Speed, silence and sanctuary, is the topic of discussion for the final week of study in Introduction to Digital Environments in Learning. We began the course by talking about the ever increasing workload that teachers are facing in the work place. I wrote this blog: IDEL Redefining Personal Boundaries in Education where I reflect:

“In environments where technology and e-learning has not "Yet" been adopted, teachers and lecturers are used to a structured workplace where the teacher is in almost complete control of where and when they and their students can interact. Some may feel that with all the benefits that come with e-learning there will also be sacrifices and that they will have to give up more of the control that they once had.”

 So this seems to be a fitting place to finish of this module. Not only because of this, but also because it is a relief to see that education establishments are taking the lead in awareness of the issues surrounding the problems and challenges of the fast paced workplace.

So what can a university like Edinburgh do to help its students prepare before joining the workforce? What are the solutions? 

It is important as Levy states, first to reach an agreement on the nature and extent of the problem:

“This could mean raising the issue as a topic of discussion and debate on individual university campuses, as well as within umbrella organizations.”

This is something that we have been doing for example in the last week of debate during this module.  Also, it is important to conduct research and studies to examine the extent of the problem, and perceptions of the problem.

Mind over matter:

I mentioned in my last blog that I’ve found necessary with my increasing work load to find techniques that help me relax and focus, techniques such as listening to music or taking walks.

In this spirit, Levy suggests bringing contemplative practices explicitly into university curricula to help students, faculty, and staff, “strengthen their attentional faculties in the face of the erosion effected by multitasking and acceleration.”

Contemplative practices quiet the mind in order to cultivate a personal capacity for deep concentration and insight. Examples of contemplative practice include not only sitting in silence but also many forms of single-minded concentration including meditation, contemplative prayer, mindful walking, focused experiences in nature, yoga and other contemporary physical or artistic practices. We also consider various kinds of ritual and ceremony designed to create sacred space and increase insight and awareness to be forms of contemplative practice.  http://www.contemplativemind.org/practices/

Ultimately whether such practices that prepare students for their speedy careers ahead of them are incorporated or not, humans do what humans do best, they adapt. However, some guidance along the way, and creating awareness and debate on such issues are at the core of what education is all about.

References:

http://www.contemplativemind.org/practices/

Levy, D. (2007). No time to think: Reflections on information technology and contemplative scholarship. Ethics and Information Technology, 9(4): 233–236.

I stood by the Clyde today looking at its gently rippling surface:

tiny pools of murky greyness

merging with splashes of sunny reflections

to separate an instant later

in a constant pulsating movement

Water, as Bayne (2004: 303) clarifies in her description of Deleuze and Guattari’s smooth and striated cultural spaces, represents smoothness per excellence, here, in my context, of course simultaneously striated by the river man-made embankments.

What I like about Bayne’s argumentation is the way she emphasises how the two spaces penetrate each other and emerge from each other (2004: 305) in a process of sometimes peaceful, sometimes conflictual co-existence and co-operation, echoed by Cousin (2005:123) who describes technology and pedagogy as ‘overlapping, complementary, conflictual, dynamic’ in their relationship . Neither of the domains is given primacy, neither of them is better – it’s ‘and ... and ... and’, which leaves room for the surprising and the unexpected (Cousin, 2005:124), rather than ‘either ... or’. Bayne (2004) and Cousin (2005) suggest parity and equity epitomised in collaboration instead of subordination within hierarchical structures. That is the first step towards blurring the boundaries in the papers about the uncanny discussed in earlier posts as well as Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto.

However, the methodologies used in HE seem to be mostly based on the latter paradigms, i.e. ‘centralising practices of teaching, assessment and supervision’ (Cousin, 2005:121), which could explain why the web (that part that is surfed not cruised – Bayne 2004: 304) gets subjected to striation, e.g. illustrated by the use of virtual learning environments (Bayne, 2004:312-313 and Cousin, 2005:120-123). Apart from the problems related to the institutions themselves, smoothness cannot be idealised or romanticised as the panacea for the weaknesses of the current educational system: Cousin (2005) warns us against losing oneself in the promiscuous web and going ultra fanciful post-modern. Bayne also stresses that smooth spaces should not be perceived as a saviour bringing liberation from the constraints of the hierarchy (2004: 304). Nevertheless, she suggests that smoothness is explored more deeply and attempts are made to unleash its potential in HE so that the imbalance between the modernist (hierarchical, structured) and postmodern approaches is redressed.

It is paradoxical how smoothness/rhizome oriented strategies might often end up supporting the structure and hierarchy (an example of blurring the boundaries?) - while discussing the education in cyberspace, the human need or more probably academic practice gains the foreground in which things have to be named, categorised neatly into genealogies and as a result both academics introduce binary dichotomies: Cousin introduces ‘arboreal’ and ‘rhizome’ while Bayne discusses ‘smooth’ and striated’, followed by lists of opposing characteristics. Instead of the table illustrating these oppositions, I have opted for a wordle that successfully blurs them

In her paper, Bayne makes use of different metaphors as after Nunes she believes they ‘function as performative speech acts’ (2004: 304). Inspired by this I would like to point out another thing that could perhaps help advance the necessary blurring is a slight adjustment in the terminology – I’m proposing this very tentatively though, aware of my lack of expertise. When reading the papers about use of digital technologies in higher education what strikes me is the constant use of the word ‘pedagogy’ although university students, especially on post-grad courses, are adults. Of course, the term is most probably used in a broad sense of the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching and besides the term ‘andragogy’ has been critiqued extensively; however, the root of the word pedagogy ‘pais’ meaning ‘child’ has made me think that it could implicitly exacerbate the situation within HE and inhibit the shift that the papers are calling for.

