The Discussion Board (a Mash-up of Perspectives): The Third Pillar of Digital Learning

Up For Debate

All courses are ecologies of learning. There is an interrelationship between each activity in the course – each activity affects the other. In order to get the most out of online learning I would suggest that there are three main pillars that should be a part of most courses – especially in social sciences and the humanities. These three pillars are: (1) Journaling, (2) Blogging, and (3) Discussion Boards.

I see each of these online activities as being interrelated and as contributing to different aspects of learning.

While journaling is an interior activity of intimate learning, between the teacher and the student, and blogging is an exterior activity of public learning, in which the student learns by teaching, the discussion board is an exterior activity of interactive learning, consisting largely of brainstorming between students.

The key to writing a good discussion board post is that builds on what other people are saying and it adds something new. It does not have to agree with previous posts, but it should respond to them in some way – either by providing a new spin to what has already been said, or by providing an alternative perspective that contradicts other perspectives, or by taking the thread in a different direction altogether while staying on topic. Discussion board posts are short blasts of ideas and information. Discussion board posts are best when they are interactive. The question that should be going through someone’s mind, as they are writing the post, is “What am I introducing to this discussion that will be new?”

As students bring different perspectives and experiences to the virtual or physical classroom there is an opportunity for highly creative thought to occur. Creative insights often occur where there is a mash-up of ideas. The most useful discussions take place when people notice different details about the content they have all been exposed to. This activity is particularly useful because each person is likely to notice something that someone else missed. A classroom of full of different observations and impressions helps all of us to “see” things more broadly originally. Usually it is the details that each person notices that makes a discussion board post interesting.

Just as journaling makes digital learning an intimate interaction between the teacher and the student; and blogging allowing students to teach the teacher, and other students and to disseminate ideas far and wide; the discussion board uses the digital environment to foster collaborative learning and creative interaction.

The discussion board works best if it is thought of as being a mental mash-up. There are different ways to go about this. The most obvious form of mash-up is when several people have different perspectives on the same content. When this occurs, participants will be most effective if they take time to examine how they arrived at their different conclusions, interpretations, or opinions. What “evidence” were they looking at? At what point did they come to see things as they do? What experiences led them to their conclusion? What are they basing their conclusion on?

By the way, these are also good questions for a person to ask himself or herself when writing journal entries. It is all interactive.

When a person takes the time to describe how they arrived at their conclusions the discussion provides more insight than it does when people are simply contradicting one another. As I said before, details are important. It is useful to discuss the different details that caught our attention and impacted us in different ways. It is also useful to discuss our differences in how we chose to interpret those details.

Another approach to this interactive mash-up of perspectives on the discussion board is when students have the same observations, conclusions, and interpretations, but build on what the previous student has said by providing new examples. When this happens in a discussion board thread the interpretations that students have are mostly similar, but the new information that each student brings to the discussion consists of bringing different applications of the perspective to the discussion.

In either case, contrast or agreement, the intellectual mash-up is one in which each participant adds to the overall discussion by introducing something new, not by merely agreeing with what the person who went before them said.

It is so important that students introduce something new in each discussion board post that I tend to give very little, if any, credit to posts that merely say, in essence, “me too.”

It basically comes down to this: If you cannot add something new to what people have already said, by presenting an alternative perspective or interpretation, then add something new by providing a new “spin”, or new angles to an existing line of thought – but always, always, always bring something new to the discussion.

Students will often find that ideas that bubbled up in their journal, or in the discussion board, can be refined and reworked into compelling blog posts. Likewise, discussion board activity, and responses to one’s blog, can send a student back to his or her journal to reflect on these ideas in a quieter and more intimate setting. This is why the most effective use of journaling, blogging, and participation on the discussion board is to make these activities interactive and to allow ideas that are developed in one activity to feed off of those developed in another.

