elements that can be correlated to photographs and the storytelling that goes on in Instagram. Therefore, what can be drawn from this quote is that while a participant may place a photo on Instagram there are many levels of time and space being interacted upon. The event of the photograph may have taken place a week ago and is just now being shared, but now the viewers of this photograph have created a new element of time and space around this photograph. By the participant allowing viewers to share in this event outside of its actual occurrence, they have now created a new place in time and space for this story to be told. And, this is perhaps one of the interesting aspects of how social media and narrative work together: social media allow people or participants to constantly play with their narratives by altering concepts like time and space.

You have value. You have worth. You have a voice; an expressive power that stems from your unique experiences. Share your voice.

The internet gives a voice to those who were once silent. It drives new and creative ways to communicate.

I recently read “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by Paulo Freire. In his book, Freire shows how communication and dialogue is essential to education, “Without dialogue there is no communication, and without communication there can be no true education” (Freire 74). He believes that, “the more active an attitude men and women take in regard to the exploration of their thematics, the more they deepen their critical awareness of reality and… take possession of that reality” (87). The more that I read his book, the more connections I began to draw to the internet and the responsibility that we have as educators to promote inclusive dialogue.

Freire discusses ways to combat oppressive action with cooperation, unity for liberation, organization, and cultural synthesis (149-161). We, as educators, must take a similar approach to integrating technology into the classroom. We need to address new ideas with the understanding that cooperation and dialogue will lead to a more productive method of teaching. We must stand unified in our goal of presenting knowledge in a way that is understood, and truly beneficial to the student. As more ideas are considered and discussed, we must remain organized in order to implement these ideas effectively. Most importantly students’ cultural and experiential contributions have value to co-learning within the classroom. We need to embrace an attitude of acceptance and inclusion in the rapidly developing realm of education.

Freire, Paolo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1993. Print.

Disclaimer: This is more of a rant than a coherent post There were a couple of ideas and quotes in these webinars that resonated quite powerfully for me both personally and academically. One of the things that I always enjoy thinking about is stakes and how the landscape of education and especially the academy is not one that is particularly friendly to the idea of failure. I’ve always found this ironic since I started studying pedagogy because one would think that, we as educators, would be more understanding of the process that learning takes — in the beginning you’re going to fail. Maybe a lot. This is why I really loved the point raised about “trying out loud.” It reminds me of tacit knowledge, which is I view as embryonic nascent ideas still under construction even at the time of articulation but more importantly this idea of trying out loud really implies a willingness and an acceptance that ones current efforts will likely fall short. It often feels like an invisible or unspoken dogma that we as students are not supposed to be transparent in our struggles. The default attitude is “supposed to be” I am good or I am gettin’ it. Likewise it feels like, as teachers, we are trained to never struggle, fail, or appear weak in front of our students. This attitude feels so natural — you’re the teacher, and you should be able to do everything perfectly right away for your students but this assumption completely excises any potential human moments that Howard Rheingold mentioned. I was very moved when he explained that he enjoyed it when he failed at something in front of his students because it becomes an opportunity to say that it’s okay to try and fail. I completely agree because nobody is ever really done learning how to do everything. There’s always more or different things to try. And speaking personally this correlates very strongly to my experiences as my previous post demonstrates. In fact a colleague and I came up with an acronym that I really enjoy — F.A.I.L = First Attempt in Learning. But I also enjoy thinking about this in terms of my current research into games. Professor Jaxon and a few other expounded on acquiring web literacies and how we can no longer excuse our lack of literacy because “I am not technical” and I feel that this ties very neatly into game theory. Those outside the field of digital media or game studies tend to hold very parochial ideologies about games that say things like “I am not a gamer”, “Games are just a waste of time”, or my personal favorite “Games aren’t rigorous enough to produce learning.” And these are used as excuses to not experiment with the field or to push (sometimes quite vociferously) against its implementation, but as Professor Jaxon, a lot of learning is identity work. In other words, nobody is born as a gamer, and depending on the intent of the player anything can prove didactic or productive so don’t be afraid! “If you’re not falling off it, you’re not exploring the edge.” In many ways I feel like gaming and the idea of gamifying is new and on the edge in terms of the archaic institution. An emergent idea that is being resisted in terms of what is rigorous or “educational.” And maybe gaming or the element of play could become the new-best means to approaching education but what is more likely is that it will supplement current pedagogy. So the question becomes one that was asked in the webinar by Chris Mattia: Do you want to shape the new or do you want to fight it.

