The Social Artist – Interactivity

Learning happens when the world bumps up against what you already know.  In our clumsy stumble through life we’re constantly colliding with new ideas in text, in music and video, in objects around us, and in other people.  The thrill of having your own notions of existence confirmed, and the conscious-raising experience of understanding a resistant view of the world is one of the great drives of education.  We want to understand our world no only for ourselves, but for each other.

In the educational world, it’s tempting to submit this interaction to a top-down structure that reinforces power relations found throughout society, but one of my favourite pedagogues, Paulo Freire, argues (with the help of Erich Fromm) that this type of interaction is a drive toward “necrophily”.

“The necrophilous person is driven by the desire to transform the organic into the inorganic, to approach life mechanically, as if all living persons were things… He loves control, and in the act of controlling he kills life” (Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 77).

It is not enough to simply have interaction among the players in an educational enterprise.  We must encourage authenticity, presence, and a drive toward a dialogical method of teaching that will encourage a love of life through a profound curiosity and desire to interact with ourselves, one another, and our world.

A trip to the analogue world

Now I’ve been a digital student for about 3 years, and this weekend I had another chance to take my digital self into the analogue world for Athabasca’s first grad student conference.  While the nerves just about did me in, I made it through the weekend ecstatic about the whole experience.

First I must mention, I was presenting at the conference… a very applicable topic – autobiography and the digital world.  I wanted to use autobiographical theory to explain how we develop a believable, and hence FUNCTIONAL, digital identity.  A good autobiography, like a good digital presence, shares something of our humanness and makes us a REAL textual person – a person others can relate to, a story they can draw on in understanding their own journeys through life.  Like reading a good autobiography, meeting a digital self can help you expand what you believe is possible in a life.

Thiswhole process has been a huge exercise in reflection.  On the one hand, I was aware that the self most of my audience was familiar with was my digital self.  In fact, this is the a priori self – this textual, video, photographic avatar.  My analogue self would need to be consistent with my digital.  Not difficult for me as I’m pretty much the same person in both places, but I struggled with finding space to present all of the aspects of my digital self that I wanted to bring across in this analogue circumstance with its temporal limitations.  I only had 15 minutes (!!!!!) to present!  How could I possibly include everything in such a short time span?  I had to broaden my scope.

I decided to make my entire weekend a part of my presentation – again, not too difficult as my topic was autobiography – and meld the digital and analogue as much as possible.  Friday night’s meet and greet came and went and I introduced myself in both spaces, leveraging my more established digital self to make space for my analogue expression:

@onepercentyello what?! did I miss out an a ukelele concert?! hoping for an interludium later on today :-)

—
Ignatia Inge deWaard (@Ignatia) September 15, 2012

Saturday night I got to bring my ukulele-playing, participatory-music-promoting, dancing, laughing, kazoo-toting self!  The most precious moment of the entire weekend was when Terry Anderson, an educator and theorist I highly respect, played my kazoo along with the horn section of the band!  After interacting with everyone’s “real” self (and here I oppose it with their polished, professional, academic selves), how could I be nervous?

Sunday morning Katherine Janzen welcomed me with tales of metamorphosis in the educational journey.  The butterfly, present so much in my life this year, showed itself once again to remind me to step forward with courage.  And I did, with new friends in the audience, and old friends tuning in on #ds106radio.

I’m excited to put Mark McCutcheon’s (@sonicfiction) question to work in my further research.  What exactly do I mean by authenticity?  And I’m happy to have such a positive experience under my belt.  I will continue to use this research as I participate in conversations later this week on digital education in Liberal Arts universities.

But what I will take away the most is the confidence this experience has given me.  I wrote, I practiced, I edited, I practiced, I worried, I practiced and finally I presented.  While those 15 minutes were important, it was sharing my uke, my love of music, and my broader self that made the connections that will last beyond this presentation.  Once I had made a space for my whole person to attend the conference, that shy, self-conscious, impostor-syndrome-suffering academic wasn’t alone.  She had a musician, a gypsy, and a connected educator at her side, and with that host of selves lending their light, the academic in me could shine.

ART – keeping you real since the internet began

Well, it’s that time again: the beginning of the semester.  While I have not signed up for my next MAIS course, I have been enticed into participating FOR REAL THIS TIME in #ds106, the MOOC with the MOST (other than ECI831 – sorry, all… @courosa still holds the special place in my digital heart!).  This coming as I prepare to present on autobiographical theory and digital identity development, or as I like to think of it – living the autobiographical self.  I put out the question – what makes people real in the digital world – to the #ds106radio audience on my birthdaycast.

