Author Archives: Ethan Peterson-New

Temporal Structure and Exams

I don’t agree, in principle with online education. It definitely has its place in expanding access to education and serving as a supplemental tool to help students graduate on time, but I think the value of teacher-student interactions is too high to give up. Our traditional education at Middlebury, however, has already incorporated a lot of elements native to online education. We turn in papers online, take exams online, and rely on online sources to complete assignments. I was thinking about this in terms of the end of the fall term. I have an online exam, a paper to be turned in online, and one paper that has to be turned in in person. If it weren’t for the paper that has to be turned in as a hard copy, I would be able to leave as soon as my last class ends on Friday at 10 AM. If the temporal structure (in terms of using Moodle for assessment, and turning in papers via Moodle) that most of my classes have started using were utilized curriculum-wide, I would be able to go home. But more importantly, uniformity would give students an equal and predictable expectation for their work.

The problem right now is that every class approaches media differently. One of my classes has no online presence whatsoever, while one of my classes’ homework is all turned in via Moodle. This means that every assignment I turn in is not just turned in on a different subject, but also in a different temporal form. I’m not incompetent so I can handle it, but it’s a distraction from the actual work. A standardized system would allow students to focus on content rather than worrying about what form each assignment has to take, not to mention the fact that it would allow students to plan their vacations more easily.

Wi-Fi Dependency

It’s always a little sad when you’re sitting in a well-furnished house in a nice neighborhood in suburban Baltimore with a latte in one hand and a cracker slathered in expensive cheese in the other, and yet you’re comparing your experience to living in a third world country. This was precisely my moment of depressing entitlement on Wednesday afternoon. The cause of my grievance? Unreliable Wi-Fi. At some point down the line the first world decided Wi-Fi was an inalienable human right, and that we are entitled to access to the internet at all times. It wasn’t even that there was no internet – no, the problem was just that internet access was sporadic, shutting on and off every couple of hours or so. Every couple of hours! Do you know how lucky we are to have a power grid – let alone an internet grid – that doesn’t shut off every five minutes? Most people in the world don’t even have reliable access to power and clean water, and yet here I was, about to bite into a piece of cheese whose name I couldn’t even pronounce, and whining because I had to turn the wireless modem off and on again. I’m more than a little ashamed.

To be fair to me, I did have work to do – I had to turn in a freelance writing assignment via email – but it wasn’t like I was utterly without access to the internet. There was a desktop plugged into a landline right five feet away, so I just loaded my work onto a flash drive and, lamenting the extra three minutes it took, sent it off.

I wonder at what point Wi-Fi became a prerequisite for productivity. I can’t imagine doing my homework without my laptop, and to me my laptop means internet – web browsers, email, etc. The thought of being without Wi-Fi when I was trying to work legitimately scared me. There’s a reason for this. Many of our applications have come to rely on constant internet connection, whether for updates, for retrieving information, or even for basic use. Without the internet laptops are no longer as powerful. They’re just fragmented devices that can do a few things like word processing and photo editing. At a certain point the cost of the machine and the power to run it was no longer enough. We began having to build in the cost of internet service, the cost of constant connection to a network. The price, much more than the monetary cost, is that we have become dependent on Wi-Fi and the internet in general. This is not a bad thing, per se, as internet connections are pretty much a given in most parts of the developed world, but I wonder if we’re setting ourselves up for a situation where our dependence on the internet – I’m thinking about things like online banking – could fall prey to cracks in the system, and we could end up in a situation where all the information stored in the cloud (read: giant server farms in California) is either lost or rendered inaccessible. Do we, a connected generation, have the resiliency to bounce back if we suddenly lose our connection?

