The 2011 Global Education Conference has just wrapped up and I'm already looking forward to next years conference. While I was only able to take part in 8 sessions over the course of the week I know I'll be going back and viewing archived versions of some of the ones I missed. Being global there were sessions at 2 and 3 am and while I am motivated....knowing I could watch them afterwards made staying in bed a bit easier.
Of the sessions I attended five were outstanding and inspiring, two were ok and one was just disappointing. Pretty high ratio of outstanding to average, in my opinion and expereince with conferences. I don't want to go into great detail about which ones I considered excellent, which were average...there's no real benefit to be gained there. But I did want to capture some of the links that came up as a result of these sessions. So without too much fanfare, here's a link list:
TakingITGlobal - not a new link for me but one that came up in several sessions connected to some very good work: http://www.tigweb.org/
The Centre fpr Global Education: http://tcge.tiged.org/
Global Youth Leadership Institute: http://gyli.org/index.php
research journalism initiative: http://www.researchjournalisminitiative.net/index.html
iEarn Collaboration Center: http://media.iearn.org/home
Adobe Youth Voices: http://www.youthvoices.adobe.com/
User Generated Education: http://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/
Listing of backchannel tools: http://www.shambles.net/pages/staff/BCtools/
#redeschat wiki: http://redeschat.wikispaces.com/
From Pedagogy of the Oppressed:
"...human activity consists of action and reflection: it is praxis; it is transformation of the world. And as praxis, it requires theory to illuminate it. Human activity is theory and practice; it is reflection and action." p125
Human activity - not reduced to a specilaized field but all human activity - is theory and practice. Acknowleged or not theory is woven through our days. How much better to recognize it, reflect on it and move forward from some understanding of the why of our doing. Ignoring, or attempting to ignore, the theory underlying and informing our actions is to surrender our subjecthood and willingly surrender to objecthood. And then we have/become the rote mechanics of action - I consume, I teach - unexaminined and potentially (likely?) mis-understood. But it is a misunderstanding of the self, not a misunderstanding by others.
The active man-in-the-mass has a practical activity,but has no clear theoretical consciousness of his practical activity,which nonetheless involves understanding the world in so far as it transforms it. His theoretical consciousness can indeed be historically in opposition to his activity. One might almost say that he has two theoretical consciousnesses (or one contradictory consciousness): one which is implicit in his activity and which in reality unites him with all his fellow-workers in the practical transformation of the real world; and one, superficially explicit or verbal,which he has inherited from the past and uncritically absorbed.
Tecnica learning exchange:
This is a cross-cultural program that connect North Americans with Nicaraguans for a week long learning exchange in Nicaragua. Pushing against the idea of "service" learning, this program attempts to enact a model of peer learning that positions program participants in the role of teacher/learner on both sides of the cultural crossing. Each North American is partnered with a Nicaraguan participant for the program duration in Nicaragua and together they interact with a range of community members (From preschool to elderly) in project based work.
From its inception, this program has engaged technology as a continuous connector bridging time and space and allowing for the growth of collaborative relationships between program participants in an ongoing cycle of learning. The learning process moves fluidly from structured to informal and back again, shifting focus and tools as needed to maintain relationships over time. The inclusion of technology in the program activities that take place in Nicaragua is intentional and creates openings for learning in multiple dimensions (exchange participants to echnage participant, exchange participant to community member, program staff to exchange particpant, etc...). The, relative, simplicity of use of tools such as digital cameras shift focus away from the tool to encourage a more creative teaching/learning relationship and gives rise to "expertise" that can be constructed fluidly between particpant teams. In any pairing, at any moment, the role of teacher/learner or learner/teacher may shift and shift again in response to tool use and the social context of program activity.
Using technology in a shallow way to connect with participants or learners can emphasize and reinforce power dynamics that subjugate the "learners" to the greater authority of the "teachers". The greater facility, access to resources and technology and support structures that are available (in some instances) to "teachers" -used unthinkingly- can serve to increase power and class differentials.
All the necessary components enabling the use of a technical infrastructure for education/learning/engagement may heighten traditional power dynamics that give greater weight to formalized knowledge. Institutional systems with deep support can easily, and without direct ill intent, employ technology in such a way that it constrains full bodied participation and the entry of alternative ways of knowing into a technologically mediated dialog.
In this case technology becomes anti-dialogical, with a facade of participation and engagement.
To conduct public workshops and programming with a goal of developing digital literacy as an embedded practice. That is to say that the training is not ‘literacy for literacy's sake’, but rather occurs as an element of a larger project that seeks to address some identified goal or create capacity where none currently exists.
The integration of a focused digital literacy program, within a concrete program(s) of increasing participants’ ability to re-create (or re-propose) some problematic aspect of their world, reinforces the utility of the literacy learning and may lead to opportunities for peer teaching and learning among participants as facilities increase. As with any literacy, there is a staged progression that can be taken advantage of to increase the likelihood of peer interactions for learning.
Paul Treadwell
Working with ict's as a liberatory practice means to work in a zone of potentialities.given the current state of access and ability we are proposing a future path-the realities of the digital divide are still deep and broad,if we accept that divide as including
Working with ict's as a liberatory practice means to work in a zone of potentialities.Given the current state of access and ability we are proposing a future path-the realities of the digital divide are still deep and broad,if we accept that divide as including the capability to use ICT for the creation a re-creation of the world. Access to equipment, affordability and a deep literacy all embedded in the freedom to use ict's as literate,engaged citizens is still a distant aspiration. Viewed on this way, through this lens of technology for liberation, we are engaged in a utopian projectAnd because we work in a zone of potentialities it is as yet decided. For each step towards this aspiration there are, and will be, counter steps-sometimes many outmatching our efforts. ICT can be used for surveillance and control, as propaganda and indoctrination...can and are being used. But that does not wipe out other counter efforts,smaller though they may be, that open spaces of freedom,creativity and new ways of reading the world.There is an easy fallacy,though, that can arise when working with ict's. The veil of exclusion slips over our eyes as we-technologists-become entranced with the new and novel. The "read/write web" is one such chimera. Yes,we with access and ability, can create,change,erase and start over "on the web", but what does this mean really? Untethered from the world, our virtual selves creating what? Similar fascinations with things such as Second Life point to an inward turn that obscures the hard realities of reality. A virtual environment, such as second life, allows users to create,build, assume new guises and navigate a virtual "world". It is easy to view this as a way to channel energies that might (and should) be directed towards altering our world to a much easier realm of make believe,where the ugly realities of changing the physical and culture artifact that hold the vast majority of us in some degree of non-freedom can be ignored.
And I understand that both of these examples push the intent of the originals to extremes, perhaps even unreasonable extremes, but to me they demonstrate red flags, points to note,consider and either engage with to shift the orientation, or discard as unfit for our purposes.
Current state of thoughts as I organize for an upcoming presentation in October
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