Andy's E-learning and Digital Cultures Blog

Part of the MSc in E-learning at the University of Edinburgh

Posts Tagged e-learning

Final Assignment – proposal

Dec 3

Posted by andym in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Copy of my proposed final assignment synopsis and feedback from Jen.

Title: The merits of the digital essay.

Synopsis: For the course Digital Culture, candidates are required to submit some form of digital essay for the final assignment. For me, this represents a first. It is an opportunity for me, not only to experiment with digital applications, but also express myself via  different media. I am conscious of my enthusiasm and how my motivation compares to researching notes to compile a traditional, text essay. This leads me to ask questions that relate to various aspects of the Digital Culture course. What does digital media offer education? What is media  literacy? Is there any difference to the information being conveyed in my essay that would be any different in text format? Finally, in assessing the essay, who am I?  Is this a genuine product of my understanding and knowledge of digital culture? Am I still quintessentially Andy Murray the postgraduate student of education, or is this the work of my new posthuman self, a student who functions only with digital facilities?

My aim is to structure my arguments around the text v. digital discussions covered in Block 1 and the Cyborg Manifesto of Block 3. Having played around with Prezi last week for a work presentation, I’d like to produce my assignment on that. I’d like to develop the essay upon text slides, quotes, video excerts and personal video commentary.

Reply from Jenny

Hi Andy,

Thanks for this – you’re proposing quite a complex idea – a reflexive account of your own process of creating an assignment, drawing on multimodal, cyborg and posthuman theory. I can see that it could work, and I think you should go for it using Prezi as you suggest.

Are you thinking of a structure whereby you run the semi-traditional academic discourse in parallel with your own reflexive account? So, for example, a few paragraphs of text (or video, images, etc) drawing on the literature and making an argument, sitting next to a video commentary of your own experience? And so on through the piece? Or would you be looking to integrate these two aspects more closely? Either could work, but the former might ensure that you definitely hit all the core criteria for the assignment (see the course guide for more information – but an outline is here – http://digitalculture-ed.net/?page_id=233).  Also, keep in mind the 2000 word guideline for the assignment – obviously how you construe ‘words’ will depend on what you’re doing, but it should give you some idea of the approximate size of the thing so you don’t take on too much.

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Andy’s Week 10 Review

Dec 1

Posted by andym in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

I feel a lot of analysis of my learning journey this week was covered in my last post – The Fog Clears. Although this was essentially a discussion of Sian’s paper – Uncanny Digital Pedagogies – it really helped me get my head around Block 3. The Cyborg Metaphor of Haraway, and subsequent research has been extremely challenging for me, not just in understanding and analysing the subject, but the actual subject matter of potential cyborg culture itself. Dystopic images of the future was not something I had signed up for on this course. But because of Haraway’s inclusion in the course, I now feel in a position to evaluate to what extent digital technology is shaping my thinking. This in turn has obvious relevance to e-learning and the impact upon teaching and learning.

When I look back over my week’s lifestream – and indeed the previous 2-3 before that, it is noticeable there appears fewer entries. I identify this as having more to do with reading core and secondary texts rather than reduced activity. What I do see in the lifestream though is a developing maturity and acceptance of technology in my thinking. Two particular issues stand out for me – embodiement and situated learning.

” If embodiment is an existential condition in which the body is the subjective source or intersubjective ground of experience, then studies under the rubric of embodiment are not ‘about’ the body per se. Instead they are about culture and experience insofar as these can be understood from the standpoint of bodily being-in-the-world.”
p. 143Thomas Csordas in Perspectives on Embodiment by Weiss, G. and Haber, H., (eds.). Routledge; March, 1999

If I draw upon a before and after scenario, I could potentially identify my academic self as being embodied in both my mind and text books, notes and essays. Now, my embodiement encompasses a lifestream and blog. Yet somehow, my lifestream and blog feel more personal. Whether or not this is to do with the fact digital culture is the actual subject matter of my studies, but I now feel I think of my learning in relation to the time chronology of blogging. The development of my lifestream correlates with my comprehension of the the subject. I wonder if this relates to classmates feeling because they hav not been feeding their lifestreams, like a tamagochi, they get a sense of under-nourishment. The lifestream encompasses the embodiement of our learning.