When you think of the child, the situational context that springs to mind is that of a family and the relationship with the parent which, taking the physical, emotional and intellectual aspects, can be traced along the vertical, traditionally expressing a degree of control and dependency, in other words hierarchy which is also typical of the university and the students, as well as the teacher and the student (at least in the modernist understanding). No wonder that when on the educational arena another player turns up, that is digital technologies, it’s straightaway fitted (subordinated) into that structure too! - Cousin describes that in much more detail and with greater eloquence. That could be why virtual learning environments are willingly adopted as they lend themselves to the vertical structure very well – unidirectionality, the hierarchy of users and their privileges (course designer/admin, teacher, student), closedness (you can get in only via special secure gateways), tracking and monitoring facilities, sometimes even the interface itself (for example in moodle, the way the weekly modules can be made visible and how they unfold top-down on the page) – a little digression here which I can’t resist – some time ago I attended two webinars on m-learning and it seems to me that the apps approach could be likened to VLEs as it could be subsumed as dishing out knowledge in form of digestible and discrete packages of knowledge – flashcards, quizzes, etc

I thought, on a very superficial level, that swapping ‘ped’ with ‘andro’ (or using an altogether different term) could affect how education is perceived. The relationship between two adults is more of a partnership so mapping it out would proceed on a horizontal plain. In education terms it could translate into peer-to-peer or even expert-to-expert relationship between the teacher and the – to my delight I have discovered Prof Mayes talking about horizontal learning in his paper Groundhog Day again? And I think as a learner I could say that I have experienced this type of learning here on the course!

Lastly, such a viewpoint could perhaps facilitate understanding that digital technologies are not merely enhancement tools, separated, inert and thus a medium that serves educational purposes but they are a serious and equally important player on the educational arena.

This is a private rant of a helpless and confused person and also a follow-up on your mention, Clara, of Goffman’s dramaturgical theory of performance and self-presentation when talking about the significant change I would have to undergo to transcend the barriers erected by my getting stuck in my little and cosy sanctuary (discussed in the adobe video chat). In order to explain social interaction, Goffman uses a metaphor of a theatre where the performance is being put up on the front stage. This is where we act. It’s an interactive play though because the audience is being watched by the actor in exactly the same way as he or she is scrutinised by the viewers. In order for the act to be coherent, conventions have to be agreed on and complied with by both the watchers and the actor and in case of a blunder mutual assistance is given to save the face. The willingness to assist, I imagine, is in proportion to the level of intimacy between the performer and the audience. That possibly grows with the degree of success in meeting each other’s needs. The actor sometimes steps back, from the front stage to the more familiar back stage (where other members of the troupe are waiting for their turn) where he or she can take off their mask as they are now within their group. There might be a degree of playing at being here but less than on the front stage. It’s the offstage when the actor is being truly him/herself as this is probably their sanctuary.

Goffman claims that the person’s identity cannot be clearly mapped out and is quite arbitrary in nature; neither is it stable or independent , rather it is constantly moulded and reshaped in the process of interaction. It looks like a change can only be propelled when performing on the front stage, possibly also backstage, that is social spaces. Perhaps but I would say that the time offstage is equally important and this is where the change could be initiated or consolidated. Otherwise there is danger that, as actors, we might fall guilty of being unfaithful to ourselves as we lose ourselves in the pursuit to satisfy others’ needs. Performing all the time might delude us into believing we are acting well when in fact our acting has been squeezed into the ruts of generalisability and standardisation.

So, the big question for me is whether I really need a community to undergo a change and how loose or close the relationship would have to be? You see I’m quite ok on my own, having conversations with myself in the sanctuary of my blog (perhaps having one or two confidantes would do sufficiently, three makes a community, doesn’t it?). But there is so much talk about collaboration and social constructivism, so much buzz and so much ‘wow’-ing, especially now when Web 2.0 has opened up new social spaces, and I am aware of that, have experienced some of that in the past but do I really need others, and so many of them, to reconfigure myself? Increasingly nowadays I want to switch off, step out of that stream of collective consciousness and just be on my own (more about the importance of time off in another post) but ...

So, I’m sitting on that threshold like on the fence and cannot decide because the online theatre is even worse than the real one. And it’s not only because it has intensified the ‘buzziness’ and ‘busyness’ but also because the boundaries between the front stage, back stage and strangely also offstage in an uncanny fashion get blurred and so do our identities. Our self/selfs can get involved in the interaction with the audience (other self/selves), even in parts of the offstage, which would mean almost constantly one of our online selfs preparing a role and mastering a set of given conventions.

Jumping onto the front stage, into the community means drowning in a constant flow of information and deafening twitter – yes, I know, I am being unfair but this is on purpose – on top of that there are pre-agreed conventions, I’ll have to conform to, act according to and also meet others’ needs , prep to do so, all this being prerequisites for the coherence of the group (Goffman), also partake in others’ angsts ... Are communities, all the twitters and facebooks and alike the only way to go? They open up but they stifle too by demanding that you act as they play. Isn’t it better to leap to the other side, and be free to fly or wander and discover ... Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail (Ralph Waldo)? But if I leap to the other side, will I get transformed? Is there enough drive in me to accomplish the change? Do I trust myself enough as a learner and human to go off and break a trail? Or will I just wander aimlessly without direction?

The question remains unanswered* and the show must go on ...

*As noted in the video chat, it’s a bit of everything, a balance of both individual and social learning - a very easy answer but a difficult thing to do if somebody has strong leanings to one side! And in any case you have to jump ...

PS I googled quotes about balance and this is what Uncle Google spat out:

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking (James A. Baldwin).

Quite interesting ...

If online presence involves fragmentation of the body into multiple e-presences (as suggested in the previous post), the relationships get forged between the real life me and my online representations and possibly some of my online personae also link to each other. Such a complex construct starts interacting with other net users/residents who have formed similar identities. I can imagine that the real selves and online selves relate to each other on different levels and in different configurations, the links being of different strength. I would love to be able to present it in 3D but at the moment my drawings Pic 1 and Pic 2 will have to suffice.

