Week 11: Digital Technology and Research

Research can be initiated by different parties, for example we could be talking about academic research, market research, or research initiated by students. 

In the case of academic research, I can see definite advantages to Web 2.0 technologies. Crowdsourcing for instance can substantially increase the speed of data collection (researchers can ask contributors for data via Facebook, tweets, and online discussions). Thanks to Web 2.0, content publishers have more flexibility than ever before for interacting with a wide range of users - whether that range be related to age, demographics, geographic location or all of the above, or other factors. In addition, it can drastically reduce the cost of gathering data. Imagine a project that relies on the upload of digital photographs to articulate the history of a particular place. Rather than having to collate thousands of hard copy images, scan them, and upload them to a central database for organization; today's users of digital image capturing devices can upload images directly to a researcher's database where other technologies can assist with the collation and organization, thus saving substantial amounts of money. Also, by involving contributors from various sources, these people become consumers and producers of digital data. According to JISC (the Joint Information Systems Committee), "a United Kingdom non-departmental public body whose role is to support post-16 and higher education, and research, by providing leadership in the use of information and communications technology (ICT) in learning, teaching, research and administration. It is funded by all the UK post-16 and higher education funding councils)." (description downloaded from Wikipedia), who supported the Great War Archive project, the costs involved to submit images and memories of the Great War were approximately £3.50 to capture, catalogue, and distribute compared with around £40 per item if data collecting using more traditional means.

While all this sounds quite fabulous, I think we also need to consider the potential limitations of using crowdsourcing to collect data for research purposes. The one that strikes me as most likely to cause issues is that of the quality of the data collected. In the case of photographs, this could be quite easily overcome, however, if researchers are collecting data whose veracity is more challenging to assess, I think that there may be issues of quality control. How to address these I suppose depends on the type of data and the nature of the research. Questions I cannot answer.

Having said that, according to Matthew Caines of the Guardian newspaper in the UK, "social media platforms, online libraries and digital collaboration tools are now a staple of many researcher practices and have brought new dimensions to problem solving, results sharing, data collection and analysis. And digital converts find them fast, wider reaching, easier to achieve, and more efficient than more traditional methods" (downloaded from Michael Caines).

From the point of view of students conducting research, there are also pros and cons; affordances and constraints. According to Leila Meyer in T.H.E. Journal Magazine, 

"Nearly all (99 percent) of teachers surveyed agreed that the vast range of resources technology puts at students' fingertips is a major benefit, and 65 percent said technology helps make students "more self-sufficient researchers."

Teachers also reported that technology enables top students to study topics that interest them to a greater depth and breadth and that students are more engaged by the multimedia formats available online.

The presence of smartphones in classrooms is also enabling students to look up information on-the-fly during class. According to the report, 72 percent of teachers said they or their students use cell phones in class or for assignments, and 42 percent said looking up information during class was the most common school-related use of phones by students.

"Cell phones are becoming particularly popular learning tools, and are now as common to these teachers' classrooms as computer carts," said the report.

Despite the prevalence of smartphones in classrooms and their usefulness for conducting research, school policies and Internet filters are inhibiting their use. The survey found that 97 percent of teachers work in schools that employ Internet filters, restrict cell phone use, and have acceptable use policies (AUPs)." Read more at Leila Meyer 

The downside to this unprecedented access to knowledge is that many young students do not have the critical literacy skills to assess or to judge the nature of the information they find online. Leila Meyer's article goes on to comment that:

"Both teachers and students surveyed reported that students today equate "researching" with "Googling," a phenomenon that 76 percent of teachers said is conditioning students to expect to be able to find information quickly and easily. Nearly three-quarters (71 percent) of teachers surveyed think Google and Wikipedia-centric research discourages students from using a wide range of sources, such as online databases, sites of respected news organizations, printed books, or reference librarians.

"Some teachers report that for their students, 'doing research' has shifted from a relatively slow process of intellectual curiosity and discovery to a fast-paced, short-term exercise aimed at locating just enough information to complete an assignment" Leila Meyer 

Several years ago, I worked with AC Nielsen marketing to design and implement training for their market analysts in how to use and sell market demographics software for use by wholesalers and retailers to track and analyse consumer behaviours in order to better target potential consumers of their products. Today, digital media technologies are enabling researchers to use increasingly sophisticated tools to collect data via the internet. The market demographic software is morphing and being re-invented to maximize the affordances of digital technologies so that they can execute online ethnography, online focus groups (which I used to do face-to-face for this client), online interviews, online clinical trials, web-based experiments and online questionnaires. We have all noticed targeted ads on FaceBook - this is one of the new iterations resulting from online consumer behavioural studies. Market research is increasingly making use of developments in Web 2.0 technologies and online communities. The cost reduction in data collection in this field must be exponential, allowing more funds to be injected into other areas of the business - such as product development to meet the needs uncovered by online digital market analysis.

I assume that there are issues of consumer privacy related to the above practices. While consumers can opt out of behavioural targeting on legitimate corporate sites, web site operators that use malware collect sensitive user information without user knowledge. In addition, opting out is often a tedious process which many consumers may give up on, only to regret it later. The web can be a dangerous place for consumers who may fall victim to spamming, data tracking, malware, identity theft, and defamation. 

In conclusion, whoever is conducting the research, there are significant gains to be made via the affordances of digital technologies and Web 2.0 but, as in all things related to today's ever-expanding digital technologies, there are concerns and constraints that must be handled with a critical eye, knowledge, and care. 