This now brings me to the issue of situated knowledge. The only shared activity I have been involved in over the last three weeks have been commenting on other blogs, and the Skype tutorial. There appears to be a consensus on cyborg metaphors being challenging but worthwhile, and learning in digital environments new, exciting but unfamiliar (uncanny). I now perceive my situated knowledge as being on the cusp of somewhere new – but definately not at its destination yet. This is because I am not convinced there yet exists a distinctive boundary between a subjective and objective understanding. For 10 weeks I have studied the subject – Digital Culture. I have done so within the confines of digital environments, using digital applications with participants who already possess a positive stance on the use of technology. Through a combination of the course readings and social interaction, the class appear to have developed a consensus view that digital culture can enhance learning. But does this make our stance objective?

Objective When we say that knowledge is objective we are making authoritative claims about its standing. Actually, objectivity is an essentially contested concept in the philosophies of science and the social sciences; it is usually invoked to convey a sense of truthfulness and to offer a cloak of legitimacy for a particular story – it is a mark of authoritative knowledge.

Open University: Learning Space – The Social in Social Science http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=2055

At present, I feel conscious of my own situated learning being subjective. When I discuss digital culture with individuals outside the course, I am naturally confronted with their “uncanny” unfamiliarity and scepticism. I can identify with the merits of lifestreaming and blogging, but ti what extent is that because I have not only been studying the subject – I’ve been practicing it too? In order to properly evolve onto the realms of objective, situated learning, I believe I have to test the hypothethis of digital learning within the context of another subject. So take for example,  Social Care students. A crucial element of their training involves self-reflective practice. I perceive lifestreams and blogging as appropriate mediums for Social Care students to practice. But it is only by supporting their engagement with digital technology, and seeing other individuals develop using them successfully, will I feel truelly within the realms of objective learning.

I now suddenly feel aware I may have subconsciously produced a part, first draft of my assessment summarising my lifestream.

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The Fog Clears

Nov 27

Posted by andym in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

YouTube Preview Image

Thanks to Sian’s paper – Academetron, automaton, phantom: uncanny digital pedagogies (2009) – I offer the course another metaphor – the fog is clearing. Having read this, I now feel more able to get my head around the last two weeks’s analysis of cyborgs and digital culture. Let me answer this question:

“The posthuman subject is an amalgam, a collection of heterogeneous components, a material-informational entity whose boundaries undergo continuous construction and reconstruction.” (Hayles 1999, 3) One of the structuring principles of this course – the lifestream and the learning environment itself – is about disaggregation and reaggregation – taking things apart, scattering them across the network, and then having them put back together by the machine. What other connections might there be between cyborg theory and the pragmatics of online pedagogy and course design?

For me, Sian cleared the fog by discussing digital pedagogy in terms of its uncanny nature. In developing new learning environments, both learners and teachers are lifted out of the comfort zones of familiar territory. The cyborg metaphors linked to virtual environments further exacerbate the state of anomie by being such liberating entities, they offer the potential for society to re-write the script on what constitutes cultural norms. So, for example, taking the question of lifestreaming – disaggregation and reaggregation – the problem for academia, may not so much be a lifestream constitute”a collection of heterogeneous components, a material-informational entity” but instead simply represent a new form of representing learning that challenges traditional concepts of pedagogy.

Asking students to submit lifestreams as assessed elements of a programme is an attempt provisionally to capture something of the ‘spectrality’ of their digital existences. As an assessment strategy, it works with the idea of the learning process as volatile, disorienting and invigorating, and it also stretches conventional assessment frameworks to their limits. In defamiliarising the familiar through creative pedagogical appropriation of the digital, teaching becomes newly, and productively, strange.