This is just two people getting connected online but considering the number of ‘friends’ and ‘acquaintances’ we make online, the network might grow unbelievably huge and  multi-layered. I imagine this as a live construct, dynamic in its movement and change which I am unable to represent visually. However, I could use an example - recently I have seen a fascinating talk given by Deb Roy about the birth of a word. In this talk he shows how through the use of technology and advanced analysis of data researchers have managed to capture how a child learns a language. This is an amazing piece of research in itself but what also captured my attention is the interactive 3D visualisation Roy uses to present the data (8:32 minute). The wordscape  that is built by the dynamic traces left by the child and his caregivers, a knotted bundle of ink trails, social and solo hot spots, in my view, could demonstrate our activity online, the knots being points of exchange between us/our online selves and others/their online selves as we/our online selves wander across the netscape. Roy moves on to describe how the analysis could be applied in the study of media (around 11 minute of the vid) and the interplay between the social and content graphs, another mind-blowing representation of what the networks look like and work. What  this powerful images add to my own very simplistic attempt to pin down the nature of relationships and interactions is the content contribution as it is not only people and their avs we relate to, but the artefacts scattered online!

“An environment with choice and a diversity of perspectives, will encourage critical and creative inquiry. Such a community of inquiry is a requisite for higher-order learning” Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003).

Aside from my PhD, most learning that I have been “subjected to” ( ß I choose my words carefully! ) in the past at school, college, and university, has followed very authoritarian teacher lead methods. On the other hand, this e-learning course has been a fun collaborative learning community in which there has been clear evidence of interactive cognitive presence, social presence, and teacher presence.   

But anyway, I’m about to be assessed soon, so it’s only fair that I pre-emptively return the favor, and assess my assessors and this course against the community of enquiry model detailed by Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003).

Cognitive presence:

What is it?

We see cognitive presence ‘as the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection and discourse in a critical community of inquiry’ Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003).

Confirmed at: http://communitiesofinquiry.com/cognitive_presence :

“Cognitive presence is the extent to which the participants in any particular configuration of a community of inquiry are able to construct meaning through sustained communication”

Therefore clearly an important component of cognitive presence in a community of enquiry is debate, which necessitates:

a.    The availability of enthusiastic fellow learners and educators to debate with, a requirement which has been met throughout the course by constant interactive dialogue over a range of topics with fellow students, and with teachers and tutors who have actively encouraged and participated in the discourse.

b.    The availability of mediums of communication that enable sustained rich reflective communication between the participants. The course organizers and tutors have made a fantastic effort providing us with, and encouraging us to use a number of mediums of communication, from the slow paced WebCT discussion boards, to Twitter, and the faster paced Skype Chat, Second Life, and Adobe Video Conferencing.    

Another important component of cognitive presence is the ability to construct meaning through sustained communication and reflection.

We have discussed many related topics throughout this course, and have gained meaning by reflecting on everyone’s input including that of our tutors in our weekly session using different mediums of communication. We have also been encouraged to gain meaning and reflect individually on our reading and debates through our blogs, like I am doing now!  

Categories and indicators supplied by Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003) to assess the presence of cognitive presence:

Triggering events (Indicator could be: Sense of puzzlement): Yes for example when Clara showed up looking like a dragon, which triggered allot of puzzlement J, and a long debate on how identity in a medium such as Second Life compares to our real life identity. Other triggering events for example were our scheduled meetings in Second life, Skype, Twitter, etc. This triggered a sense of anticipation, and made me organize and collect my thoughts prior to the meetings.

Exploration (Indicator for example Information exchange): This category seems to be the same as the earlier discussion on debate. Exploring ideas, and exchanging knowledge and perspectives is essentially what debate is all about. 

Integration (Indicators: Connecting Ideas): This happened throughout the course guided by our tutors through discussions, email exchanges, and blog comments, and also by us using the discussion boards, and during the 2 weeks when we collaborated to enrich David Silver‘s, and our individual wiki’s using hypertext and other web 2.0 technologies.

Social Presence:

What is it?

“We define social presence as ‘the ability of participants in a community of inquiry to project themselves socially and emotionally, as ‘real’ people (i.e., their full personality), through the medium of communication being used’” Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003)

I’m not too comfortable with this definition. Two questions spring to mind, What is real? And What constitutes my full personality?

I love Einstein, because his work crosses so many boundaries. Everything can be relative, not just the movement of objects relative to each other and the speed of light through space.

If someone spends allot of time in an environment such as Second life, and interacts with a community in Second life, then for this community, their virtual characters can be just as real to each other as people are to each other in the “real world”.

Second is the issue of what constitutes a full personality. Do we always project our (full) personalities socially and emotionally during serious discussion and discourse?  Do we really need to? What about the projected personality of my avatar in SL, how do I project this personality in a video conference that has nothing to do with SL? As I argue in a previous blog, I believe that presence can occur at varying degrees. We don’t have to be fully present with our entire bodies to have useful discourse. Sometimes my full physical participation maybe required, sometimes just my voice or even just my thoughts through text chat can be enough to have effective social presence. Sometimes a text conversation maybe the most effective form of presence when other attributes such as voice or physical form could be a distraction.

Maybe I’m being very picky, but let’s try and make the definition more realistic (I’m in a critical mood):

“We define social presence as ‘the ability of participants in a community of inquiry to project themselves socially and emotionally, to a level at which they are comfortably able to communicate, and exchange their thoughts and emotions through the medium of communication being used’”

The question of social presence seems to link to that of embodiment, and identity. Garrison, D and Anderson, argue that:

Immediacy is important to a supportive and secure learning environment because it reduces personal risk and increases acceptance, particularly during critical discourse with its sometimes aggressive questioning and challenging.

I agree but I also feel that immediacy becomes less important when discourse can happen over a long period of time (This e-learning course). So for example I recognize a social presence in our email exchanges, in the blog, and on the discussion boards even though the sense of immediacy is not pronounced.

But also our tutors have encouraged us to use mediums of interaction where there has been a clear sense of immediacy, for example our camp fire voice and text conversations in Second Life, Twitter discussions, our video conference, and our skype chat.  The tools available to us on this e-learning course are more than capable of facilitating the projection of our social presence.