Week 10: Online Cultures and Intercultural Communication

I have to confess that I'm at a bit of a loss to intelligently reply to the questions this week. My professional experience with online affinity spaces is slim to none and so the only meaningful input I could offer would be a regurgitation of what I've read and watched this week. I wouldn't wish that on anyone :) .

I teach a grade 2 French Immersion class and the only digital tool I use with them is our class blog. I find it indispensable as a means to communicate with both students and parents as I share what is being studied, new vocabulary, photos, and links to helpful web sites. Parents do enjoy leaving comments and while I have encouraged my students to do the same, they are reticent to participate in this way - preferring to visit the blog to view photos of themselves and their friends. I suppose that at the tender age of 6 and 7, they prefer to consume rather than to create - their participation in the blog is their (strong) desire to view it and to appear within it. 

One of my sons plays an MMOG everyday. I'd like to say that I embrace his devotion to today's online affinity spaces and high tech entertainment but, more often than not, it's a cause of tension in the house. Why? He has become so involved in the game that we have had to co-create a contract to ensure that does not entirely disengage from his other life. His "addiction" is powerful enough that he forgets to eat and even go to the bathroom.

The game is called League of Legends (LOL). It is an MMOG which he describes as addictive, exciting, and thrilling. The purpose of the game is to destroy the enemy nexus (whatever that is) in collaboration with his team. His LOL friends are international and range in age from (he believes) 8 to "really old" (that could be 30 for all I know!!!). Communication occurs via audio chat as well as "pinging" which is apparently a code created from dots. These dots take various forms or patterns and each string holds different meanings, for example, "help me", or "come over here". I assume that this coded form of communication has been developed to compensate for language barriers. He knows that some of his friends are from France, Russia, and other European countries, as well as North America. I am fascinated by his activities in the game and am also blown away by the graphic interface.

The negative side to his penchant for this game is however that, given the choice, he would live solely in his virtual world and eschew the relationships he has with his "physical" friends and family, not to mention his piano practise, exercise, and opportunities to engage with the outdoors.

Throughout this course, I've been wrestling with my son's reality versus the idea that digital technologies can increase engagement and enhance learning outcomes. I think I need to hope that one of his teachers will see the light and introduce a unit that allows me to see this transformation for myself!

A question which occurred to me today was: How do games like League of Legends (LOL) make money? There was no initial outlay of funds for the basic game either via download or a trip to EB Games... I know that my son doesn't spend any money on LOL as holding onto his cash is the one and only thing that he would prioritize over gaming! I looked it up and it would appear that, in LOL, there are over 32 million accounts. Within the game is the option to buy items such as a new "skin" for your character. While the amount to pay is very low, it is estimated (by the bloggers I've been reading) that at least 1 million of these players makes a purchase from the store. This is otherwise known as a micro-transaction business model that is similar to games you might find on FaceBook. Fascinating. So fascinating that there are over 32 million accounts and even more fascinating that players are invested ('scuse the pun) deeply enough to pay funds to change a skin! 

Week 9: Gaming and literacy

Having read this week's resources and watched the online presentations related to gaming and social change, the question that popped into my mind foremost was: "why are we so attracted to screens?". Now this may be old hat for many who have read extensively the literature pertaining to digital technologies but for me, it's all new. I have a son who spends his life with online gaming and another who is perpetually watching online shows. My daughter is connected to her handheld device 24/7. Why? Why do my husband and I watch mindless shows when we're tired after a day's work? Why is it impossible to ignore the invitation from a lit screen, even if one is engaged in an absorbing and interesting activity that does not involve the screen? 

Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (click to link to article) discuss the “orienting response.” This term was coined by Ivan Pavlov in 1927. The "orienting response is our instinctive visual or auditory reaction to any sudden or novel stimulus. It is part of our evolutionary heritage, a built-in sensitivity to movement and potential predatory threats. Typical orienting reactions include dilation of the blood vessels to the brain, slowing of the heart, and constriction of blood vessels to major muscle groups. Alpha waves are blocked for a few seconds before returning to their baseline level, which is determined by the general level of mental arousal. The brain focuses its attention on gathering more information while the rest of the body quiets" (Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi, 2002). 

The authors go on later in the article to state that even babies display this orienting response to television, "Dafna Lemish of Tel Aviv University has described babies at six to eight weeks attending to television. We have observed slightly older infants who, when lying on their backs on the floor, crane their necks around 180 degrees to catch what light through yonder window breaks. This inclination suggests how deeply rooted the orienting response is" (Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi, 2002). 

While I have read no further, this would seem to explain the initial fascination with the screen. One can only imagine that, since television is for consumption only, the opportunity to interact with the screen might raise that attraction exponentially. In fact, in the same article, the authors go on to say that "Many video and computer games minutely increase in difficulty along with the increasing ability of the player. One can search for months to find another tennis or chess player of comparable ability, but programmed games can immediately provide a near-perfect match of challenge to skill. They offer the psychic pleasure—what one of us (Csikszentmihalyi) has called “flow”— that accompanies increased mastery of most any human endeavour" (Kubey and Csikszentmihalyi, 2002). 

"Flow experience" is the term coined by Csikszentmihalyi to describe the completely engaging process of creating something new, an experience in which one is so ensconced as to be unaware of the world around one, or of one's body. It is a state of ecstasy during which one is existing in a life less ordinary. A good resume of his thinking is available in a TedTalk here Flow Experience. 

