Tag Archives: culture

Adventures in the ‘self-reinforcing virtuous cycle.’

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Coming across this stellar mashup of the LCD Soundsystem’s “New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down“ and Miles Davis’ Elevator to the Gallows score made me think of Gardner Cambell’s question from a month ago:

What is the real meaning and appropriate function of the Internet itself? 


Gawker introduced the video by saying, “The Entire Internet has been a prelude to This Mashup of LCD Soundsystem and Miles Davis,” answering the question and quoting its author who says it contains, “No editing or other tricks, just 2 youtube videos played at the same time.”

Maybe everything really is a remix.

 

…a self-reinforcing virtuous cycle.

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I woke up this morning with the lofty goal of revisiting Gardner Campbell‘s keynote from the Open Education conference that went down in Vancouver this week, The Ecology of Yearning. However, the gods of the Internet didn’t agree and the archive seems to have gone missing for the time being, so I will hopefully return to it soon. In the meantime, I’m digging into an older presentation from Gardner called “Teaching, Learning, and the Digital Imagination” that is hosted on Youtube and his blog.

Even though the talk is only a year old, it synthesizes so many ideas that, even in a year, seem foundational to vastly greater heights. Beginning with Clay Shiky’s quote,

We are living in the middle of the largest increase in expressive capacity in the history of the human race.


Gardner discusses the “Digital Imagination” as a vision of the Internet’s transformative potential. Far more than a data management system, or the efficiency of email, he frames our appraisal of technology’s value or purpose in the tradition of under and mis-valuing innovation. Just as we mistook the true innovative potential of the electric motor, the question is not, to be sure, How can the Internet make us more efficient? but What is the real meaning and appropriate function of the Internet itself? 

Gardner, round one.

Photo Courtesy of @drgarcia

Even as I generally find this sort of argument quite compelling, I was especially struck with the power of the idea that in practicing, refining and education we are striving – one might even say yearning - to oblige a “moral responsibility to be of the most use to civilization,” and that the Internet creates the possibility of a “self-reinforcing virtuous cycle” that I feel extremely fortunate to have been able to witness over the course of the last week with Gardner and other educators out of no more technology than guitar amplifiers and a few printed lyrics and chords.

Audrey Waters highlighted the connection that has become tradition among the DS106 tribe in Vancouver,

I started to write this post, and then found myself spending the evening at a musical jam session with Campbell and others. So there’s that. And that’s actually a wonderful ending to a wonderful beginning of the day. Because jamming is sharing. Jamming is collaborative creation. Jamming is learning. Jamming is process. “Make art dammit,” as DS106 commands us, with the emphasis, I think, on the “make” more than than the “art.” And at the end of the evening with the music ringing in my ears, Campbell’s keynote makes perfect sense, and there’s nothing much to say.


Being able to play music with Gardner a few times this week – including two attempts at the Velvet Underground’s “Sweet Jane,” among others – added a different authenticity to his words this morning, though. He wasn’t speaking abstractly about his thinking that technology might prove the platform for a heightening community’s potential; he was speaking specifically. Shouting, really. Singing, explaining deftly to a crowd of ecstatic participant-revelers that, “Her name is Gloria.”

A Kernel is Hidden in me…

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PM TALONS Photoset on Flickr 


Fresh from the PM TALONS’ fall retreat, I woke up Monday morning with a tweet from my colleague in Singapore, Jabiz Raisdana, inviting me and fellow writers, teachers and thinkers to run with a post he shared with his class of grade eights at UWC:

I would love to see these words transformed, re-thought and remixed into some kind of art project. I know there are some amazing musicians, writers and artists amongst you; do these words inspire you to draw, sing, create? This post is like Caine’s Arcade, in that I hope it moves you in some way to create. Consider it another seed that I have planted. I will wait patiently and hope that perhaps a few trees may grow.


Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Hesse quote made a perfect union with some of the pictures I took while the TALONS were journaling on our three day jaunt through the British Columbian woods, where Jabiz’ own words had actually served as a meditating and writing prompt on Thursday afternoon. Before sending the group on a solo walk around the back half of Hicks Lake, I played the TALONS the first half of a song I wrote out of one of Jabiz’ poems and told them to “immerse oneself in the blossoming awareness of the moment,” and that we would meet up on the opposite shore where I would play them the second verse and we would settle ourselves to do a little writing (where I snapped the above pic).

That he would have a follow up quotation for us on Monday morning is unsurprising, of course, because this is the sort of thing I’ve come to expect from my online colleagues, these folks – some of whom, like Jabiz, I’ve never met face-to-face – who are here in our classroom from time to time whether on these blogs or in the local woods: teachers, students, learners, friends.

Cleaning the Canvas

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Today Iris and a group of TALONS grade tens removed one of the signature pieces of the classroom “cave paintings.” As part of her This I Believe essay representation (last year), she had initially come up with the idea of filling the large triangle above the back of the class with a synthesis of her classmates’ essays, a colourful mantra that has hung above the room for more than a year: We Believe in Being Happy.

But today we started the task of cleaning the room of past projects, artwork, and the residue of culture that a two-year, interdisciplinary highschool program can accumulate. The collages from our fall retreat came down from their clothes-pegs; blackout poetry was removed from windowpanes and shades; and the banner would have to come down.

Which is not to say that this was met very easily by the TALONS who have spent two years filling this space with their breath and essence, have laughed and cried and made art across its walls, floors and desks. There is a certain amount of the pain that is saying goodbye to a place like the TALONS classroom that leaving a physical legacy can help alleviate. But how this happens is an important piece of the program’s emotional topography.

I had a conversation with a few of the TALONS who were around near the end of period three today about this: how at this stage in the program’s life, there is an ‘inner’ perception of what TALONS is – created and inhabited by those who have been here, and those who are here – as well as an ‘outer’ perception – held by those who know the class through blog posts and SharePoint sites, district newsletters and a growing, global, word of mouth. Now that this incarnation of the gifted cohort is in its sixth year, and there is a much more defined ‘outer’ perception of what this place is, and what it is striving to achieve, it is important to consider that those left with the task of creating the ‘inner’ world of TALONS – current learners in the program – do so under the weight of considerable history and the legacy of the remarkable people who have called this classroom home for two years.

For the new myths to be written, in other words, the old myths need to make room for them. And while there is a great empty space where the banner used to hang, there are already plans for its quotes and paint-stained hand and footprints to be deposited and scattered about the cupboards and closets of the room so that the ghosts and wisdom of TALONS past will still be speaking to us.

Beginning again in September, the room will have new cave painters: a new cohort of 56 young learners, each eager to continue writing the story of this place. Their task is a unique one, and individual to the group they will create; but it is a narrative given over to them, most humbly, by the departing grade tens, and each of the past TALONS alumni.

Participants in the Age of Information

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Jonathan's political cartoon

This week semester two began with the class’ study of Manitoba’s Red River Rebellion, Louis Riel, and the explosion of Egypt’s political upheaval. On the edge of a new unit, and the coming onset of spring, the Talons have set out to uncover the truth behind media and political interpretation of both history and recent current events. Seeking the more basic truth of individual experience and expression in a record of social bookmarks and blogposts – not to mention comments the class is attempting to answer personal questions about the goings on in Egypt and Middle East that were identified as relevant topics on the class wiki this week:

* What are the conditions that have created the anti-government sentiment in Egypt? Where else do such conditions exist? * What are the specific goals of the protesters? Who is emerging as their leader / spokesperson? * What is important to know about Egyptian history or culture to better understand these recent developments? * What has the Western (European, American, Canadian) response to developments in the Middle East been? * What conditions or factors influence the West’s decisions regarding these countries’ fates? * Who and what is the Muslim Brotherhood? What do they want? * What emotions factor in journalism? * What does ______ have to gain by influencing different outcomes? * What is the media’s responsibility: to tell its audience what it is expecting to hear? To challenge people’s existing views or opinions? To objectively present information? * Are there viewpoints or perspectives missing from coverage of events in the Middle East?