Teaching Presence:

“Teaching presence is defined as ‘the design, facilitation and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes’” Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003)

Our tutors have been present throughout this course, guiding our focus and conversations, and have participated in and directed discourse so that defined learning goals are achieved. (Go back and read everything in purple!).

Overlapping Cognitive, Social, and Teaching Presence:

A community of learning is most effective when these 3 presences are present and operating effectively together. Garrison and Anderson provide two overlapping areas of presence:

Social Presence and Cognitive Presence overlap to create an environment which supports discourse. This was in evidence in IDEL through our discussions on the various mediums of communication made available to us. Our dialog was focused on the topics of discussion required to achieve the objectives of this module because of our collective desire and motivation to enhance our understanding of the topics of discussion. Therefore I believe that motivation is key for relevant discourse to occur.

Teaching Presence and Social Presence overlap so that a climate is created where discourse is structured and guided. This again has been evident throughout the course where tutors have arranged and encouraged interaction between us using the mediums provided, have guided our discussions, and have participated in the discussions.    

Clara in the discussion board also suggests an overlaping teaching presence and cognitive presence:

Teaching Presence and Cognitive Presence overlap so that our dialog and reflections aren’t distracted by irrelevant topics of discussion such as our pets. Where I highlighted motivation as important in the overlap between social presence and cognitive presence to keep discourse on track, teaching presence can provide a helping hand to maintain and guide this motivation.

“Cognitive apprenticeship is a theory of the process where a master of a skill teaches that skill to an apprentice.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_apprenticeship

Assessment Outcome: 

Having analysed the criteria, and reviewed the evidence. I can certify that this e-learning course has so far proved itself to be a prime model of what a community of enquiry should be.

If I was to provide a grade then I would also have to take into consideration some minor technical issues that interfered slightly with my program of study (Services weren’t available once or twice over the duration of the course during weekends). But the positives overwhelm any minor blips, and the objectives of the course have on the whole been realized, therefore my final grade for IDEL2011 is:  95% Leaving a few percentage points to encourage discourse for improvement in this community of enquiry.  Please feel free to use this grade as a guide for any grading activities which may occur in the following weeks … cough …ehem …

References:

Garrison, D and Anderson, T (2003) Community of inquiry, chapter 3 of E-learning in the 21st century (London: RoutledgeFalmer) pp.22-31.

I go online and change into a handful of pixels, digitised letters and graphics, frayed codes of scripting stored in multiple accounts of googles, twitters, facebooks and alike. I go online and interact with others, often people I haven’t met, other professionals, hobbyists, experts, encapsulated similarly in dozens of usernames and passwords. Sometimes I catch myself doubting their existence; just last week I thought the whole IDEL course is a hoax – my tutor turns up at the real-time session as a dragon, my coursemates look like cartoon characters and we examine if in our mind’s eye we see each other as real people glued to computer screens or avies sprawled on comfy cushions round the virtual bonfire (I see the latter although an awareness of people behind the avies lingers at the back of my head). Does that look like a serious post-grad course at a reputable educational institution? This question comes up every so often ... ... also in conversations with others – my partner has just come in and over my shoulder glimpsed the heading from the text I am reading - ‘Fragmented bodies’ (Bayne, 2010: 9). Thoughts challenging my sanity seem to be forming in the recesses of his mind ...

Ghostliness and death (Are my online personae ghosts of myself or is it me who becomes spectralised due to the online multiplication of my identities [*]? Whose karma is to die? Who is to remain immortal? k-punk is talking about ‘fragility of analogue’ and ‘infinite replicability of digital’), animation, automation and insanity (The way my av moves, gently sways to sides or hangs her head when left ‘unattended’; the mechanised loop of the deadly dance with a sword I got trapped into when exploring the Macbeth project in SL [*]; even the little restless pencils in the skype chat which signify somebody is in the process of writing a response or the mad emoticon frenzy in the first chat make me shudder at the thought that my online self is live, animate, independent which seems like a scary prospect ), the double (self looking glass, threatening and enticing at the same time, see the picture of The Uncanny Valley by Graham Caldwell at G Fine Art by vincentgallegos) and lastly the intellectual uncertainty which arises when the real and unreal start penetrating each other, blending, thus erasing the ‘exit’ and ‘entry’ points, making one rhizomate into a complex identity construct residing in a number of temporally and spatially synchronous digital spaces beyond the frail material body with its constraints due to time and location. This might be further complicated when such complex ontological constructs come into interaction on the web (see another photo from the same source as above).

This blurring of the boundaries between familiar and unfamiliar,  material and digital, human and automatised is possible due to the fact that the sign, being it an avatar or an online nick, no longer merely represents the user’s selfhood but uncannily becomes the signified, that is the person behind it (Kristeva 1991 in Bayne 2008:202). This ontological shift understandably might lead to ‘a crisis of the natural’, where nature stands for ‘one’s own nature, human nature, the nature of the reality and the world’ (Royle 2003 in Bayne 2008).

This sounds troublesome if not hysterical and insane, potentially creating havoc in any reputable institution: destabilised classrooms full of disoriented students and tutors being a blow to the established order of universities. Bayne (2010:6) states that the issue can be approached in two ways. She briefly mentions the possibility of quickly bridging the gap by neutralising the uncanniness and refers to an example of children embracing a digital text in order to absorb it into the repertoire of familiar learning practices (Carrington 2005 in Bayne 2010:6). However, you wouldn’t try to neutralise something that is positive, important or enriching, would you? To me this seemingly pedagogically sound move looks like trying to make the technology as transparent as possible so that it does not distract from the ‘real’ purpose of learning which is acquisition of a particular skill, literacy in this case; doesn’t it resemble Dreyfus and his acquisition model? It seems like technology is pushed to an subservient position, subordinate, purely instrumental, something that Cousin (2005) talks about at length. It smells a bit of universities introducing technology in form of various virtual platforms but transferring the traditional methods of instruction to normalise the novelty and minimise any related disquietude either on part of the students or professors.