It seems to me that there is a parallel here to be drawn between Csikszentmihalyi's Flow Experience and the act of serious online gaming. Jane McGonigal, a game designer, in her TedTalk Gaming Can Make a Better World describes her work in creating socially provocative games intended to change the world. She discusses how the world of gaming is significantly more exciting and elicits feelings of great power in the gamer which cannot be achieved in real life. This sounds a lot like ecstasy. She goes on to describe the four things that gamers are virtuosos at. These are: 1. Urgent Optimism (extreme self-motivation and a belief that an epic win is always possible and can be had NOW) 2. Weaving a Tight Social Fabric, (we like people better after we've played a game with them as playing with them builds bonds and trust, and cooperation) 3. Blissful Productivity, (gamers know that they are happier working hard than they are when relaxing, gamers are willing to work hard all the time) and 4. Epic Meaning (gamers love to be attached to awe inspiring missions). Again, this reminds me of Csikszentmihalyi's flow experience. If gamers are truly engaged in their mission, on a level of ecstasy, being creative and solving problems of epic scales, they are in a state of flow, surely... I am very excited to learn more about the games in which Jane McGonigal is involved whose goal it is to problem solve real-world issues such as a world devoid of oil. Here too, lies great fodder for the use of games in educational contexts.

I had no knowledge of any of this last week and am now fully inspired to find out more.

Week 8: Multimodality and Assessment.

In his article on multi modality and assessment in the classroom, John Vincent states that "in the early years of school, children work multi modally. Teachers accept, and indeed encourage, expression in multiple forms; drama, gesture, written words, drawings and song." (Vincent, 2006). I have had the honour of teaching French Immersion Kindergarten students as well as Grade 2 (FI) - I have also worked as school librarian and computer lab resource teacher. 

In my experiences with primary students, there is no doubt that multi modality is the norm (at least in my classroom). Teaching a second (or third, or fourth) language in an immersion setting increases the use of multi modality on the part of the teacher as well as the students. My Kindergarten classes were always noisy, dramatic, gesture-rich, environments where we would use our whole self to communicate with each other. My students drew, sculpted, engaged heavily with nature, played, role-played, and mostly laughed a great deal while learning. How did I assess their learning? Through observation, anecdotal notes, and via video and photo evidence which parents could also enjoy as it would reside on the class blog. When asked by parents how their child was doing, I would always tell them that their development was a process that would see them develop over time. I told them that I scaffold learning activities and encourage reflection and peer to peer sharing so that each student can learn from me, from his/her peers, and from him/herself. I would show parents the progression in ability from one month to another by having digital portfolios of student work accessible only to the parent - where the blossoming of their child revealed itself on the pixelated page.  Assessment was always ongoing, in progress, formative, collaborative, and overt. My students all learned how to self-evaluate and how to provide critical feedback to their peers - they weren't always great at it but learning to assess is itself, another skill to be learned over time.

When I took on the role of school librarian and computer resource I was excited to work with junior and intermediate students using digital technologies and visual arts. I taught in fact every grade in this capacity and had carte blanche to teach them what I wanted. While instilling a love of reading was high on my list of priorities, so too was the use of digital technologies and what I now understand to be digital literacies. However, I was shocked to discover that the older the child, the longer s/he had been in school, the less imagination s/he seemed to have and also the less curiosity or motivation. I just watched Sir Ken Robinson's "Changing Educational Paradigms" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U) and cannot wait to watch everything else he has available online. His point of view that children are forced into molds for an education built on antiquated values originating in the industrial revolution, and that those who do not comply are anaesthetized, was mind-blowing for me. Vincent states that the further from the Kindergarten classroom, the more the focus on writing, and the further from free expression of learning via multi modalities. Teachers spend their time on classroom management, encouraging "hyper" students to sit still, and "phased out" kids to snap out of it. What's weird is that even when I offered an open-ended project using digital tools, the students had a significantly difficult time engaging and opening up their minds to creativity and imagination... It is tragic that we bludgeon creativity out of our students in school. It is particularly tragic when you stop to consider that in the work world into which they will enter; problem solving and ingenuity are highly valued skills.

Anyway, I'm off on a bit of tangent (as usual) - but all this to say that it seems clear that we ought all to be integrating multi modalities in our classrooms. There's just a couple of tiny things that get in the way...

1. Our educational system itself: “The current generation of decision makers ranging from politicians to teachers sees the world from a different perspective than the digital generation (Green & Hannon, 2007). The young people of today cannot remember a world without the internet, SMS, MSN, iPod, MySpace and Facebook. However, the decision-makers decide how digital media will be used in the schools and the professional world. They make laws and regulations that restrict the potential inherent in digital media. This represents a short-term solution to a long-term challenge. The problem is that schools run the risk of basing their teaching on presentation, communication and assessment methods that are about to become obsolete in both form and content” (Lankshear & Knobel, 2008, p. 145).  It is this legacy that keeps classrooms teacher-centric and, as stated by Mezirow "the very definition of education itself is almost universally understood in terms of an organized effort to facilitate behavioural change".
2. Standardized testing. For as long standardized testing remains as antiquated in design and purpose as the educational system, there is no room for creativity. The tests are deadening for even the brightest minds, and frustrating to the point of lunacy for many, as evidenced in the spoken word YouTube video offered to us tonight by Rebekah. Also consider that these tests are only capable of assessing what is easy to measure. Is ingenuity measurable on a test? How about lateral thinking? Deductive reasoning? How sad that the issuers of these tests seem to place more value on recall than on high level, or critical thinking skills. 
3. The curriculum. Enough said, surely??! 
4. Assessment practises. It would seem to me, the newbie, that at least some serious thought is currently going into how to design assessment around new learning, new literacies, and multi modalities. Hooray. The sad part is that, much like educational reform, I suspect that by the time assessment practises have caught up with teacher reality, they will already be out-dated. I do not believe that assessment can be "canned". After all, teaching is not canned. What is required however is perhaps some well-structured professional development that helps teachers to understand that what needs assessing is the process of learning; perhaps by focussing on design, visualization of literacy, modes and modal affordances, transmodal operation, cohesion and staged multi modality (Wyatt-Smith and Kimber, 2009). Teachers also need to understand that whatever criteria are being measured should be made explicit to the students and, ideally, co-created and negotiated with the students. They should know that assessment needs to be longitudinal; in other words, student and teacher should conference regularly to revisit the rubric (if one is used) and to assess where the student is, what can be changed or what extra focus is necessary. These conferences should also be opportunities for the teacher to gain a deeper understanding of the thought process and design choices made by the student. Students can be encouraged to create an online journal, wiki, or blog in which to document the learning process. This can be private, shared with only the teacher, or shared with a select number of peers to encourage peer to peer reflection and analysis. Ultimately, the use of digital multi modalities represents yet another evolving, new, and exciting area for education. Unfortunately, this also translates into yet another learning curve for educators. Those who truly wish to prepare their students for life will jump on the bandwagon. They will learn, evolve, revise, implement, revise, reflect, reimplement every responsibility in their role as educator for their students' sake. The others... who can say?