Along with the collection, and discussion of many different brands of media’s coverage of the recent struggles for freedom across the Middle East, the Talons took to the blogs last night, and haven’t looked back. They began by seeking out the untold stories, the truth behind the media, even only in as much as they could interpret their own response to them.

Megan found this to be no small task:

I have read so much about these protests, it’s all I can do but to try and imagine what it is like, standing side by side with so many others, all fighting for freedom. I wish I could say that I have done something like that, made a change. Who I am, and what I do, is hardly history textbook worthy. I am a child, a child in a never-ending world which stretches on forever in any possible direction.
For the past week, this is all I have been able to think about. But then, just this night, something occurred to me. The cause of the Egypt rebellions was from a push; a movement from the people of Egypt, but more specifically, the youth. Whenever an article on this is written, you can bet that it usually at least mentions social media as one of the causes. Does the “Facebook Revolution” sound familiar? Or maybe Twitter? These were the means by which the word was spread, the dissatisfaction in the government and the voice they felt they didn’t have, and the realization that something could be done about it.

Donya finds a connection to a young man whose death may have sparked a rise to action:

In this article , it is thought that Khaled Saeed’s death was one of the many factors in the start of the Egyptian protests. On the news, there was some footage of demonstrators holding up pictures of his face and shouting “Khaled Said!” with passionate anger. Khaled’s brutal death was one of the events that pushed the Egyptians to voice their anger, but was it worth his torture for the sake of his country’s change? Do you think that if he was alive today, that he would endure immeasurable amounts of pain to have the same outcome? Would you do that for your country and for future generations? It sounds as if I’m bordering on sacrifice here, but that’s what this is isn’t it? Only a small percent of people can actually say whatever comes to mind and publish it for whoever to see without having to sleep with one eye open. The other percent are faced with the possible death of what they believe, who they love and even themselves if they share what they think. And they do it anyways. It seems as though Khaled was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and happened to be given a glimpse of how twisted everything really is.The people who were trained to protect and provide an example, were instead exploiting their power in order to get a quick fix. I think Khaled’s death was one caused to uphold an image, but then later on turned into ammunition for millions of people who were wronged on a daily basis. I don’t know this man, nor will I ever get a chance to meet him, but the fact that he chose (unknowingly, perhaps) knowledge instead of his own life, made me admire him anyways. And that is what Khaled said.

And Lexi wonders if she – and perhaps the rest of her classmates – might be onto something bigger:

It’s like I’ve started pulling at a thread that doesn’t end. And maybe that’s the thing about truth. Maybe truth cannot be absolute, irrevocable, and undisputed.

Indeed, Stephanie’s post proposes truth in this case to be an illusion altogether, alluding to the Al Jazeera’s dubbing of recent events:

Egypt’s rebellion will be known as the “Revolution of Dreams”.  This vision is where thousands of men and women work together to fulfill.  Leonardo DiCaprio once quoted in the movie Inception “Once an idea has taken hold of the brain, it’s almost impossible to eradicate.”  As a result, the Egyptians voiced out, allowing the world to make known of their words.  And through this movement, we come to understand that when “people power” unites, it will ultimately conquer the government.

But Richard, in a comment-turned-blogpost on Iris’ post, gets to the heart of the matter:

Raw facts, especially numbers are the truth, however when it is being reported, it become opinion. So, really a report is like myth. At the heart of every myth there is a grain of truth.

I think, as I told Richard in a comment I posted tonight, that this grain of truth is the essence of our study of history through communication:

The socials curriculum is weaved out of stories of exactly this sort of political instability and unrest:
  • we study the revolutions of England, France, and in America
  • we reenact the Confederation of Canada
  • we are introduced to rebellious figures such as Louis Riel (who in his own time was a fugitive of Canada – teaching highs school in Montana – before being hanged for treason)
These lessons, and a continually rigorous interpretation of current events are the basis of a responsible participation in democracy, but also the pursuit of illusory truths that are the telling, and retelling, defining of human history, starting with a record and discussion of the present moment.