Bayne (2010), however, also comes up with a different proposition, according to which digitisation and virtualisation of learning might be perceived in positive terms, as a learning experience that truly carries transformative and generative potential, at least in certain educational contexts. The destabilisation, not only in terms of time and space but also identity, presence and nature, as mentioned at the beginning, can prove fertile in a sense that the student has to reconstruct themselves in the relation to notions of time and space – ‘distance modes re-position the ‘thereness’ of learners and teachers rendering us in a sense ghost-like, spectres (Bayne, 2010: 7) ‘hovering between presence and absence and making established uncertainties vacillitate (Davis 2005: 376 in Bayne, 2010: 7). As to the related ‘ontological stammering’ (Lather 1998 in Meyer & Land, 2005: 379), the student learns how to deal with anxiety and uncertainty on a very cognitively abstract level, either by resolving the arising conflicts or accepting them, in any case learning to ‘live purposefully with them’ (Bayne, 2008: 203). Such negotiations require that the student (and the teacher too) engages deeply with the concepts, reflecting on the changes their selfhood undergoes alongside and how these transformations might be reflected in academic practice, which is what high-quality and ‘genuine’ education is (‘must be’ in Bayne’s words) about. Since ontological transformation might be an ultimate learning experience as one learner stressed in her weblog – ‘Philosophically, I think finding ourselves or who we really are, is the ultimate learning experience’ (in Bayne, 2008:201) - digital pedagogies could be perceived as a ‘privileged mode [..] in which [..] new dispositions toward teaching and toward knowledge might be explored and delighted in’ (Bayne 2010: 11).

This phantomenological approach would position itself in the direct opposition to Dreyfus’ model of education and his insistence that face-to-face settings are the only ones where learning can flourish. As he dismisses the online as the educationally rich and sound environment, in his view, the online could be at most the second best. In light of Bayne’s understanding, this does not have to be the case, at least in certain context with certain students (and my learning on the IDEL course illustrates that for me very well).

It is also interesting to examine how this approach relate to Gee’s theory of three identities where the projective identity is an interplay between the actual and virtual selfs. The gap has to be bridged so that the learner feels enticed to acquire new skills and knowledge (more can be found here). I think this could be perceived in two ways. If the relationship between the online and actual identities is imagined as ‘linked separation’ with links being loose threads simply mapping one’s online wander where the distinctions between nodes are the prerequisite for learning as sources of anxiety and ferment, Bayne’s approach would challenge Gee’s game-based learning. However, the links being the blurred boundaries between real and unreal and thus instigating ferment, then these ‘no man’s lands’ could be compared to the projective identity. It would be this stage in between, the liminal space from Meyer and Land (2005) where by reflecting on ‘me AS a learner’, ‘me AS a human being’, ‘me AS part of the world’, ‘me AS part of the virtuality’ we learn deeply and undergo transformative and irreversible changes.

POST SCRIPTUM

To finish off, a few loosely related thoughts:

I thought I was a forward-thinking and very pro-technology professional. However, I used to believe that tech is a wonderful TOOL  that can be used to enhance learning. Since pedagogy is most important, the tool should be as transparent as possible, flattened, sitting quiet and doing what is supposed to do. I think I have made it clear on a few occasions here and on the wiki (for example here) that pedagogy comes first. Having read the few texts: Bayne (2008 and 2010), Cousin (2005) as well as Meyer and Land (2005), I have understood that this is not the only and certainly not the best way of fostering e-learning and learning in general. Strangely making things simpler doesn’t accelerate learning while complexity could prove more successful in this respect (although the learner might end up learning other things than the course designer has planned). On this course, or rather an anti-course, on several occasions I have experienced a truly empowering  feeling I am touching on fundamental issues  of what is learning and what is being, things that perhaps do not feature among the course aims but essentially provide deep satisfaction even though I still don’t know who/what I am! I haven’t been to the library once, or a lecture or a seminar, I haven’t even participated in the discussions but I am aware of the shift happening.

Now, how do I translate that into my professional context, what do I do to help my learners undergo similar transformation? How do I open up liminal spaces for them in which they open up as learners and human beings. Are they ready for that? Are they willing to do so?

I’ve attended an online panel discussion recently where a few mobile learning providers were showcasing fancy apps helping learn vocab and grammar, drill pronunciation and check comprehension. It all looked fab but what it boiled down to was stripping down the language and compartmentalising it into digestible bitesizes of language, making it as simple as possible. But is learning the language about acquiring little packages of knowledge or is it rather about expressing oneself, expressing who you are, what you are, where you are coming from, where you’re heading, and other questions starting with ‘why’ and ‘how’? One of the gurus in the field threw in a thought-provoking comment: We're not being transformative, we're being reactive, we react in a trad way to what the responses were varied, including head nodding but also grumbles of disagreement. His comment resonates with me, especially now when I am a learner myself. The question how still arises though ...

For some time now I was thinking of a cross-cultural storytelling project in which students of one nationality recreate a story, a folk tale, a national legend (it would be nice if the story somehow reflected their country realia, national character, beliefs, etc) as a hypertext on a wiki.  This is then retold by a group of a different nationality, taking the theme and tweaking it, mashing it up so that it fits a different set of realia (spatially or temporally). That was inspired by Cannongate book series in which writers around the world research a selected myth and retell it. What I hope the project would give the students is increased awareness of their origins as well as another culture and naturally means of creative expression of their own and national identity and nationality. Could that be the first step?

Starcraft is a computer game where you can choose to play as one of 3 races; Terran, Protoss, or Zerg. It’s a strategy game where you build an economy, and create an army. Only the Terran race is human, the Zerg are strange disgusting insect like creatures, and the Protoss are some kind of cybernetic humanoid alien race. I noticed when I first started playing this game that when playing as the Terran (Human) race, I was subconsciously much more concerned for the wellbeing of my troops than I was when playing the other 2 alien races.

When choosing to play as a Zerg or Protoss, I would play much more aggressively without having much concern for the troops I was sending into battle. As Terran on the other hand I was much more careful with the army, and tried not to lose any units. Even though it is just a computer game, I was empathising with the human characters as though they were real! As I got immersed in each game, I had some kind of personal connection with the human soldiers I was controlling on the battle field.