-epn

This Post Has Nothing To Do With Digital Media Literacy

I’ve been feeling pretty bad for the past week and a half. It has nothing to do with schoolwork, per se, I’ve been perfectly healthy, and I feel like my interpersonal relationships have been very fulfilling. The problem is that I haven’t been writing.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been working on papers left and right, but to me writing is about writing creatively, about the creation of story and character and world. The last time I did any creative writing was last Friday, and I’ve felt like crap ever since. You see, writing – and any creative activity in general – gives me such an unbelievable dopamine rush, makes me feel so good about myself, that as soon as I don’t do it for a day I feel awful. I would compare it to being mildly manic-depressive; this kind of creative output gives me humongous swings in mood. While I’m writing, and after I’ve just finished a productive period of writing, I feel great about myself. I am the king of my own domain, the arbiter of my own destiny, the catalyst in my own ridiculously hyperbolic fantasy. You get the point. Just being able to put words on the page, even knowing full well that there is a real possibility that no one will ever read them, is empowering. It’s empowering not because it’s an accomplishment, but rather because as soon as you put the words on the page they are yours. No teacher told you to write them, no is telling what you can and cannot do. Admittedly trying to publish forces you to play by a lot of rules, but ultimately the product and the experience that went into it both belong to you.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what to major in recently. I’ve heard from all sides to get a “marketable degree,” something that will help me get a job. I could do it too. I’ve always been good at math and science. But they’ve never given me an ounce of fulfillment. A good grade on a test feels good, but I’m doing it for the grade, not for the content. I want to pursue something where I’m proud of both the result in terms of achievement, and the result in terms of content and product. I want to feel proud of what I do. If that means I graduate from Middlebury as the least employable person ever, then so be it.

-epn

Teaching at MUMS

I can’t recall a time when I have been more nervous than when I walked into classroom 212 on Monday morning. It was like being back in middle school, seeing those small kids, feeling the barely-formed social dynamics like humidity in the air. I was terrified. Our lesson, however, seemed to work out. Despite a few technical glitches that came out of miscommunication and our lack of ability to prepare our lesson in the actual classroom, by the end of thirty minutes we had reached the point we wanted to reach. Almost all the students had a working knowledge of Google Docs, and some were even able to form well thought out ideas about what its potential virtues and vices might be.

It occurred to me, about half-way through the lesson, that one of the key components of teaching is knowing how the classroom dynamic works. This is something that can only be understood through spending time with any given class. As a visiting teacher I had no idea what these kids knew or were capable of, and I felt I wasn’t really able to provide a quality lesson without this information. In a broader sense we weren’t quite sure exactly where our lesson fit into the continuity of the class content-wise. No amount of correspondence with the teacher (and believe me, there was no lack in that respect) would have provided enough context to yield a completely fulfilling and seamless lesson. We just had to do the best we could with the situation, which was a valuable experience. It also increased my awareness of the importance of telos in teaching pedagogy: a skilled teacher can move toward a distinct set of end-of-term goals with each lesson, while an unskilled teacher provides decontextualized lessons that don’t fit into a larger teleological model of learning. I thought our lesson fit well enough into the current of the class to be useful, but it didn’t feel unified with the rest of the curriculum.

-epn

Being a Nerd in the Digital Age

I am a nerd. I’m not talking math about math and science or grade-grubbing or being a teacher’s pet or anything like that. I’m talking about Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones and Star Wars and science fiction. I would not call me a geek though, as I have no interest in technology for technology’s sake (nor indeed any real proficiency with it). I am one of those kids with his head in the proverbial clouds, who has seen all three Lord of the Rings movies more times than I even care to count, who could recite every line of some of the nerdiest titles ever to hit a movie theater. I write science fiction novels. I create sports simulations using real-world statistics and dice. In a lot of ways I am not that different from the Dungeons and Dragons-playing, cape-wearing, Klingon-speaking nerds of yesteryear, but one way my experience differs is in the options available for me to engage in complex fandoms that share my interests.

Before the internet the only real options for participating in fandoms were through conventions and clubs. These were localized events that required a physical presence (and hence association with a nerdy community – a major pitfall for casual nerds). Don’t get me wrong, one of my nerdiest dreams is to go to Comic-Con – although not as a fan but rather as one of the people who gets interviewed as a producer of a product. But online forums offer a much easier and farther reaching means of interacting with content. I don’t have to search for someone else with a particular interest; I can just go online and interact with the online community. I can hear opinions from people all over the world without ever having to carry around a sword. I can also get news on my favorite movies and TV shows in detail and at a rate that would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. The internet offers the opportunity to follow and engage with content I am passionate about. It does not necessarily instill or spark interest, but it definitely perpetuates and strengthens it.