Which brings us right back to Megan, who writes perhaps some of the most inspiring words yet rendered on the class blogs:

And then you come back to me. Still sitting in front of her computer, and still on the opposite side of the world. I am a child, in this age of information. But I am also part of the age of information. I have just as much say in what occurs as everyone. If what happened in Egypt is any indicator as to what can be accomplished through communication, I think that maybe, I need to realize, or maybe we (and I’m talking to all my fellow youth out there) need to realize that if we organize we can accomplish something big. People may say that children and youth are better seen, and not heard. But you know what? We are the new generation, and we should have a say about what sort of world we are growing up into. So hey, there’s my two cents. Just tossing it out in the world of the internet. But I guess you might say this: I know that it actually matters now. I am a participant in this age of information.
The class will be engaged in a process of exploring a diversity of opinions across these topics in the coming terms, and invite your input in our discussion, if you, too, are possessed of an opinion about the way of the world, at this unique moment in time.
You can check in with the discussion on the embedded blogposts and bookmarks on the Talons Socials Wiki, as well as Blog and Comment feeds in RSS if you would like to subscribe.

A Week without Technology

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Telramen op de bank in de klas / Counting-frames in classroom

Essential classroom technology

A few weeks ago, I wrote:

I would also be interested in establishing a school learning community that values face-to-face dialogue, debate, and experiential, first-hand learning for students and teachers alike. If we are to ask that our students are committed to the present moment of their current learning, why shouldn’t we expect the same of one another?

Blog Post as Essay: Cell Phones in the Classroom
Wederopbouw: provisorisch schoollokaal / Improvised classroom, shortly after the War

How much has changed since this photo was taken?

After writing that post, I thought about the possibilities of setting up this ultimately face-to-face school environment that would not only challenge those of us who rely on futuristic technologies – iPhones, laptops, projectors, etc – to rethink our jobs as facilitators of classroom learning, but also give those who would ban cellphones in their classroom a greater context to appreciate the current, rampant rate of technological progress.

I thought that a week without technology – without email, photocopiers, announcements and overhead projectors – would be a bounding step forward in establishing a truly local school community, and a rallying point for digital natives, and immigrants.

  • Why not turn such a week into a fundraiser, a way to promote awareness about our dependence on technology, and question our relationship with our digital (as well as other) tools?

As he has a habit of doing, Ira Socol is a few steps ahead of me:

Let’s try a week without clocks and bells. Few technologies interrupt the learning process more, and limit learning to “the shallows” more, than the school timetable. And few things belittle students more – or expose our hypocrisies more – than bells. They are not just Pavlovian, they are unfairly so. Kids are “late” when the bell rings, but teachers often insist that they get dismissal power, meaning bells are only significant when they can punish students. So take a week. Cancel the start time and the finish time. Abandon the class schedule. Let students pick which of their classrooms they want to be in – and when. Let kids spend a day working on one thing, or five minutes, whichever they need and want. Let them eat when they want, use the toilet when they want, debate Shakespeare when they want. See what happens. Our school schedule was invented by Henry Barnard to train kids for industrial shift work. Is that what are schools are still designed to do?
Speelplaats van een Rooms-Katholieke school / Schoolyard of a Roman Catholic school

How it could be.

Let’s try a week without desks and chairs. Pile them all up in the corner and ignore them. Let kids bring what they need to make themselves comfortable. As I asked one school district: “Do any of you have furniture like this at home?” The chair and desk, that contribution of William Alcott in the 1830s, might have made sense then. But we have central heating now, and carpets are available everywhere. And pillows are cheap at Ikea – so are lapdesks. And kids would rather be comfortable. And… teachers might find themselves worrying a whole lot less about controlling how kids sit in their chairs. Let’s try a week without books and paper. We know how many of our kids struggle with reading and writing – the physical acts. The word decoding, the holding of the pen, the traditional keyboarding – these things are our primary creators of disability. So let’s get “Socratic” for a week. Lets get fully digital (adaptable text, speech recognition) or simply verbal/audio. Let’s talk and listen. Let’s think out loud and work on auditory memory. We might see a whole new set of student skills rise to the top with those “Gutenberg technologies” stripped from our kids’ lives. We might see a whole new kind of learning.