This is a feeling that many beginners have when playing games such as Starcraft. Statistically most beginners choose to learn to play with the Terran race first when they are first introduced to this game:

“There is a path most novice players take when selecting their race. They start with Terran, simply because the Terrans are us, humans.”

http://starcraftlictor.com/terran-protoss-or-zerg-which-race-to-choose/

Not only this, but when playing with beginners that prefer the Terran race, I notice how reluctant they are to send their troops into battle, preferring very defensive postures, and crawling forward very slowly as if loosing too many troops would result in Vietnam or Iraq like outrage back home ! (This is a recipe for disaster by the way because the winners in games such as these are almost always aggressive attack minded players).   

So what makes a computer game like Starcraft so immersing? Why did I and others reach a level where we would have empathy with the digital human characters?

There are many appealing factors in games like these, such as problem solving (balancing the size of the economy with the size of the army, choosing the right army units in response to what the enemy is doing, choosing the correct battle strategies, etc.), team play (It is a collaborative multiplayer game ), speed and multitasking (Also known as APM=Actions Per Minute, the ability to manage an economy, scout the enemy, and lead an army simultaneously as quickly as possible using a mouse and a keyboard).

All these factors lead to a game where the player is fully immersed in the game. My vision is wholly fixated by the fast paced action on screen, my hearing is consumed by the sounds coming through my headphones, and my brain is fully engaged working hard to synchronise with allies, and to reach the ultimate objective; beating the other team. My nervous system is essentially swamped, and the real outside world is blocked out. My body is still physically located at my desk at home, but my mind’s presence is now elsewhere, it is in the game.

Presence, Black and White?

Lombard, M. and Ditton, T. (1997) defined presence as “the perceptual illusion of nonmediation”. They go on to say that presence “does not occur in degrees but either does or does not occur at any instant during media use; The subjective feeling that a medium or media-use experience produces a greater or lesser sense of presence is attributable to there being a greater or lesser number of instants during the experience in which the illusion of nonmediation occurs”

I’m no authority on the question of presence but I’m not sure I agree with this statement. Because I do believe that presence can occur in degrees. I feel that the degree to which my mind is present somewhere depends on how swamped my nervous system is by that location. If I switch of the volume in Starcraft and listen to some music while playing a game, doesn’t that mean that I am present in the game to a lesser degree than I would be if I had the volume switched on?

I used to feel anxious during military computer games because I wanted to avoid the conflict and violence involved. But I’ve learnt to differentiate between reality and computer games. Therefore can’t I argue that the degree to which I am present in these games has changed? It is very similar in a way to how some people hate watching horror films. Some are easily fooled by their senses, and others are better at maintaining a perspective on what is real and what is not (This is assuming of course that people who like horror movies aren’t at heart aggressive people who in a lawless society would likely be evil criminals, but that is an entirely different subject …)

Therefore my presence within this game and others has fluctuated as my experience has changed. I no longer concentrate so hard so that I don’t make mistakes, and can easily talk to someone in the room as I play a game. When I first passed my driving test for fear of causing an accident, I preferred not to speak when driving, I was fully immersed in the driving experience, my mind was totally present on the road, but as my experience increased, much of my actions have moved to the reflexive parts of the brain, and I can now listen to music and talk while driving without any difficulty.

As I became more experienced in Starcraft, and after analysing my own play, I gradually learnt to lose the empathy I had for my virtual human troops. If anything I’ve become more aggressive with the Terrans than the other races because the graphics are so good, and blood splattered everywhere looks so cool ….. I’m joking; I lower the graphics so I don’t have to see any gory details.

So interestingly, perhaps, as we grow accustomed to different online and offline environments, and the more experienced we become with their workings, the less present we need to be there. The work load on the brain is at its greatest at the beginning when the brain is learning about the new experience, but as the brain gradually becomes used to the new environment, it learns to function sufficiently within the environment without the need to be fully transported to it or immersed in it.  

An example of a starcraft game:

References:  

Lombard, M. and Ditton, T. (1997). At the Heart of It All: The Concept of Presence. JCMC 3 (2).   

The etymology of the word ‘uncanny’ could be linked to the phrase ‘beyond one’s ken’, where ‘ken’ comes from ‘can’, meaning ‘know how to’. Thus the uncanny is not only creepy and supernatural as it is commonly believed but also or even more so ‘unfamiliar’ (Freud’s ‘unheimliche’ – not homely), thus stretching one’s cognitive comfort zone and even crossing one’s perceptive horizons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny).

Freud’s uncanny takes us to the personal archaeological site where one excavates wanted and unwanted splinters of our past selves, which can have a disruptive effect on our sense of identity. The technological and digital take the uncanny further into the realm of the rhizomatic web where the splinters, ‘remnants of animistic mental activity’ change into ‘bodies scattered online’ (Bayne, 2010:9), traces of our online selves and half-selves (after all, to what extent can we express our full self assuming that the self is not a homogenous whole entity but a multifaceted construct?) imprinted whenever we sign up for a particular online service, in vein with Bayne (2008: 201): ‘If one wants to explore virtuality (I take the word in its broader meaning here, social web in general not only virtual worlds like Second Life), it does not seem appropriate to commit oneself to being one thing’.

So this is me online:

First, how MIT perceives me (any time I attempt to use the application the result is different, which makes me question the reliability of the visualisation but nevertheless I like it and find it strangely comforting to see how I am being reduced to a colourful bar code) can be seen here.

Now my very private take on the notion of online presence, inspired by readings about hauntology and the uncanny (Bayne, 2008 and 2010) can be found here.