It's a @onepercentyello birthday-cast! #ds106radio - a real person amongst a community of real people who share art and their lives.

—
David Kernohan (@dkernohan) August 22, 2012

So I have finally made my first true entry into the #ds106 world… I AM REAL!!! I can make an ANIMATED GIF!!! With @cogdog’s help, of course.

The Social Artist – What is liberal arts?

The question, “What is a liberal arts university?” is a little like asking someone to describe post-modernism. Often people know more what it feels like and looks like rather than exactly what it is. A description involves questions of the value and purpose of a post-secondary education, and, as such, becomes a rather self-revealing political statement, rather than a detached list of descriptors. Individuals are involved in the telling of liberal arts stories, and perhaps this passion is the most revealing of all.

In this second video of the Social Artist, we discuss the makings of a liberal arts university in general. For me, this video has been created alongside readings in the theory of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) for my MAIS 638 course with Dr. Carolyn Redl. As a part of CDA not only am I considering the responses to the question, “What is a liberal arts university?” but this new theoretical background has me pondering the context each person inhabits in the liberal arts system and how that has influenced their responses. What’s more, I am reflecting on how my role as editor is manipulating the recordings to speak back to the audience in an abridged, entertaining and engaging format. I find it fascinating that in many ways, my own voice is populated by a series of clips of the voices of my interview subjects.

I have also been contemplating my goals in creating these videos. I want the story I am portraying to encourage people to take up their own conversations on liberal arts and online learning. From this perspective, I wonder how the individuals interviewed view the responses of their colleagues. From the social artist perspective, I wonder how presenting an audience’s words back to them influences levels of interest, involvement and buy-in on a project.

These ponderings are simply questions I have come up with along the process of creating the videos. I hope to share more of my reflections on the creation of the videos and the OLI process in this space. In the meantime, enjoy the show!

eci 831 week 5 reflection – a proposal in participation

It has been one of those interesting weeks…

P.S. Oh yeah… and Jim Groom rocks <—- this is not bait… ok, maybe it is! Here Jimmy jimmy jimmy….

Connectivism in Elluminate with George Siemens

I recently had the great fortune of bringing together a community of people I respect.  We came together for a presentation on connectivism and a guest lecture by George Siemens.  First of all, I would like to thank George for coming to my session, and demonstrating what integrity in learning looks like.

While I recognize it is only one aspect of connectivism, the consistency between the words and actions of a teacher is key to establishing trust in a learning connection.  As the tenets of connectivism make no judgment in themselves on any type of hierarchy of connections, we can see any new connection as something worthwhile that has the potential to create new or interesting knowledge.  In agreeing to come to the session, and for staying much longer than originally anticipated, George gave me hope that I had the potential to create valuable knowledge in interaction with his theory.  While I’m not sure I had much interesting to say in the session (I was awfully nervous), I hope that my reflections on the theory from the perspective of some of the people in the room will help me elucidate some of the strong attributes of and questions I have for connectivism.

If we can consider anything consisting of a set of connections to be a learning thing, and if this includes biological systems such as our brain patterns, then could we also consider ecosystems and our planet to be learning things?  We certainly establish the first patterns in our pre-reflective mind by interacting with the forces of nature.  As we get older we begin to take for granted the physical nature of our being and begin to engage in the constructed reality around us, but as environmental educators and stewards remind us, the natural world is an entity with which it is important to connect.  The knowledge we can create with the natural world can be astoundingly beautiful and have dramatic effects on our systems of meaning and our health.

In addition, I see connectivism as a view of learning that could be used in community service-learning (CSL) models.  The image of connection between theories (shifting application of thought) and experience (shifting instance of being), is also at the root of CSL.  The deepening of a student’s relationship with a professor, theory or an organization that becomes possible when the connection between entities is considered an important aspect of knowledge, has the potential to fundamentally affect change in all entities.