Bayne (2009) p8

This paper has helped me formulate some clear thoughts, not only on the value of lifestreaming, but on the whole discussion of cyborg culture over the last three weeks. I see an evolution in my understanding. By beginning with Haraway, I feel the course deliberately took us to the far end of digital cultural spectrum – a dystopic image of mankind and technology merging as one, to create a neo-spacies, a posthuman. It is only by placing my disturbed emotions to one side, and forgetting about apocalyptic cyborg culture, I am able to identify how technology is enabling me to learn within new, digital environments. The problem with lifestreaming may be less to do with consigning my learning activities to a digital crumb-trail, but to familiarising myself with the capabilities and potential lifestreaming offers. A few weeks ago, I refered to my lifestream as my digital memory – a classic cyborg state. However, now I see it as simply a chronological catalogue of my online research. The production of the lifestream is not the focal point of my studies – it is what is now inside my head, my thoughts, ideas and knowledge. It is through digital mediums, I feel I have learned. The big challenge has been coming to terms with the new environment.

As a learner in higher education, the student:is in a process in which she is, in a sense, being estranged from herself… The student is asked to submit to the strangeness of new worlds opening before her. If they were not strange worlds, there would be question marks over whether we were in the presence of higher education.  

Barnet (2007) quoted in Sian (2009) p6-7

Thanks Sian.

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Andy’s Week 1 Review

Sep 27

Posted by andym in Uncategorized | No Comments

To give relevance to my thoughts at the end of Week 1, I’d like to state my original learning outcome. The reason I am here is this -

to develop a clear understanding of digital culture and the potential opportunities it offers adult education
to widen participation in e-learning
to develop new opportunities for individuals to acquire academic and vocational skills and qualifications, using flexible, blended and e-learning methodologies
to develop my career as an e-learning professional.

My reason for declaring my personal motivations are this. It is these outcomes that bring me to digital culture. It is not my growing awareness of technology and a need to embrace it in order to retain credibility in my profession. It is my desire to harness the potential of Web 2.o technology and create new opportunities. For me, I see the social need before the technological potential.

My personal learning objectives fit neatly with the course outcomes -

have a critical awareness of the key concepts emerging from the study of digital culture

be able to assess the implications of this thought for the history, development and deployment of online education

be able to synthesise these ideas in order to develop criticallyaware, media-specific pedagogies for online learning

have developed practical skills in the use of social media and the presentation of academic discourse online

Week 1 of the course has centred around analysing the pros and cons of digital culture. Issues of power, empowerment, democracy and participation appear at the forefront of discussion. Hand offers a thorough analysis of the pros and cons of digital cultural studies: those relating to the digital as ‘promise’, and those which see it as ‘threat’. As a developer of distance learning, I am naturally enthusiastic about the potential of digital culture to empower individuals to engage and interact with information and communicate more readily. However, my enthusiasm has been challenged by darker impressions -

“The figure of the consumer-citizen takes centre stage where the processes of political management and engagement are inseparable from mass-mediated and customized forms of consumption. Information, instead of being an empowering force for cultural democratization, operates as a substitute for authentic knowledge, particularly where institutional and organizational uses of information centre upon the construction of preference databases.” Hand 2008, p39

I accept to some extent, the darker forces of digital culture. It is true that like satellite TV, there is an overwhelming image that increased choice and availability breeds simply dumming-down and exploitation. But just because huge amounts of the internet has been consumed by pornography and Ebay, does not mean all its users need fall like lemmings into its dark force.

“In essence, where the older communications networks of the nation-state system were vertical, hierarchical and one-directional, the digital information industries made possible by the Net promise horizontal and inter-actional patterns of circulation and flow.” Hands 2008, p24.

The key for me is the true potential of digital culture rests with the user, not the medium itself. I believe much of the negative rhetoric towards the internet is perceptional rather than actual. The technology evolved before society did. Therefore, as consumers, we have often felt as though we are playing catch up. Hence this sense of – machines are using us.

So take my origninal stand point – why am I here. Why are we here? The aim of this course is to broaden our understanding of digital culture. I imagine like most participants, I’ve felt lke a fish out of water this week. I don’t really Facebook or Twitter, so to suddenly be faced with an avalanche of communication from classmates and tutors is daunting. I’m playing catch up – but for a specific reason. So long as I retain focus on my original aim, I believe I can realise the potential for my own learning to be enhanced via the shared contributions of the class.

Of all the Tweets this week, one stands out that adds to my main focus. During an exchange on the aparent freedom and lack of parameters of the course, Jan responded that perhaps we will feel more focussed once we consider the course assessments.

Just like real society, digital culture should retain a sense of purpose. What’s the meaning of life?what’s the meaning of digital life?

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