Week 7: Visual Literacy

In Kajder (2006), Pacey stated that English class was "the place that kills your reading, teaching you to read to not fail".

This single statement has stuck with me. Why? I have two sons, one of whom has always hated reading. My other son, Nicholas was an avid reader - I remember him ploughing through all the Harry Potter books in the space of a month while maintaining an A average at school with no problem. My children all attended private elementary school and then moved on to high school in the public sector. This year was Nicholas' year to embark on his high school career. It also marks the year that he stopped reading for pleasure.

I find this devastating and have tried to pry out of him why he no longer reads. Being an adolescent, communication deficits are to be expected, but what I have gleaned from him is that his English teacher has beaten out of him any desire to read. She assigns endless novel studies, she gives tests weekly, and has all students present regularly in front of the class some aspect of the work under study.

Does she at any time allow students a choice regarding their mode of process and production? No. It's 12 font, double-spaced work and oral presentation. Old school. It's important to mention that Nicholas is a good writer as well as a good reader and I feel it's equally important to point out that he refuses to complete his assignments for his teacher. He has gone from a 90% in Grade 8 to a 46%. Devastating, frustrating, infuriating.

Nicholas has become Pacey: "the school reader, a role I play because you require it from me".

At home, Nicholas spends his free time online; gaming or social networking. His favourite place is Minecraft. It doesn't take much imagination to figure out why. This is a place where he creates his own reality, lives in a space and time which suit him, and over which he has control. There is no doubt in my mind that for him, visual literacy (among other digital literacies) is what inspires him, motivates him, and helps him to make sense of his world.

Nancy Frey, in Kajder, states that "adolescence has often been described as a journey of self-discovery, a time when adolescents measure the width and breadth of the world and figure out where they fit in that world" (Frey in Kajder, 2006). Clearly Nicholas does not feel that he fits in the world of Grade 9 English. I am so incredibly tempted to try to help his teacher to make the connection between adolescent attraction to visual literacies (and other digital literacies) and the curriculum.

I showed him my Photo Story and, while he told me it was lame, he also agreed that my teacher must be "well cool" to allow this sort of activity in a Master's course. There is no doubt that the use of digital technologies (in this case is a visual narrative) increases student engagement and certainly makes learning more authentic and relevant, "in today's world, literacy includes an understanding of how texts are constructed and how a variety of forms of representation work together to convey meaning". I would argue though that the simple (or not so simple) act of integrating digital tools in the classroom is in no way a guarantee that academic achievement will improve. In the case of the visual narrative, if implemented effectively, certainly students will gain competence in the critical thinking required to synthesize text, images, symbols, metaphors, and sound to create an elegant, logically integrated piece... However, again, this does not guarantee academic achievement. In fact, for as long as the school system remains steeped in old values, it's hard to say if digital tools ever will categorically improve anything more than engagement. The goals of education and the affordances of digital technology simply do not create a happy marriage.

As an aside, I was pondering the view that visuals are this generations's vehicle for writing when it occurred to me that, in the early development of humankind, visuals were also an important vehicle for writing. Think cave paintings. They told stories, recorded facts, and there were no words. Think of the Bayeux Tapestry. It recorded facts in immense and glorious detail. There are very few words, and those that do appear are mainly labels for people's names (Harold) or dates. Even the writing of the ancient Egyptians, hieroglyphs, was image based. Chinese and Japanese writing is in fact symbols to represent ideas. When did writing (the black and white alphabetic sort) take over from visual or image representations? Was it the Gutenberg Press? Whatever it was, we seem to have come around circle, at least vaguely... a wobbly amoebic one?! :)

History of Writing

Week 6: Copyright and Plagiarism

Whether a person uses a work in its entirety or a chunk thereof; the law would still view this as either plagiarism or copyright infringement. Where it comes to incorporating chunks of someone else's work in a remix: The remixer may well be producing something new and different from the original, however incorporating a couple of seconds of someone else's work within that remix would nevertheless constitute a violation of copyright. 

The sad part in all of this is that the digital technologies we have now, and which are continuing to blossom, afford our children (and us of course) the opportunity to create in the same way that the human race has created for hundreds of years... by remixing culture... but the creation of copyright law, as Lessig so elegantly points out, was not written to deal with such rapid technological advancement. 