Of course, as in all education, I must question where the power lays in this system.  In the online world it seems to hinge on the status as an early adopter, and by the amount that an individual contributes to a community.  In the analogue world, a relationship with a professor would seem to follow the same rules.  With the seemingly a-ethical stance of the theory, I wonder where grounding principals come from.  Connections are where knowledge is created, so any connection has merit.  It is the creation of knowledge that lends merit to the existence of connections.  What is the point of creating knowledge?  Is this a fundamental human need?  Or is the fundamental need to create connections and knowledge comes about as a fine side-effect?  I suppose I wonder what the underlying motivation is within the theory, as I am a bit skeptical of knowledge for knowledge sake.

Finally, the economics of connectivism continue to perplex me.  While there is much sharing and liberation of knowledge happening in the online world, the gift economy must be more sustainable to challenge our present economic model and the economy of privacy complicates our view of what comprises capital.  In the meantime I wonder how George encourages himself to make time to connect personally with small groups of people.  I hope that he enjoyed the session.  I certainly gained a lot in hosting it.

The elluminate recording will be available for about 2 weeks before my temporary account expires.  I hope you have a chance to check it out.  George begins his discussion at about 6 minutes in.

Elluminate Recording

 

 

Take your analogue friend for a digital walk

Recently I read an excellent blog post by Mark A. McCutcheon (@sonicfiction), a professor in Athabasca’s MAIS program, discussing his interest in a student’s (@lectio) twitter-reading of a postmodern text.  As she read, she posted short messages showing synthesis of concepts and poking fun (as it should be poked) at that playful pomo theory.  The most interesting part of the post, however, came when Mark discussed the tension between engaging with or disregarding his student’s publically broadcast messages.

“I wasn’t sure about how to broach the topic at first, anxious that it would be a bit like jumping out of the blind to scare the wildlife one’s been observing.”

My first experience with an online course, sitting in on Alec Couros’ open-ed ECI831, was certainly one where all blinds were open.  Indeed, much of Alec’s life is open to anyone who wishes to investigate.  While I recognize that there are many tools and spaces available for those who wish to have a transparent classroom, I think it takes more than simple technology to move faculty, staff and students into the great beyond, even in an online university like Athabasca.  Connected leaders will need to model a new form of engagement and prompt others to embrace this shift in culture.  In this vein, I thank Mark for his post outlining his trepidation as well as the reward of “jumping out from behind the blind.”  I hope he continues to incite participation in interactive spaces.

Of course, there must be some pages that are restricted for various reasons, but I’m speaking more to the culture of Athabasca and other online learning spaces.  Moving into the online world in a real time and connected way can be frightening.  I recall not long ago being in my first MMORPG (massive multi-player online role playing game), Maple Story.  It’s a game my boyfriend was playing and is a Mario-brothers, collect-the-little-coins type game.  The first time I saw another player on the screen I felt a surge of adrenaline down my spine.  That character was connected to a PERSON on the other end somewhere!  How did that other person get into my computer?  It was a little like discovering there was someone in my home.

Since then I’ve gone through various stages of developing my online identity and now feel more confident in navigating this digital world, but I can still recall the chill I got that afternoon.  Walking into a room full of strangers is daunting, but we have been doing it all our lives.  The digital room is full of strangers without faces, without names, and sometimes who are not human (bots).  This step is not a small one, I recognize, but just as we develop personalities and values to filter which strangers we will talk to on the street, we gradually develop assertiveness to engage with digital strangers.

I think that a great way to facilitate this process is by taking others out of their homes and on digital walks.  I’d certainly like to thank @plind for taking me on my first digital walk!  We show our friends the sites, steer them away from the shady parts of town, and demonstrate the rewards on offer for those willing to embrace shared experiences in the digital world.  To me this also means opening the door to your home through that screen you’re looking at right now.  Perhaps by inviting someone in, you will encourage someone else to open a door.

Leslie

The Muse and Motivation

I began my first MAIS course in February, and for the first month of the course, I was angry.  Again, there were many things to which I could attribute my anger, but a clear and dominant focus was Watson and Tharp (2007).  I didn’t want to be angry with them.  They had interesting things to say, and a clear and focused method for me to find my way to personal satisfaction, yet my discontent simply grew with each passing page.  These two well-meaning strangers were asking me to look at my life and decide on something that really needed to change.  They soothed me with the success stories of others, and, like TV evangelists, promised me salvation if I could just follow the simple steps.  The problem was, they forgot to tell me how to start.  What was I to do if I had no pressing problem in my life?  With course time ticking away, I decided to trot out an old muse of mine: writing.