These various selves shown in the vids and discussed by Bayne in her papers can of course be overlapping but also discrepant. And it is not only about us operating in different domains, let’s say professional and private (e.g. in the recent SL tutorial you admitted to having several accounts and switching between the avatars depending on the nature of your visit to the inworld; similarly, I’m thinking of having two facebook accounts, one private and another professional) but also within these domains we uncover various facets of our self (‘uncover’ not necessarily being the opposite of ‘conceal’ but rather ‘accentuate’ and ‘emphasise’ as well as ‘embellish’ and ‘distort’ – ‘Online identity constructs contain both truth and artifice, they are fractured, confused reflection of a person, never wholly unreal but never wholly real, a seeming half truth’ (Bayne, 2010: 9). The constant self-multiplication might create a kind of dissonance or ‘a crisis of the natural’, where nature stands for ‘one’s own nature, human nature, the nature of the reality and the world’ (Royle 2003 in Bayne 2008; Bayne, 2010). I’d like to focus on the selfhood here, leaving the rest of ‘ontological stammering’ (Meyer and Land, 2005) as well the consequences of such doubts and crises for education to be dissected in a separate post (Entry 19).

As said earlier, the duplicates of myself get strewn across the online landscape. What is worth considering is that they might prove hard to control or obliterate. You, or rather yous, join a powerful network and, as Bayne (2010: 9) puts it, ‘gain a kind of independence as nodes of commentary, connection and appropriation by others into new networks and new configurations’. For instance, even if you delete your facebook account, parts of your identity might be still living in other users’ accounts. Your online identity is subject to constant fluctuation, fragmentation and dissemination, no matter how persistent or non-persistent your actual presence is. In fact, your absence/inactivity can paradoxically lead to your presence too (Bayne, 2010:9, talks about ‘embodied absence’ ). To illustrate this, recently while googling my name I discovered I am 126436th in the ranking of tweetwasters, a dubious honour (and it unnerved me at first to see how my ‘I’ is meddled with) but to me indicative of how little control we have over our online footprints (or clickprints?). Once I took part in a webinar on online tutoring and in one of the slides, to my total surprise I saw a picture of my desk (the presenter was from the company I had taken a course with earlier), another time on some blog written by a person who doesn’t know me I came across my name, used in association with a particular ELT approach (at the time I was putting together an online workshop on it but I was keeping that knowledge to myself so obviously somebody else must have dropped my name in that context). Even though on these two occasions I wasn’t subjected to any ridicule, I felt a bit of discomfort, possibly because these ‘mes’ although seemingly just mere representations of the real me somehow gained importance of their own. It’s like being face-to-face with your clone, your lookalike, which somehow can replace you, obliterate you, make you redundant,  something the uncanny both in Freud’s and Bayne’s writing is related to. This way coming across our online doppelganger in the least expected moment might disrupt  our sense of being, integrity (in a sense that all these smithereens of id which constitute ‘me’ somehow hang together), wholeness, sovereignty, simultaneously, however, inducing enticing attraction, also raising questions to what extent I am and can be responsible for that ‘other being’ and to what extent I (can/should) associate myself with it, especially in a situation when our identity becomes an object/commodity and as such undergoes mashing-up, repurposing and unfortunately sometimes misuse.

As said in the section ‘SL_Selfhood’ of my wiki, there is something symbiotic about the relationship with the online ‘mes’, especially at the beginning when we need to ‘feed’ the avatar in SL or other online representations, this connection potentially being subverted later. To disclose or not disclose information and which information to disclose is a dilemma we all face when getting re-embodied online. To what extent can I reveal myself and in what ways can and do these glimpses of my soul (used metaphorically) live or even outlive me online? In order to express myself on this blog, I’ve made a couple of videos, e.g. one on liminal spaces, which aim to present my take on the academic issues covered on the course. The take is quite personal and perhaps simplistic (not to mention my amateur attempts at drawing, animation, photo-, video- and sound-processing – I have no pretence to be an expert in this matter and actually the constraints my lack of skills in this respect imposes on me are quite frustrating) – I’ve had to make the vids public to be able to embed them in my blog, a decision that was not easy. Would others, random strangers, who come across my youtube channel show ‘thumbs up’, ridicule or just shrug their shoulders? Yes, the decision to come out and publish something and thus leave a tangible trace has been disquieting but also exhilarating. I am trying to reason with myself in order to suppress the anxiety – there are conduct codes online, that if even the harshest criticism won’t matter because the critic doesn’t know me (actual me), doesn’t have access to the full me, my motives, my intentions so how would their opinion be objective (on the other hand, I am aware of those motives and intentions so I am ‘clean’ in front of myself). Then there is also a simplistic argument that I wouldn’t poke fun at anybody so perhaps I won’t be laughed at either. Perhaps naively, I have a notion of the community as complying with the conventions, giving assistance to members in maintaining their face in the event of a blunder. So maybe you are right, Clara, suggesting that we are trying to bridge the gap between the uncanny and the familiarity by filling it in with our notions of what we are and what the community is (the question however is whether such a gap exists?).

Now, this is yet again my very personal interpretation of the uncanny – my postings are very self-oriented, which I find partly therapeutic (as I have my little epiphanies on the way helping me understand myself better)but partly stifling. Being a bit of pragmatist too, I would like to see how I could apply this in a wider educational context – on to the next posting then!

 This is a follow up on the earlier discussion initiated by the analysis of the emotions that occur during my participation or lack thereof in the course online spaces and activities. Having compared the comfort zone (blog and my wiki) and a ‘danger’ zone (skype, discussion board, Second Life) – see my comment to entry seven - I have noticed that while entering the latter spaces I am trying to transfer my real life habits, which might prevent me from embracing the potential of the  online diversity. Being a perfectionist that hurts a lot so I suffer greatly, caught in the fit of emotions as illustrated in the past post. It seems I need to change then, at least when it comes down to my online presence (at the moment I am not unhappy about my passivity in face-to-face contexts and besides the course focus is on the online).

The problems I experience while communicating and socialising online resulting from my persistence to be ‘real’ (superreal, one could say) could be likened to the threshold concept. Meyer and Land (2005) stipulate the existence of such ‘gateways’ in certain disciplines and give examples of entropy from physics or depreciation from accounting so I hope I am not violating their theory by trying to link it to something seemingly trivial and describe the experiences as transformative, integrative, irreversible and often troublesome. ‘Threshold’ can be imagined as a point, opening up a space where new understanding of the subject matter and, what is more, oneself might (or might not) be gained. This stage between not knowing and knowing, not understanding and understanding, this ‘the betwixt and between’ (Meyer & Land, 2005: 375-376) has been named by the two researchers a ‘liminal space’ (my attempt to visually grapple with the concept below).