Ten Big Questions for Education

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Crowds.Brian Kuhn has shared an opportunity with me that offers another means of our class – and others who might find this post – entering into the discourse on shaping the future of education. To echo Andrew B. Watt’s call for students to enter the EduBlogosphere and tell us how we’re doing, this project – which began yesterday – could find the TALONS engaging in a truly global endeavor!

A well known educator / traveling speaker Will Richardson has crowd sourced the 10 big questions for education.  If you’re not familiar with crowd sourcing, it’s a recent phenomenon made possible by social networking tools on the Internet like Twitter.  Will asked people in his professional network to post what they felt the most important questions are for education today.  Basically people in his network spread the message to their networks and the crowd grew as the message spread around the world, literally.  Then Will asked “the crowd” to vote on the questions so that he could come up with a top 10 list.  To facilitate a mass collaborative write for these questions, Will has created a wiki and offered people the opportunity to collaboratively write / share their thoughts and ideas for each question. The end goal I believe, is to produce a free online resource, perhaps a free published “e” book, from this work. This is a great opportunity for you to participate in a global shared writing project.  I have volunteered to moderate and promote question #1 “What is the purpose of school?”  Please click through to this question if you would like to contribute your ideas or to read others ideas. Here are the 10 questions; you can click on the link for a question you’re interested in to go to the separate page for editing.
1. What is the purpose of school? 2. What is the changing role of the teacher, and how do we support that new role? 3. How do we help students discover their passions? 4. What is the essential learning that schools impart to students? 5. How do we adapt our curriculum to the technologies that kids are already using? 6. What does an educated person look like today? 7. How do we change policy to support more flexible time and place learning? 8. What are the essential practices of teachers in a system where students are learning outside of school? 9. How do we ensure those without privilege have equal access to quality education and opportunity? 10. How do we evaluate and validate the informal, self-directed learning that happens outside of school?

Welcome to the crowd!

Cultural Geography Public Service Announcements

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No sign of Boo BooAs a means to delve creatively into the cultural geography in Western Canada, our socials ten students will be undertaking the creation of public service announcements on issues relating to the present states of plants and animals across several different biomes. Having practiced digital storytelling skills in writing, performing and editing a brief time-line of human history in the local area last week, their sights will be set on documenting the evolving history of human interaction with, and use of, resource species such as the Rocky Mountains’ bears, the Plains’ buffalo, and the Pacific Coast’s salmon.

They were not a nation, nor even a tribe, but a loose association of groups consisting of up to a dozen families. All were, however, united in their allegiance to Tuktu – the caribou – which, in their millions, not only furnished the necessities of life but most of whatever else these people needed. Caribou skins provided clothing (the warmest and lightest known), footwear, tents, sleeping robes, covering for kayaks, even the heads of drums. Tuktu gave meat, and fat both to eat and to fill their lamps; sinews for sewing; and antler and bone for the manufacture of innumerable hunting and domestic implements, even including children’s toys. Tuktu was life itself to human dwellers in the Barren Lands.

Farley Mowat Walking on the Land

Unesco.

Each of the animals and biomes selected by the groups this week bear a similar tradition of use that reaches back to the dawn of humankind, and I look forward to seeing the class’ representations of these ecosystems as they once were, on through their current state. Even in our suburban setting, there is still a reverence for the outdoors in many of the class’ undertakings – whether natural or urban – and the energy in class today as the groups selected their biomes and animals and set out on research stemmed from a connection many members of the class feel with their local setting. In documenting the traditions of our ancestors on this land alongside modern Canadians’ stewardship of the country’s most valuable resources, the project’s lofty purpose will be to offer a message to those who will follow in our footsteps here.

“We are all five-fingered people, the holy people. My grandfather and uncles always said that when we are taught these things, they are for the people, the children, and whoever comes to you wanting your help and the medicine of our ancestors. It is our responsibility to help them.”

Brian Payton Shadow of the Bear

Hopefully we do better than Dwight.