Banging My Head Against the Wall

Recently procrastination has become my single largest use of technology. It’s not good. I spent an enormous portion of the day watching Youtube videos I didn’t even want to watch to avoid working on what I should have been working on (i.e. my final papers that are due in a month and are as of yet unstarted, or my revisions for the scholarly article analysis). It wasn’t that I thought turning to technology was a better or even a more fun thing to do; it was just that it felt like the easiest thing to be doing at each moment. I think that’s one of the keys to technology overuse: ease. Not just ease of access, but also ease of travel down the passive neurological pathways that lead me time and again to sort of funny Youtube videos and posts on Facebook I don’t care about. Without having to engage my mind I can have some sort of gratification, however small. I know from experience that using technology in creative ways or working on my schoolwork ultimately will be more fulfilling and rewarding, but sometimes the upfront intellectual investment is more than I can handle. And yes, maybe it had something to do with the inadequate amount of sleep I got this weekend, or perhaps the fact that what seems to be 500 pounds of phlegm is trying to eat my brain, but I know that without the easy path I would force myself to be productive, or at least to sleep. Maybe I need another media fast, or maybe when I feel like I do now the easy thing is the right thing. Maybe taking care of myself entails giving myself a break by doing something I feel is unproductive. I don’t know. I’ll probably just end up on Youtube again, and then have to apologize to myself later.

-epn

Technology With a Purpose

After discussing lesson planning in class on Thursday, my biggest takeaway was how establishing a clear goal is fundamental for effective teaching. Classroom activities have to be planned so as to build toward a goal in a unified way. This purpose needs to be reiterated throughout the lesson – much as hints at one’s thesis must be reintroduced throughout a paper – in order to develop understanding. That’s the key: understanding. The contents of the lesson are inconsequential in that by themselves they don’t approach a distinct goal, but by the interplay between them, a teacher can instill understanding Teaching is not about the information presented, but rather how that information becomes deeper understanding.

The same “telos”-oriented approach is valuable when teaching technology. For our teaching projects we are not just going to be teaching the students how to use a specific type of technology, but rather why they’re using it, and what they can hope to achieve. Without a clear illustration of a goal, students are left with decontextualized skills that could serve some practical function, but ultimately do not contribute to greater understanding about their technology use. They need to understand the driving forces behind the gadgets they use, as well as what are the best and most efficient ways to utilize them.

It’s not just kids who can benefit from understanding the greater meaning and rationale behind technology use. We as college students – and adults as well – would do well to ask ourselves what we are trying to accomplish when we use technology. We shouldn’t approach technology as an entity that is inherently good and therefore worth using. We should approach it with a clear idea of what we want to get out of using it, and then learn the requisite skills to exploit it. We need to be more than passive consumers of products; we should be intelligent, informed technological citizens with a clear understanding of the purpose and intentions behind our technology use.

A Broader Definition for Literacy

In our Digital Media Literacy class, we have often discussed the social ramifications of technology use. We have talked about social-shaping versus technological determinism, and have so often settled on a point somewhere between the two. We discuss these concepts in terms of primarily social impacts – how technology affects our lives and relationships. But there is another part of technology that we have not discussed, perhaps because there is too little research or because it is too complex for an entry-level freshman seminar: the physiological effects of technology. To talk about how technology fundamentally changes us is quite deterministic, but if there is an impact inherent to technology, then how else can we view it?

If you are interested in this sort of thing (all two of you who are reading this), then I advise you head over to the New York Times section about it. There are concerns ranging from flashing lights affecting sleep, to use of technology limiting attention span (although this claim has often refuted), to affects on children of computer use by parents, and many more. I would even go so far as to stress concern about our constant exposure to plastics that are almost entirely unregulated and possibly carcinogenic, as well as the potentially mutagenic effects of radiation. I worry about these things for the same reason that we don’t study them: we just don’t have enough information. Try finding a good study about the effects of light on REM sleep, or about the possibilities for plastics to contain harmful chemicals (I find it hard to imagine that BPA is a fluke).