I found Lessig's comment in the Ted Talk about balance to be particularly poignant really: "We need to legalize what it is to be young again".

We, as the older generation, have grown up knowing that we must cite or otherwise acknowledge the use of other people's work. Today's multimodal technology doesn't really lend itself to such practices. As Lessig (2008) points out: "In my view, the solution to an unwinnable war is not to wage war more vigorously. At least when the war is not about survival, the solution for an unwinnable war is to sue for peace, and then to find ways to achieve without war the ends that the war sought. Criminalizing an entire generation is too high a price to pay for almost any end. It is certainly too high a price to pay for a copyright system crafted more than a generation ago."   I believe that until a balance is found between the law and the new generation of creators, that question of responsibility will remain nebulous at best.

In the US 

     If we were talking about the US, then I would be more concerned as illegal use of copyrighted materials is quite doggedly pursued. Here in Canada however, we are more lax. An interesting article on copyright damages suits can be found at the link below. In the article, Geist states: 

"it is important to note that recent changes to Canadian copyright law limit liability in non-commercial cases to a maximum of $5,000 for all infringement claims. In fact, it is likely that a court would award far less - perhaps as little as $100 - if the case went to court as even the government's FAQ on the recent copyright reform bill provided assurances that Canadians "will not face disproportionate penalties for minor infringements of copyright by distinguishing between commercial and non-commercial infringement."

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6710/125/

Dr. Michael Geist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa and holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law.  

I think it's relevant to point out that plagiarism isn't a crime while copyright infringement is. That being said, reading this article makes it fairly clear that Canadians can most likely relax and sleep easy with regards to non-commercially driven copyright violations.

I think it's relevant to point out that plagiarism isn't a crime while copyright infringement is. That being said, reading this article makes it fairly clear that Canadians can most likely relax and sleep easy with regards to non-commercially driven copyright violations.

Canada's Federal Copyright Act doesn't even mention minors, so it's hard to know whether the parent or the child would be responsible for "misdeeds" online. However, I also looked into the Parental Responsibility Act (Ontario) which states:

Parents’ liability

2.  (1)  Where a child takes, damages or destroys property, an owner or a person entitled to possession of the property may bring an action in the Small Claims Court against a parent of the child to recover damages, not in excess of the monetary jurisdiction of the Small Claims Court,

(a) for loss of or damage to the property suffered as a result of the activity of the child; and

(b) for economic loss suffered as a consequence of that loss of or damage to property. 2000, c. 4, s. 2 (1).

Same

(2)  The parent is liable for the damages unless the parent satisfies the court that,

(a) he or she was exercising reasonable supervision over the child at the time the child engaged in the activity that caused the loss or damage and made reasonable efforts to prevent or discourage the child from engaging in the kind of activity that resulted in the loss or damage; or

(b) the activity that caused the loss or damage was not intentional. 2000, c. 4, s. 2 (2).

I also read an illuminating article at WIPR (World Intellectual Property Review) which discusses the intellectual property nightmare created by memeing and the speed with which they transmogrify into new memes or different formats (e.g. video). The process for identifying the copyright owner and the potential copyright violators is extremely complex and not always possible. Within this article Damien Collier, in 2011. Its purpose is to provide the creators of viral videos with a service that includes handling licensing requests, tracking down violators of copyright, and even the development of brands for memes. 

The US is most definitely more diligent about tracking down so-called violators than we are here in Canada. In 1998, Bill Clinton passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which came into being via the World Intellectual Property Organization and which serves to protect Online Service Providers from liability when their users infringe copyright law but also to extend the reach of copyright law, thus enabling the pursuit of violators. 

I could ramble on about law ad nauseum but I think that, to Lessig's point, the big issue here is the chasm between the law makers/owners of copyright and the right of the people to engage in cultural practices that include the remix and mash up of existing works to produce new ones. It's not like this is a new concept, it's just that never before has it been so easy, so rampant, and so disconcerting to the holders of the "original" works. In the entire history of art, literature, drama, and even dance, it is understood that re-inventing, or appropriating, rewriting, retelling, adapting - whatever you want to label it - has, and always will be how culture is fashioned and how it is rewritten to echo the realities of the current population. Only now is it criminal to do so... Take Romeo and Juliet for example, here's what I gleaned from www.historicalfiction.com:

1440's  Masuccio Salernitano's poem Mariotto and Ganozza

1531    Luigi da Porto, Newly Found Story of Two Noble Lovers

1554    Matteo Bandello, Romeo e Giulietta

1562    Arthur Brooke, The Tragic History of Romeus and Juliet

1582    William Painter, Palace of Pleasure

1590    Lope de Vega, (Spanish version)

1590's  Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Restoration, William Davenant, wrote a revision of his uncle's (Shakespeare) play

1679    Thomas Otway, The History and Fall of Caius Marius

1744    Theophilus Cibber, revision

IMDB indexes over 34 films based on the story. These include West Side Story (don't forget that was on Broadway too), and my personal favourite, Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet.

2010    Robin Maxwell's novel O Juliet

...but today we can't adapt, remix, retell, appropriate using digital technologies because the world has gone crazy...

Week 5: Trajectories of Remixing

I have to be honest in stating that this course in digital literacies is taking me significantly outside of my area of knowledge. Every week I feel saturated with more new information than I can process. Many of the tools, web sites, and ideas are foreign to me and while I would love to explore them all, I have to satisfy myself with attempting to synthesize the readings themselves into my current knowledge stores.