Hello fair and faithful readers, today I’d like to talk about culture, freedom, and human decency. Oh, and of course the internet. I’m going to start by pointing you here, where Laura Hilliger talks a bit about web literacy. The key phrase that sent me off on the tangent I’m about to unfold for you was: “Web literacy is not about technical skill . . . it’s about citizenship, it’s about participating, it’s about embracing and spreading the ethos of open culture.” Now in my thesis work at the moment I am buried in thoughts about identity and community, so I was primed to think about the necessity of a connected culture. The way I see it… Culture is the answer to some of the questions brought up over the last few weeks about the balance between complete freedom and personal accountability. The web is a funny thing because its greatest strength, freedom, anonymity, inter-connectivity, is also the source of its most serious problems. I look at cases like Megan Meier (and to be honest, when I googled “online bullying suicide” the list of results was a bit horrifying in its scope) and I see one of the unfortunate results of the very things about the internet that we celebrate. The freedom to interact with others that the internet affords does not carry within it a regulatory component, which means that the nature of those interactions will run from the very positive to the extremely negative. Additionally, the ability to communicate anonymously, or even just safely outside of punching range behind a screen, carries with it a greater temptation (or if you’re an optimist who believes in the essential goodness of people, an easing of the inherent reservations towards causing harm due to that same distance) to be a jerk to people. In short, if you know you can get away with it, why not mess with people? The kneejerk reaction to that sort of scenario – particularly among Snailmailers* - is to eliminate the cause of the problem. Cracking down on the complete freedom, anonymity and inter-connection of the internet would make it more difficult and less attractive to be a troll, after all. Unfortunately it would also hamstring the web itself, creating some perverse monstrosity in its stead. So we return to the double-bind, the things that make it good also make it evil, this is starting to sound like a parable for the human race… But lo! Do not despair! There is a solution, of sorts, and like any good compromise it is ultimately dissatisfying on some levels. The solution is the enculturation of the online population. It is through teaching, and embodying, certain ways-of-being online that we can defang the trolls of the world. First, we must create a cultural force that directs people towards behaving decently to each other online even when they don’t have to. Exterior force, such as the legal system or swift kicks to the shin provide, is a popular way to encourage people to act decently, but this would corrupt the very nature of the open web. Instead we must create social mores, expectations of behavior, and structures of self-perception that internally motivate people to act decently. Rather than not trolling somebody because she could get arrested for it, the Online Citizen needs to be at a point where she doesn’t troll them because she sees herself as a person who does not troll. We must tie the cultural identity of the online citizenry to a set of moral values that are appropriate to, and recognize the temptations of, the new freedoms and affordances of a connected community. That said, I am truly a cynic at heart, and I am under no illusion that this inner morality will be a complete solution. However noble the cultural framework of a society, some psychos will always slip through the net. This necessitates the second major aspect of this connected enculturation, self protection. Part of learning to be an online citizen must be the process of developing an understanding of how to control access to your private information, relationships, and life. We are still in the first few generations of truly connected humans, and these brave pioneers have had to learn the hard way what it means to be safe and secure in this environment. Hopefully the painful lessons learned in the last few decades will be passed down to future generations, to whom securing data will be simply be a part of life. The practice of protecting one’s information, gating it at different levels depending on the sensitivity of its nature, needs to be bound up in the cultural identity of the online citizen. The same sort of values, mores and expectations that dictate how you act toward others, must also dictate how you manage your own information. It boils down to a balance between self-protection and respectful behavior towards others. The common element in both of these ideas is that you cannot rely on others to accomplish them. No one can force you to protect yourself, nor can they force you to be the sort of person against whom others do not need protection. Both of these things need to come from within, and we can encourage, or discourage, the growth of these inner virtues through the nature of the culture that we as online citizens embody on a daily basis. It is not something that can be easily measured, we cannot set precise quarterly targets for cultural construction, but what we can do is constantly embody the ideals that we need to pass on to the next generation. To paraphrase the Mahatma, we need to be the culture that we want to see in future generations. *What should we call the landlubbers of the internet age? Or are we too mature to coin a pejorative term? Probably the latter if I’m going to follow my own advice…

