[iDC] Undermining open source: iTunes U
John Hopkins
jhopkins at neoscenes.net
Wed Mar 8 00:42:53 EST 2006
hallo idc'ers:
Some practical and impractical thoughts...
>Thanks, Trebor, for the good, practical thoughts. I agree that
>courses have to be concept driven and have to confess that I
>probably wouldn't be able to teach a software driven class if I had
>to (too boring!), but I do think we have a responsibility to make
>sure students have the ability to do what they want with the
>software. Students who have computer experience prior to entering
>college aren't the issue, it's the ones without the experience
>(immigrant populations, students from underfunded grade and high
>schools, etc.) that worry me. Programming of course is key, that's
>something I've been focusing on with students for a long time, and
>something I think should be core knowledge in public k-12 education.
>It's a literacy issue, those with the knowledge of programming not
>only have the ability to succeed professionally (including starting
>businesses), but like reading and writing, have the ability to
>express themselves and be active social and political actors. I've
>been teaching for a while so I've had the pleasure to see students
>transcend social and economic class by gaining a high level of
>programming skill and creativity.
I believe it is important to remember that a transcendent experience
in the classroom (however one defines that term) happens relatively
independent of the subject material. Otherwise, how to explain that
different people may get 'turned on' in every imaginable type
classroom (or turned off as well...).
I conclude that it is dependent on what one might call the structural
characteristics of that extended learning space -- I use the term
meta-characteristics -- that most affect the experience. These would
include factors like grading (which deeply informs the
teacher-student relationship by institutionally defining the social
power base of that relationship); the physical characteristics of the
space (bad lighting, inadequate devices, the ventilation,
intimidating arrangement of furniture), the over-riding social
mandate governing the actual presence of both student and teacher
(why get a degree? why choose this subject? why work at that
school? why teach? etc); the relationships or lack thereof between
the students, and so on...
All these characteristics inform the presence or lack of an
atmosphere of fear. When a dominant social agenda over-rides the
general atmosphere by instilling a fear (of failure, of
non-acceptance, of rejection), little or no learning may take place.
If the teacher gains the trust of the students (and vice-versa),
powerful and fearless forces for facing the unknown and assimilating
that unknown as a learning experience thrive.
A teacher approaching these questions has first to have an
understanding of what the meta-characteristics are, and then to have
strategies for how to shift those characteristics in such a way that
they serve the goal of creative engagement and learning.
Coming to the issue of software vs hardware vs art, if the previous
general conditions are not met, there is little hope of a
transcendent learning experience, so a discussion is pointless. If
the conditions are met to one degree or another, then one can
consider these material issues -- as they affect the full set of
meta-characteristics of the situation.
Coming to more media-specific issues -- which totally depend on the
local program -- making any generalizations problematic to begin
with, but:
However, stressing to the student that the process is a
learning-how-to-learn about software and hardware. Many will still
feel cheated when they arrive at the end of the semester without
mastering a single chunk of software. If there is a new software
that it seems necessary to learn, I generally deploy several small
groups with different tasks to implement, mixing nerds with
non-nerds, and have them play for some days until they make
presentations to the class on what they did and how they did it...
Patrick brings up the issue of choosing platform (Linux), and so on
-- which is fine when there is proper tech support (for the faculty
member). And unless there is decent support or the faculty want to
take on lab-maintenance along with 3- or 4-class semesters, what
choice is there? Personally, I prefer a lab that I manage myself, as
long as I have complete freedom (and budget) to choose platform &
software. And then there is the issue of the sysadmins of the
greater institutional infrastructure. I make sure to make contact
with the functional sysadmins, rather than the IT managers. As much
of my work revolves around the actual functional dynamics of the
local network and how it interacts with the greater internet, I have
many many stories of both success and conflict over firewalls and
other security measures.
Encouraging and facilitating student's use of their own machines in
class, rather than relying fully on the generally 'canned' machines
that the IT infrastructure provides. This allows the student to have
a stake in actively engaging the important process of maintaining
their own machine as a production platform -- something that is
missed entirely when students use machines that are maintained as
'black boxes' which either run or don't run.