Having said that, each new week elicits in me a compulsion to read further - to gain greater clarity regarding one or other topic or idea presented in the course texts. This week it was the notion of copyright. I looked into Lawrence Lessig's 2008 publication "Remix: Making Art and Commerce thrive in the Hybrid Economy". I didn't purchase it, but practised a little of my own "piracy" by downloading the available pages from Amazon.com.

I enjoyed Lessig's (2005) argument that "culture as a whole can be construed as remix" since it echoes the fashion in which oral cultures are propagated. The telling of a story is retold in an ever-expanding narrative by each successive teller; and each time that story is retold, new layers of meaning, new ideas, new experiences, new angles are incorporated to reflect the meaning-making of the individual telling the tale.

In the introduction to Remix; Lessig describes the laments of Sousa that the evolution of "machines" to perpetuate music was going to dumb down culture by making us consumers of culture rather than producers. He saw a sad decline in the perceived value of learning to play musical instruments as a way to celebrate good music, and culture, in favour of listening to "infernal machines".

In today's culture however, it is thanks to these infernal machines and more specifically, thanks to the explosion in digital technologies that our children are becoming experts in the creation of new expressions of meaning. Not only do young people create "mash-ups" of music, using software like GarageBand and Cakewalk as a form of entertainment, but, like Greg Gillis, some dedicate their artistic selves to the production of "remix" music as a way of life (Lessig, 2005, p. 11).

Link to: Girl Talk creating a mash-up

Uploaded on Mar 28, 2007

Girl Talk creating a mashup from Elvis Costello's Radio

Link to: Girl Talk: Bounce That 

Published on Dec 6, 2007

Professor Matthew Soar at Concordia University in Montréal, as a contribution to the Open Source Cinema Project, teamed with his students and spent what he describes as "three very intensive weeks rotoscoping a concert video" of Girl Talk. They were, he says, inspired by Bob Sabiston's digital rotoscoping (Snack and Drink, Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly), and by Christine Harold's OurSpace: Resisting the Corporate Control of Culture, a textbook used for his communications course.

Indeed, remix is not restricted to music. It has helped to extend multimodal literacies via the combination of different media elements into a new textual expression to create something new (Lankshear & Knobel, 2008, p. 186).  Lankshear & Knobel define remixing as

“selecting, cutting, pasting and combining semiotic resources into new digital and multi-modal texts (bricolage), which is achieved by downloading and uploading files from different sources (internet, iPod, DV-camera, digital camera or sound recording devices)” (Erstad, Gilje, & de Lange, 2007, no page)."

There is no doubt in my mind that the affordances of multi-modalities in the art and science of remixing is not only engaging for young people but allows them opportunities to demonstrate that they are more than capable of critical engagement and creative production (Lankshear & Knobel, 2008). So what's the problem here - why don't we see the employment of multi modalities and remixing deployed on a large scale in integrated curricular instruction in schools across North America?

That's a very big question and one to which there are many answers, including but certainly not limited to:

• educational reform and the challenge of the traditional conception of school (students have little control over their learning processes and creativity is thus often constrained). See also Lankshear & Knobel, 2008, p. 199 "The Idea of Schooling"
• the role of the teacher (who is not uncommonly digitally incompetent) 
• the non-standardization of the role and usefulness of Project Based Learning as a conducive pedagogy for digital literacy and thereby opportunities for remixing 
• the traditional definitions of reading and writing or text ("a text is rather a ‘tissue of citations’ born of a multitude of sources in culture (Barthes, 1978). In this light, the author is simply a collaborator with other writers, citing them and reworking their ideas” (Diakopoulos, 2005, no page). Also, "for young people writing today means something much more using images, sound and video to express ideas (ibid., p. 177–178)" (Lankshear & Knobel, 2008, p. 188).  
• the mainstream understanding of what literacy is, "literacy is not a static term but relates to technological innovations, and cultural and political strategies and developments." (Lankshear & Knobel, 2008, p. 182) and that literacy equates to "Socially recognized ways of generating, communicating and negotiating meaningful content through the medium of encoded texts within contexts of participation in Discourses (or, as members of Discourses)." (Lankshear & Knobel, 2006, p. 64).

Another issue however, going back to my starting point in this post, is that of copyright. Before the vast expansion of digital technologies, our conception of writing meant text via alphabetization, print on a page, black and white. Today, youth understanding of writing usually involves digital technologies and encompasses images, or sound, or video, as well as traditional text, and often all of these modes at the same time, remixed to express something new - and adding to our culture. The problem with this, legally speaking, is that pre-digital age copyright laws remain in effect. In a board of education, one can only imagine how emphatic would be the desire of bureaucrats, principals and teachers to steer clear of legal entanglements and how fearful they might be that students would put them in delicate situations should remixing projects become widely accepted practice in schools. The fact of the matter is however that most of our children are already criminals according to copyright law. What teenager does not habitually download "free" music from YouTube, or have an enviable library of torrent downloaded movies from sites such as PirateBay? 

(Lessig, 2008)

Criminalizing those (mostly young people) who embrace our "read-write" digital culture (Lessig, 2008), is utterly pointless as well as potentially culturally crippling. However, until the law makers develop a way out of it, I have to assume that school boards will continue to be wary of allowing students to "plagiarize" even while these same students develop healthy online followings as creative digital remixers outside of school. That's kind of messed up - as my sons would say.