Holiday Reflections

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Today is the first true day of my holiday, as I lay in bed until ten before slowly preparing coffee and a light breakfast before settling down to lazily catch up with my digital goings on. There are still presents to make, or piece together from stops at the mall or other local shops, and a trip into Kitselano to pick up my new, temporary bottom teeth (meaning that for Christmas I am literally recieving my six front teeth). But today I intend to explore my Google Reader’s starred items, Twitter Favourites, and Delicious network’s bookmarks – which though managable through the myriad capabilities of my iPhone, persist in becoming cluttered.

But before I begin with all of that, I wanted to share and point to a few strudent reflections on the holiday season. A festive lot if the school were to have one, our class made Friday a memorable celebration of family in the form of our class with energy and creativity. When we arrived in class, my teaching partner and I were introduced to a video bearing the first clue in a scavenger hunt that would – in rhyme – lead us to the band office, PE Wall of Fame, front hallway and back to the classroom to find it decorated and ready for our pot-luck Secret Santa gift exchange. But the Hunt wasn’t over, as each of our clues had yeilded several Scrabble pieces that still had to be assembled to yeild the final hints which led us each to the hidden locations of our gifts from the students.

scavenger huntAt such times I cherish being a part of a class that is capable of taking ownership over the ongoing creation of community and a nuturing learning environment. The leaders in class have gone to great lengths to establish a sense of familial interdependance this year, and continue to look forward to this spring’s Adventure Trip and In-Depth Studies with energy and originality.

In honour of my first real morning of holiday, I wanted to share some of the class’ writing about Christmas, and the holidays, and spread some of the class’ holiday cheer. I look forward to the coming week providing me with the time to adequately reflect and create posts on a few classroom topics and activities (including the “Don’t Stop Believing” in Christmas Sing Along, the TALONS class’ Representative Democracy group project, and a few of the early results of our school’s Social Studies Educational Technology Learning Team). May your holidays be similarly inspiring, and lend themselves to an energized start to the new year!

I find the evolution of Christmas quite fascinating. Once the holiday was Pagan, then it became Christian, and now I’m not sure what it is. I think how you view the holiday probably depends on your family and where you live. My family, for one, is not Christian but we’ve celebrated Christmas my entire life. I guess we see it as a celebration of family and a reason to light up the darkest months of the year. Many people I know feel the same way. Yet, in the United States, where my grandparents live, Christmas is still very strictly religious. Merry Christmas only belongs to Christians. Here in Vancouver, it doesn’t really matter. We don’t need Happy Holidays or Season’s Greetings. Our class has recently been discussing multiculturalism and I think that the more liberal Canadian view of Christmas is a reflection of our attitudes towards the celebration and preservation of diversity. Why make Christmas, the best holiday of the year, exclusionary? Well, happy December!

How was I supposed to explain to my 7 year old brother that magic was real? Last year my mum showed me the Christmas present that Santa was going to give me, telling me that he wasn’t real. It didn’t upset me that my parents lied, because, for me, they made the magic true. They helped me understand the wonder in the unknown and also, in giving. Why would an old fat man give gifts to millions of kids and get nothing in return? My parents showed me what being generous and caring meant through Santa. When I bought or made gifts for people, I felt like Santa, I felt magic.

Last year’s Christmas seemed a little less special, a little less anticipated, a little less…like the feeling you get when you bundle up on a freezing snowy day, drinking hot chocolate, feeling it trickle down your throat and the warmth spreading through you, while watching the sheets of snow silently drifting down. What joy it was to know that you were remembered by such a busy person with so many people to keep track of. What bliss it was to know that you were special.

I suppose I believe things that people find silly, like unicorns or other mythical creatures wandering the depths of some nameless forest, alternate worlds, rips in time and places, that some crop circles are made by aliens, the Fey and Faerie of the old haunts in British Isles, Atlantis, that stars are actual beings put up by the gods in mythology….and other things that perhaps are not so silly: fate, destiny, heaven, reincarnation, love….magic in general.

What I’m trying to say is this: Christmas comes but once a year, so we should all make the most of it. Some things are out of our control, but that shouldn’t stop us from enjoying the holiday season. There are so many wonderful, glorious, and exciting parts of Christmas. It is a most beauteous holiday. So from me to you (whoever you may be), have the merriest Christmas you’ve ever had!