Now a writing project wouldn’t have been all bad, and there are numerous articles in our course readings that talk about both the difficulty and reward available to those who decide to pursue a regular writing practice, (Epstein, 1997; Malott, 1986; Wallace & Pear, 1977) but the fact remained that I was never able to truly begin my project.  I seemed to be waiting for something, perhaps a spark of inspiration to free my pen.  I wore my flint to the nub, watching for the faintest tendrils of smoke, fan ready to encourage the fire to grow, but all I could conjure were flashes.  In the cold darkness of my frustration, I couldn’t see that my kindling was wet.

Anyone who has been caught on the side of the road with an empty tank can tell you how important it is to have sufficient fuel to reach your destination, and a self-change journey is no different.  Garrison (1997) encourages us to look at our “motivational reserve or fuel” (Garrison, 1997, p. 27) gauge to check that we hit the road with ample entering and task motivation.  Watson and Tharp ensured that I thoroughly checked my task motivation gauge, encouraging me to clarify my goals, anticipate problems, and believe in myself (chapter 2); and stressing keen self-observation, and identifying the indicators on the road to self-modification: antecedents, behaviours and consequences (chapter 3).  Watson and Tharp effectively guided me in consulting my “map of the future” (Watson & Tharp, 2007, p. 32) and asked me, “Where exactly are you going?” (Watson & Tharp, 2007, p. 32).  What they didn’t ask me is, “Why do you want to go there?”

Garrison’s discussion of entering motivation centers on “the process of deciding to participate” (Garrison, 1997, p. 26).  Until this point in my research, I hadn’t realized that my failure to persist in my writing project could have been caused by my indecision to participate in the first place.  This disorienting thought lead to a re-examination of my project.  Why did I want to complete this particular project?  What skills did I have to complete it?  And most importantly, what barriers was I coming up against that prevented me from beginning?  Garrison’s (1997) outline of the factors influencing entering motivation helped me look closely at my proposed project.  Certainly my writing project was of value, and I had the skills and ability to complete it: it was a project I had focused on for more than three of my undergraduate courses.  It was my attitude, and my reason for choosing this goal that were not sound.  I realized I had chosen this goal for shallow reasons.  I had academic success with this muse before, and I thought it would be easy to reproduce the experience.

Entering Motivation Factors (Garrison, 1997, p. 28)

I recently had the pleasure of watching the movie “Nine” (2009), a film about a famous Italian director tasked with scripting an epic movie about his country.  In the crucial moment, his muse enters and refuses to perform for him in his visionless picture.  She walks out and he crumbles, his career in ruins.  When I explored for myself my muse, this group of characters who had performed so well for me in my undergrad, I recognized that I failed to approach the wellspring of my inspiration with a proper spirit.  By assuming that my creative spirit would simply perform for the sake of my good grades, I objectified my muse.  I turned again to Watson and Tharp, focusing on Figure 1-1, Alternative III (Watson & Tharp, 2007, p. 5) where they graphically represent reality as “an interaction of person and situation” (Watson & Tharp, 2007, p. 5, ital. mine).  They construct this reality as “the point of view we will adopt in this book” (p. 5), but they only use an anthropocentric viewpoint of “the situation”.  They never concede that the situation can be viewed as the “other”, and interpersonal skills apply.  As Jodie mentioned in her May 12^th post, “in order to change a behaviour that is holding me back from fulfilling my true potential, I must first accept it. […] We have to respect that the unwanted behaviour is a part of ourselves that grew organically in response to some stress or threat.  When we remove the behaviour through effort, will and trying, we threaten ourselves further and the behaviour digs right in.”  In order to prevent this “digging in” of behaviour, or abandonment by our muses, it is important, as a gesture of respect, friendship, even love, to interact with our situation and see what it has to say about our future.

The process of choosing a goal is important, not only so you know where you’re going, but also so that you can ensure you’ve got the fuel to get there.  By observing the world and interacting with our situation, we can see signs that point us toward success.  If I were to do this course again, I would start with the assignment outlining goals for the next year/5 years, record the frequency that I attend to each one of these goals within the first month of the course, and then choose a goal to focus on from there.  While it may not yield success, at least I would be following through on a goal supported naturally by my environment.  It may mean fewer uphill battles, and leave me with just a little gas left over to enjoy the ride.

Epstein, R. (1997). Skinner as self-manager.  Journal of Applied Behaviour Analysis, 30(3), 545-568.