"Remix is an urgent, eloquent plea to end a war that harms our children and other intrepid creative users of new technologies. It also offers an inspiring vision of the post-war world where enormous opportunities await those who view art as a resource to be shared openly rather than a commodity to be hoarded." (retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/dp/1594201722/ref=rdr_ext_tmb)

Week 4: Social Media - does it define us?

Some parents worry that the emergence of social media has over-publicized the lives of their children and that it has made them too vulnerable. Some say that it dictates their behaviour, compels them to reinvent themselves and that it thus erodes individual identity.

The questions that came to my mind as I read this week's chapters and articles are along these lines:

1. Does social media dictate our behaviour?
2. Are we compelled to use it?
3. Do we become unemployable if we're not on LinkedIn, or uncool if we don't Tweet, or nerdy if we don't use Instagram? 

I think these questions are important for educators as the answers provide access to the psyche of the minds of our students, at least a little bit.

Is it possible that social media platforms are the only escape our children have from the ubiquitous supervision of their parents? I remember when I was growing up, my mother would push me out the door to go play and would not expect me back until I was hungry. Today's children seem to have little time unsupervised - they move from school, to the bus, to after-school programmes, to hockey or soccer, and then home again. So maybe kids need to spend time with their peers, outside of the adult gaze - and maybe this is what created momentum for the invention of tools like Facebook (Zuckerberg was a clever kid)?

I don't know - just wondering...

Social media sites like MySpace and Facebook are about self absorption, self expression, and the development of social networks (strong ties, weak ties, and strong weak ties [Jones & Hafner, 2012, p. 146]). So how come it's not just for kids? How come adults are as connected to social media as they are? Why do adults seem to be just as drawn into the desire to cultivate and propagate online social networks? Is there something missing in our non-virtual reality? Why do we have a need to become a part of this culture of hypervisibility? I'm not saying it's dystopian, I'm simply wondering why. 

Now to another issue I'm pondering. Privacy. 

As we align ourselves with free social networks like Facebook, we should also be aware that the network feeds off our data. In a manner of speaking, we are being exploited. Our data is mined and sold. We have become the product. As we go out there and manufacture our identities, whatever identity that might be (a different one for different purposes and different SM networks), our data is being gleaned. That's not always such a terrible thing - targeted advertisements are significantly less annoying than general broadcasts for things we don't want (like a combine harvester). So if we expect something in return (decent advertising, or a push prompt from an app that is pertinent to ones time and space) then that's just fine and dandy.

Regarding privacy, there are several considerations. Will privacy will become one of the most valuable commodities of this century? When you consider that sites such as Facebook are free, and that they collect our data, then we cannot expect to NOT pay for the Facebook service and ALSO think that we can own our data - or can we? I've heard it argued that as we create more and more public images of ourselves online, we are becoming (relatively unfamous) celebrities. With celebrity status, comes the loss of the right of ownership of our identities. In other words, those who seek to find a way to erase data may not be able to due to the very publicness of our identities in the 21st century (Keen, 2012 - Digital Vertigo).  

• I wonder whether there is such a thing as data literacy? 
• Does ownership of data become a political issue - data is power - we are data?
• I wonder what the government does/has the potential capacity to do with our data
• Actually, the government probably isn't the biggest powerhouse of data - what about Apple, Google?
• Can the data ever disappear or is it there forever - and do we want it there forever? 

Data that is disseminated through social media sites is not necessarily only personal data however. What about the shared intelligence created by networks of professionals. The potential to amass tons of data on one area of research via social media networks represents a rich source of innovation. What a disaster it would be if rules were created regarding the deletion of data - rules which generalized and which jeopardized information that resides outside the realm of self-absorbed consumption, rules which could destroy the productive potential of connecting billions of people together.

By the way, Zuckerberg said "you've only got one identity". Pretty sure he got that one wrong.

References (not APA):
Many of the ideas in this post are taken from Norman Lewis and the web site www.bigpotatoes.org; and Andrew Keen's book "Digital Vertigo" downloadable at https://archive.org/stream/digitalvertigo00keen#page/22/mode/2up.

Week 3: Pop Culture - That's Literacy?

Janette - this is my reflection on the presentation from last week:

Summary and Reflection: Pop Culture – That’s Literacy?

Kati Roughton-Paré 100362718

I think it is difficult to separate the use of pop culture and the use of digital technology in a pedagogical context. For the most part, contemporary pop culture is accessible via technological platforms whether they are Facebook, YouTube, music, or games. For this reason, the readings I undertook beyond the course readings for this week (week three) focused more on the use of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) in education.

Vines for education?

Vines just for fun.

The title we were provided; “Pop Culture – That’s Literacy?” implies a degree of cynicism, unless perhaps I inferred that erroneously. When I asked friends, family, and colleagues what they understood to be pop culture, I found one consistent assumption and this was that it is often viewed as trivial and over-simplistic. It is interesting and noteworthy that when I brought this idea to the class, during our presentation, there was a general outcry that this position was false. However, when one compares pop culture to high culture, we can make comparisons such as Jane Austen’s work versus a Grand Theft Auto web blogger; or Eminem’s lyrics compared to those of Verdi in La Traviata. Does pop culture seem trivial now? I would argue that it does unless it is used in a meaningful and well-purposed manner in the classroom.

Hughes, King, Perkins, and Fuke (2001) and Frey and Fisher (2004) did just this. Using the vehicle of the graphic novel, these authors “invited students into school literacy” (Frey & Fisher, 2004, p. 24). The goal of each study was to make Language Arts more meaningful and authentic for the students and to ultimately have these struggling readers and writers use a more creative process to develop a product which they could a) complete and b) be proud of. “Rather than the work being a chore (as written assignments are frequently considered to be by reluctant students), it was evident that the students found the work to be exciting and playful”. (Hughes et al, 2011, p. 610). What these studies demonstrate is that the use of the graphic novel as a medium for self-expression increases student engagement as well as perhaps tenacity, as demonstrated by the number of students who managed to complete the assignment they were given.