And to Patrick's comment on the technical/conceptual split. hmmm.
sounds like the historical discussion about "photography as art." Or
the contemporary art:science split. And at any rate, this issue is
very curriculum-dependent. If everybody accepts that the courses are
about learning software, then why go to any effort at all to change
it? It'll simply drain the spirit. Better to go to a program that
recognizes that the issue is creative engagement of the world by the
student (and the teacher together). This goal melds any material
concerns into a deeper foundation which accepts that ANY material
(technology) used for creative action has limits. Once this is
accepted, then it is interesting to look at those limits, try to
circumscribe them, and move on to the possibilities. The ensuing
exploration is somewhat defined by those limits, and the process of
pushing the limits. This process can be undertaken regardless of
the material technology (hardware or software) be it MicroSoft or
OpenSource.
The Academy (read: any institution) is always, as a social unit,
defined by its need for self-determined or imposed structure.
Anything else is a threat. Although stasis is the reward for
clinging to same-ness; social structures tend to resist change
because change means a migration of power to different sets of
relation. This generates the fear of change. This is the same for
the university, industry, academy, military, whatever social
structure.
In a way, a traditional educational institution may be compared to
Microsoft (monolithic, limited, rigid, static), and OpenSource can be
compared to the chaos of real life (dynamic, plural, fluid, changing).
Realizing all this, the radical/transformative learning experience is
a unique instance, not limited by time or situation. It can be
microscopic (to the larger social structure) -- i.e. an individual
"ahah! so that's how the world works!" to the larger-scale of social
renewal / revolution. But it is characterized by change -- it does
not persist because it is impossible for any social configuration to
maintain presence at the edge of the unknown. Humans have a limited
capacity for for facing that unknown. It is a burst of freedom,
followed by consolidation. And, having said that, it can occur
anywhere at any time within any social structure.
This is a general call for each teacher to look at the immediate
situation and see a pathway to change on any scale: take the
opportunity. This can mean getting a technophobic student to play
with the color palette in Photoshop or a nerd to write a poem in
code. Or for a whole group to decide to cook dinner together, sit
down at a common table and enjoy one another's presence.
As for worrying about savvy and less-than-savvy computer users -- I
find that generally there are fundamental problems with both sets of
students. The savvy ones often have no clue as to creative social
uses of the machine -- and instead of exploring the possibilities
they stick closely to their known. The less-than-savvy ones often
have a phobia for the machine. A broad digital literacy is
problematic for both. And again, unless one may provide a fearless
context for exploration, little will happen. Having tech-savvy
students act as consultants or collaborators for the less-savvy
students quickly highlights their real knowledge-base and can
glaringly illustrate that tech-knowledge is not enough, and the
painting student who barely does email can intensively influence the
creative project assignment. Of course, this issue of the range of
knowledge-bases among a typical group of students is always
problematic and has to be solved on an individual and per-class basis.
In the end, for the students to be 'active social and political
actors' a teacher must focus on facilitating an active social
atmosphere that supports fearless (radical) explorations. This has
little to do with the material status of the physical classroom.
Every different class group is different in this respect, and the
teacher should not rely too much on canned solutions or else the
students feel too restricted by operating to someone else's standards.
Of course, the fundamental issue with software/hardware choices is
the surfacing of a much broader social principle -- to conform or not
to the social structure that one is embedded in. Conformity
guarantees social rewards. Unconformity risks losing those rewards
at least, and at most, entirely losing ones identity and viability
with-in the social system. Why wouldn't a student curse the course
that did not prepare him or her for getting that nice comfortable job
-- a reward for conforming to the educational system whose goal is to
fill those nice comfortable jobs with nicely 'knowledged' and
compliant young people who will not ask difficult questions...
Okay, enough for a Tuesday evening.
Cheers & thanks for the stimulus...
John
PS -- reflecting on Trebor's comment in his fibreculture article "In
addition, it is an almost impossible challenge for a single human
being to keep up with all technological advances."
I think one VERY DEEP problem among a majority of new media educators
is a serious lack of understanding, from a fundamental level, of
engineering, science, and technology. Just as engineers are often
completely ignorant of cultural issues, so are art educators of the
"other culture" of science. Back to C.P. Snow's laments... But,
with a fundamental background in engineering principles, one CAN keep
up with those advances. But without knowing 'how things work'
advances don't seem logical or incremental...
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