During this past week’s connected courses unit, Howard Rheingold and Kim Jaxon spoke about curation and what that means in relation to Digital Literacy. Kim specifically said something that resonated with me; she spoke about a “kinder curation” in which we must shift the current digital norms in order to reflect ourselves as kinder human beings. This has very much so been on my mind lately as I move forward with researching the idea of open access through gaming platforms. As I stated in my first post, I am a gamer. I chose to research this topic because I want to show those who view gaming as a hinderance to our youth that gaming methodologies can actually be utilized to help students interact, collaborate, learn, grow, and have ownership over their education. Over the weeks I’ve been watching TED talks by Don Tapscott, Lawrence Lessig, Jane McGonigal, I’ve read a multitude of articles on Open Access, how present day technology is being utilized in the classroom (Hybrid Pedagogy), testimonials from students on how they want more digital platforms available in their learning environment, articles on how MMO’s are being used in education, and currently I am reading through What Video Games Have to Teach us about Learning and Literacy by James Paul Gee. And I’ve been gaming, of course. Clearly, I’m invested in this topic. However, a few weeks ago I had a very eye opening experience that completely altered my optimistic view towards my topic. As part of my research, I asked a guild (which consisted of many individuals who I consider friends or at least acquaintances) if I could record their “raid night” in order to gather real-time evidence to support my claims. They all happily agreed. I explained to them over TeamSpeak (a program that allows multiple players to converse with one another during game play) that this recording would be used for a major research project and would eventually be presented to a class of graduate students. However, even saying this I asked them to be as natural as possible. As the game commenced, I soon realized that this was a mistake. The environment, which started off light and joking, soon became hostile, aggressive, and full of bullying and put down comments. I was appalled. This wasn’t a group of strangers, these were people who had known each other for years, and they were bashing each other in the utmost of critical ways. This wasn’t building community, or collaboration, or learning; it was a cesspool of blatant bullying and a perfect example of a dysfunctional community. After this experiment failed, I regrouped. I told the guild that I couldn’t use any of video that we had collected, and that maybe we should switch gaming platforms so that we could have a friendlier game where I could show positive elements of gaming and how it could relate to education. Yet again, I was wrong. As soon as we started playing, the toxic environment that had been so apparent during the raid spilled over onto the new game. As a newer player, I was targeted and used as a strategic way to gain an edge for the opposing team. I won’t go into extreme details, but what I will say is that by the end of the game, I was prepared to change my research topic entirely. I kept thinking to myself “how am I supposed to support this when I am sitting here feeling like a complete failure who can’t even play a friendly game with her own friends? This doesn’t build community! Or an environment for learning! This is hurtful! Why would I ever want to subject students to this?” Now, after a few days of reflection, I decided that giving up wasn’t the answer. I came to find out that an intense competition had been instigated a few weeks prior with some of the guild members, which apparently spilt prior tensions into the game we had played. I also spoke with several individuals from the guild separately, and discovered that because the raid that they engaged in wasn’t considered “new content”, that many other members of the guild didn’t take the fight as seriously, causing them to just mess with each other. Clearly this just wasn’t the night to spectate, and this was one bad experience versus a multitude of positive experiences. However, this experience has forced me to tread at a much slower pace into this realm of open access and gaming. I ask myself “how can we create a gaming experience that is a positive learning environment for all students? Why are major MMO gaming platforms becoming a place for toxic development and communities? How do we shift as players within these gaming communities to create a kinder culture where we help one another while still engaging in a healthy level of competition?”