Garrison, D. R. (1997). Self-Directed Learning: Toward a Comprehensive Model. Adult Education Quarterly, 48(1), 18-33. Retrieved from http://aeq.sagepub.com.

Malott, R. W. (1986). Self-Management, Rule-Governed Behaviour and Everyday Life. Behaviour science: Philosophical, methodological, and empirical advances, pp. 207-228 Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Marshall, R. (Director), Tolkin, M. & Minghella, A. (Writers). (2009). Nine [Motion picture]. USA & Italy: The Weinstein Company.

Wallace, I. & Pear, J. J. (1977).  Self-control techniques of famous novelists. Journal of Applied Behaviour Analysis, 10(3), 515-525.

Watson, D. L., & Tharp, R. G. (2007). Self-Directed Behaviour. Belmont, CA: Thompson.

Back to class

The following post is from the social forum of my first Masters of Integrated Studies course, Self-Directed Behaviour 655.  It is an online, individualized study course that I began in February.

Well, it seems as thought I have found my way back into this class.  Don’t get me wrong, I have been in the class the whole time, doing readings, answering questions, taking quizzes and reading about many of your projects, but I have been off the forums, and have just found my way back.  If there are any of you who are lurking in the corners of the class, please come out and chat!  This is the difficult part of this style of learning for me.  It’s hard to see those fellow students sitting in the dark banging their heads against the wall.  This makes it easy to feel like you’re the only one.

So why have I not been in this class?  Why have I been absent from sharing my project with anyone?  I suppose I have a long list of reasons, like anyone else, from moving to another country to sharing a 2 sq. meter apartment with a single bed with my boyfriend, to any other number of excuses, but in the end, it all comes down to motivation.  I remember at the beginning of the course being overwhelmed by the sheer number of options for a project for this course.  Should I choose something I’ve always wanted to do?  Should I change something about myself, like some annoying habit or nervous tic?  Or should I conduct an interesting experiment?  What to choose?!  I had many projects worked out in my head, but none of them jumped at me and demanded “a strong yes” so I doubted.  Then I hid.

I hid until Bertrand Russell found me, pulled me out of the shadows, and insisted that “[my] way of living should spring from [my] own deep impulses” (Russell, 1930, p. 109).  To transform myself, I needed to look at what motivated me; I needed to understand my deep impulses, those little instructions spoken in a “still, small voice” (Watson and Tharp, 2007, p. 138).

During my preliminary research, I came across Garrison’s (1997) approach to a comprehensive model of self-directed learning, and was immediately drawn to the discussion of entering and task motivation.  Motivation!  That’s what I had been lacking in my project!  I rewrote my project proposal, outlining a self-directed learning project aimed at “becoming critically aware of what [had] been taken for granted about [my] own learning” as a “key to self-directedness” (Garrison, 1997, p. 14, original quote, Mezirow, 1985, p. 17).  Finally, my early frustrations with the course found a purpose.  As a “disorienting dilemma” (Boyer, Maher, and Kirkman, 2006, p. 4, original citation Mezirow, 1995, p. 50) is the first stage in a transformative learning experience, I constructed a project aimed at moving me through the typical stages of such an educational experience.

This post (as well as others to follow) is a part of my progression from disorienting dilemma to action.  In this series of posts I will reflect critically on my own feelings, beliefs and value judgments that support or negate my feelings of frustration with learning in an individualized online environment.  I will incorporate aspects of our readings that assist me in this critical reflection.  It is my hope that discussions on this subject with others in the class, as well as with individuals on my blog will center on exploring a new understanding of the aspects of this online course in self-directed behaviour that support a transformative learning experience.

References

Boyer, N. R., Maher, P. A., & Kirkman, S. (2006). Transformative Learning in Online Settings: The Use of Self-Direction, Metacognition and Collaborative Learning. Journal of Transformative Education, 4(4), 335-361.  Retrieved from http://jtd.sagepub.com

Garrison, D. R. (1997). Self-Directed Learning: Toward a Comprehensive Model. Adult Education Quarterly, 48(1), 18-33. Retrieved from http://aeq.sagepub.com

Russell, B. (1930). The Conquest of Happiness. New York, NY: Liveright.

Watson, D. L., & Tharp, R. G. (2007). Self-Directed Behaviour. Belmont, CA: Thompson.