Obviously until we know more there can be no such thing as informational literacy about the physiological effects of computers. We do know of links between computer use and conditions like carpal tunnel, but repetitive motion injuries are much easier to document than brain and cellular impacts. For now, we need more research on what actually happens to the brain and to the body in response to digital stimuli. There is much to be learned in this regard. For the moment literacy about the physiological impacts of digital media means knowing that there is the potential for risk. A kind of play-it-safe, guilty until proven innocent approach would definitely slow down the infiltration of useful technology into our lives, but it also has the potential to avoid problems down the road.

-epn

Growing Up (Virtually) Tech-Free Part 2

My elementary school used no integrated technology in its curriculum. We had perfunctory requirements for typing improvement and proficiency in word-processing, but during the rest of our education computers were completely peripheral and interactions with them were informal. Even research was conducted at the library instead of on the internet, with an emphasis on learning from books. One might think that someone who had so little exposure to the world of technology would find themselves behind when they reached the next stage of education, but I found no such detriment to my ability. I was of course not ahead when I got to middle school, but I could easily keep up with my classmates.

I can’t believe that extensive technology use in education is necessary in elementary school. Even for the so-called disaffected learners, there are other ways to achieve engagement. I think that the kinesthetic element of learning is too often overlooked; how else will students learn how to interact with their world if they don’t cultivate those interactions? Humans learn by doing, by feeling. The best way for a student who feels disengaged to get excited about learning is through sensory experience. Now it may seem like computers offer an excellent opportunity for sensory stimulation outside of typical teacher-student interactions. The limitations of computers, however, lie in their inability to have a kinesthetic experience (typing in no way counts), essentially excluding an entire learning style. You can’t feel your way through a virtual experience (at least not yet).

The other issue with learning using computers is one David Buckingham points out in his book, Beyond Technology. That is that students’ interactions with technology at home tend to be far more pleasurable and less educational in nature than those at school. Bridging the gap between how computers are used in school and how they are used at home is certainly an issue with technology in schools, but it is only an issue if we are insistent that technology offers the best way for students to learn. I remember in a first grade math class when we were learning how to tell time, that we made clocks out of paper plates. The entire experience would have been so different, so much less meaningful, less tactile, less tangible, if we had been manipulating clocks virtually rather than physically. Of course there are times when technology offers opportunities that physical things cannot, but I don’t think it’s necessary to push it into every facet of the curriculum.

By the way, the assertion by Prensky that Buckingham quotes, that “the true secret of why kids spend so much time on their games is that they’re learning!” is complete horse-hockey (yes, horse-hockey). The reason kids spend so much time on games is that computer games are designed with reward systems that stimulate dopamine pathways in the brain, which creates pleasure. Because children have relatively little self-control (think: candy), they will continue to activate these pathways as long as they get the dopamine rush.

-epn

Disconnected: Contemplative Computing?

After watching the film Disconnected, which followed Carleton college students as they spent three months without their computers, I couldn’t help but cringe every time they had to use a typewriter for an academic assignment. They spent hours upon hours copying their papers, rewriting them, and starting over when they made too many mistakes. I certainly advocate limiting use of superfluous technology, but when taken to the extreme in an academic setting, I felt the results were too inconvenient to give a real platform to talk about how we use technology. Spending hours slaving over a typewriter is sure to create animosity toward the whole venture, in much the same way that not being able to send an important email is. In these cases the inconvenience created resentment, in some cases causing “cheating” and other behavior technically not allowed for the assignment.

I would, however, say that the students who used their computers on select occasions exhibited a healthier approach to technology than those who slogged through until the end. Outright media refusal in a media-saturated academic environment not only creates inconvenience for the refuser, but also for those around him or her. Teachers who had to read messy typewritten documents, and library assistants who had to spend hours helping the students find research materials also suffered. Technology is not just created for the convenience of those using the technology, but also those around them. So while the desire to leave computer-free is noble, the reality of the academic landscape makes outright rejection of technology unrealistic and even slightly inconsiderate. Imagine, for a moment, that some professors refused to check email. Students could perhaps still call them, but because of the email-heavy framework that surrounds them, would the students be as likely to get in touch with them to ask questions? My guess is no. Sure, we should be adaptable when it comes to technology, but outright refusal in this day and age is not conducive to being a real and active member of society. A contemplative approach to computing, like David Levy suggests, is far better.