These studies equally well demonstrate the potential for pop culture and pedagogy to bring students from being consumers to being creators. The New London Group (1996) states that “Critical Framing” is “to help learners frame their growing mastery in practice and conscious control and understanding in relation to the historical, social, cultural, political, ideological, and value-centred relations of particular systems of knowledge and social practice” (New London Group, 1996, p. 21). It is through critical framing that students develop “the necessary personal and theoretical distance from what they have learned, constructively critique it, account for its cultural location, creatively extend and apply it, and eventually innovate on their own” (New London Group, 1996, p. 21). This indeed is transformed practice.

The design of the Hughes et al and the Frey & Fisher studies seem to fit well with the New London Group’s framework of Situated Practice (immersion in meaningful activities with a community of learners), Overt Instruction (scaffolding, collaborating, and building), and Critical Framing, which leads to Transformed Practice (New London Group, 1996, p. 20).

What is crucial to consider however, is how pop culture and technology generally are used for teaching. Rather than a hook, educators need to find ways to make them intrinsic to the learning process so that students may not only consume them but rather become involved in critiquing, manipulating, and remixing them as a means to find their place in our ever-evolving, globalizing society. “Part of being digitally literate is to be aware of and to resist the digital threats to identity and to be able to use digital means to secure and support one’s own identity” (Lankshear & Knobel, 2008, p. 174). To achieve this, students require teachers who are equipped to develop competencies such as how to collect and retrieve information, to manage information, integrate, evaluate and create (Lankshear & Knobel, 2008, p. 158). Students should be invited to author, and remix information using digital tools. Notice that none of these skills or competencies focus on the ability to become fluent with any one tool or phenomenon. Pop culture is in a constant state of change and reinvention. Therefore, we must be careful not to focus on the vehicle or tool itself but on the affordances that digital technologies generally allow in terms of engaging students in the learning process.

Doug Belshaw illustrates concisely how educators can develop digital literacies in the overlap between individual interest and important issues, where important issues may be bullying, Black History month, the problems with junk food or plastics in our society.  

It is important to remember that adopting pop culture as a teaching tool does not equate to entertaining our students. The decision to use it in the classroom should not be considered a gimmick, a hook, or an opportunity for levity. Rather it should be considered as logical manner in which to connect curriculum to student reality. “Children and young people are increasingly active media users as consumers and producers”, therefore absorbing and consuming popular culture, but also contributing to popular culture” (Pedro 2006 in Lankshear & Knobel, 2008, p. 145). This being the case, digital literacy “affects your identity because every time you’re given a new tool, it gives you a different way to impact upon the world” (Belshaw, Ted Talk, 2012). We exist in a world where the classical industrial order is being replaced by a society of uncertainty and risk, a liquid modernity (Bauman 2000 in Lankshear & Knobel, 2008, p. 153). Web 2.0 has created a society where one person can reach millions in a matter of moments and this in turn has created a need, particularly in the younger generation, to stay connected at all times. It helps to understand why our children are so intent on sharing their lives publicly as they try to build, maintain, or change their individual identities. Concurrently, external agencies are covertly and overtly gathering information on us and attempting to both manipulate our actions (through targeted ads for example) and stereotype, or imprint on us, an identity that they prefer. Therefore, we are left with the challenge of controlling the construct of our identities and it is for this reason (among many!) that literacy is so very crucial. “The idea of literacy expresses one of the fundamental characteristics of participation in society, and the widening application of the world has seen it used to characterize all the necessary attributes of social being”. (Lankshear & Knobel, 2008, p. 155).

Ultimately, it is clear that digital technologies are ever evolving and are almost certainly here to stay. While they are here they are also integral in shaping our social present and future. What I have learned from these readings is that the greatest hurdle to successfully incorporating digital technologies in pedagogy is our educational system itself. “The current generation of decision makers ranging from politicians to teachers sees the world from a different perspective than the digital generation (Green & Hannon, 2007). The young people of today cannot remember a world without the internet, SMS, MSN, iPod, MySpace and Facebook. However, the decision-makers decide how digital media will be used in the schools and the professional world. They make laws and regulations that restrict the potential inherent in digital media. This represents a short-term solution to a long-term challenge. The problem is that schools run the risk of basing their teaching on presentation, communication and assessment methods that are about to become obsolete in both form and content” (Lankshear & Knobel, 2008, p. 145).

This quote alludes to the problems inherent in attempting to transform current educational systems and systems of pedagogy that have been in pace for many, may decades. “Substantial cultural change in an institution occurs at a glacial pace” (Owen and Demb, 2004, p. 651). Too much, and probably without really paying attention to it, our educational institutions remain steeped in the ideals generated during the Industrial Revolution wherein education was a vehicle for developing economic power through the training and indoctrination of the proletariat, or the working class (Hodgkinson, 1991). It is this legacy that keeps classrooms teacher-centric and, as stated by Mezirow "the very definition of education itself is almost universally understood in terms of an organized effort to facilitate behavioural change".  What we need is a new definition of education, which encompasses the development of individuality, curiosity, and growth through the development of critical literacies including digital critical literacies.     …or something along those lines!

http://archive2.nmc.org/pdf/Global_Imperative.pdf