So what might happen when you enter a liminal space?

However, the transition is often problematic and troubling and often involves ‘humbling’. This happens because in the process similarly to the snake skin the old identity gets shed (illustrated somewhat in my ‘autoethnography’ where I stripped myself in front of myself). The process does not happen overnight and there might be a great deal of going back and forth, representing the state of internal struggle and uncertainty, which, however, is pedagogically, intellectually and ontologically fertile. Meyer and Land (2005) claim it might be impossible to achieve the new transformed state. Getting stuck in the liminal space might mean the incapability of overcoming epistemological obstacles but does not exclude ontological ferment. ‘Praxis of stuck places [which] might tolerate discrepancies, repetitions, hesitations, uncertainties, always beginning again’ and refuses ‘the privileging of containment over excess, thought over affect, structure over speed, linear causality over complexity, intention over aggregate capabilities’ (2005:379).

So, a liminal place is actually somewhere ‘nice’ to get stuck in. Meyer and Land describe it as less predictable and fluid. I see it as limitless silkiness and smoothness, yet perpetually pulsating and undulating, provoking things to happen. It’s about the process, the wander during which you reach out and branch out if need be in order to explore the unknown and the uncertain, the affective, the contextual and the local. While doing so, other threshold concepts might emerge, opening up more liminal spaces.

 From http://www.eastonhome.co.uk/Photoshop/flag/silk.jpg

I’ve spent the last two weeks exploring how using web 2.0 technologies (wikis) for writing, affects our understanding of ways in which academic writing can change. Pbworks is the tool that we used to enrich a wiki document entitled: “History, Hype, and Hope: An Afterward” by David Silver. I also created my own experimentation playground, and very creatively gave it the title: “Ellis’s Play Ground”!

One of the questions that arose while we edited and enhanced David Silver’s blog was whether we could go beyond adding links, references, pictures,  etc., and change what the original author wrote.

I came, I read, I re-wrote:

When an author publishes an article on a collaborative site, doesn’t that imply that the author expects people to add to and alter the content? Also we must remember that the author didn’t actually place his article on the wiki. It was originally a blog that was transferred by us onto the wiki, and therefore Mr David Silver has no real say in how the article progresses from this point forward.

I can see two points to consider here, first the legality and morality of taking someone else’s work and modifying it to suit ones needs, and who decides at what point the text becomes modified substantially enough that it no longer belongs to the original author? The second point is that it certainly seems to be more interesting and useful for any reader to be able to take a piece of text, and decide its meaning for him or herself. In “The Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes (1977), he argues:

"To give a text an Author" and assign a single, corresponding interpretation to it "is to impose a limit on that text."

“We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single ‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash.”

Also interesting as was pointed out during board discussions is Reader Response Theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reader-response_criticism

“Reader-response theory recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts "real existence" to the work and completes its meaning through interpretation. Reader-response criticism argues that literature should be viewed as a performing art in which each reader creates his or her own, possibly unique, text-related performance.”

“each reader creates his or her own…”: What if a number of people are collaborating on a piece of text?, with each having differing opinions regarding its meaning? How can we fit a number of different interpretations into a single piece of text?  Is it not best to leave collaborative works to articles of science and fact, and leave pieces of opinion and art to individuals so that personal expression can come out? Or is there a way for the ideas of individuals to shine through a compromise created by committee?  

The good old days:

Editing hypertext documents reminded me of those adventure books (Choose your own adventure) I read as a teenager. At the end of each page the reader is given a number of options on how the story can progress, and based on the choice is instructed to go to a particular page in order to continue the story. The entire adventure including all options for progression is contained within the pages of one book, and I can imagine those “choices” as a very early form of hyperlinking long before the internet started to make its mark in business and education.

Using wiki’s, and hyperlinking, stories can also be created intentionally this way. Or even non-intentionally where any online article together with the documents that it links to can be considered to be one story (as long as the hypertexts link to content that is relevant to the general narrative of the original text).

But current technology also gives us the ability to introduce ideas, and empower the reader and the writer in ways which weren’t possible in the “good old days”. Some interesting ideas and examples of what can be done include Editing Stretchfilm by Anders Fagerjord which offers an insight into Landow’s view of how hypertext can be used, enabling readers to select from the content of an article depending on their own needs.

The Mystery web essay is an example of the adventure stories mentioned earlier where the reader can go in different directions depending on chosen hyperlinks. Also going back to the question of author ownership, and reader-response theory, while exploring this essay we notice that the author follows different ideas depending on the paths chosen. Some paths are circular leading back to previous pages. The content is non-deterministic, vague, with statements, media and images that can be interpreted in different ways.

I enjoy mystery, and found this essay fun and interesting to explore. Perhaps the author’s intention is for different endless perspectives to coexist, stretching the imagination of the reader to offer his or her own interpretations of the content.   

But going back to “History, Hype, and Hope: An Afterward” I found it difficult to modify the text itself. It didn’t seem right to do so, and my thinking was that if I have my own ideas and perspectives then I should offer them in a different wiki or blog. I’m sure some would disagree with that, and feel it is ok to modify the content of someone else’s work even if it is opinion, but regardless, web 2.0 offers so many more ways to enrich and enhance works such as these by adding images, hyperlinks, video’s, comments, etc.

Sometimes just a picture, and a few colours, can make an article more appealing to read than one long slab of text.

References:

Roland Barthes,(1977) The Death of the Author: 

http://www.deathoftheauthor.com/

David Silver, (2008): History, Hope, and Afterward:

http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2143/1950

Landow, G (2006) Hypertext 3.0: Critical Theory and New Media in a Global Era (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press) extracts: 278-291 and 302-309.