It is hard to assign a grade value for creativity and originality. It is practically antithetical to try to grade brainstorming, where students are riffing off of each other. Still, to keep people focused and to ensure quality contributions to the discussion board, it is necessary to have rubric for this activity. My rubric for discussion boards tends to look something like this:

The discussion board activity will be graded based on the following criteria: (1) staying on the topic for the thread, (2) providing new insights into content from the course, (3) explaining how you arrived at your perspective, interpretation, or opinion, and (4) commenting and giving meaningful responses to other people’s posts. 

I generally encourage at least one discussion board post per class session. Because the discussion board works best if it develops as quick blasts of new information, yet these blasts should be substantive, most posts will average about 150 words. I usually allow discussion boards to represent about 20% of the final grade for the course.

C. Matthew Hawkins

The Public Blog (Learning Through Teaching): The Second Pillar of Digital Learning

Image Credit: Developmental Institute

All courses are ecologies of learning. There is an interrelationship between each activity in the course – each activity affects the other. In order to get the most out of online learning I would suggest that there are three main pillars that should be a part of most courses – especially in social sciences and the humanities. These three pillars are: (1) Journaling, (2) Blogging, and (3) Discussion Boards.

I see each of these online activities as being interrelated and as contributing to different aspects of learning.

While journaling is an intimate activity between the teacher and the student, blogging is a public and external activity that allows the student to become the teacher. If a journal is a private record, and an interior reflection on, what a student is learning a blog is the public face of that process of learning.

I have found that, in every class, there are enough students who produce great content in their blogs – from several different perspectives – so that I can use their blogs as instruction tools and as “texts” for all participants in the class to think about. The blogs that students produce can show all of us new ways of thinking and can deepen our learning.

If digital learning can be criticized for being too impersonal, it can also be acknowledged for its ability to encourage people to be producers of unique content. Digital platforms make it possible for all of us to be publishers and producers of content and ideas. Blogging is an effective way of exploiting this potential in the (virtual or physical) classroom.

Being in an academic setting, however, teachers must be able to identify – with reasonable precision – what kind of the learning a student’s blog represents and how it should be evaluated for credit toward successful completion of the course.

My rubric for blogging tends to look something like this:

Blogs will be graded based on (1) how well you address the questions you were asked to write about in this blog; (2) how well you engage the content (videos, printed or digital texts, etc.) in this course; and (3) how readable your blog posts are – “readability” includes minimal typographical and grammatical errors, clear writing, and logical sentence and paragraph structures.

The work of more advanced students will typically be evaluated based on how well they engage topics and themes from the course, how well they engage theoretical perspectives we are using and exploring, how well they situate course content within theoretical categories, how well they are able to contrast and compare those theoretical categories; and how well they are able to critique their selection and use of sources (this may include a brief annotated bibliography as one of their blog posts).

I have found that it is generally useful to require approximately 8 blog posts per semester, which generally comes down to one post every two weeks. Blog posts should average about 700 words.

Because blogs are public expressions of what students are exploring and thinking about I usually make an eight-entry blog worth 40% of the final grade in the course; this may include an activity where students give a presentation of their blog before a live audience.

I think there are three reasons why blogging is important; first, blogging positions students as active learners rather than as mere passive consumers of what someone else is telling them. Secondly, a good measure of how well a person has learned something is whether or not they are able to teach it to others. The third reason that blogging is important is because one of the most effective ways to learn is by teaching.

C. Matthew Hawkins

Journaling for Intellectual Intimacy: The First Pillar of Digital Learning

Image Credit: High heeled Traveler.blogspot.com

All courses are ecologies of learning. There is an interrelationship between each activity in the course – each activity affects the other. In order to get the most out of online learning I would suggest that there are three main pillars that should be a part of most courses – especially in social sciences and the humanities. These three pillars are: (1) Journaling, (2) Blogging, and (3) Discussion Boards.

I see each of these online activities as being interrelated and as contributing to different aspects of learning.

Journaling is an intimate activity between the teacher and the student. When I use the journaling tool for an online learning platform, such as Blackboard or Desire 2 Learn, I prefer to make those journals private – just between the teacher and the student. I do not choose the option where anyone in the class can see another student’s journal. The journal should help the student to become more aware of his or her process of learning. The journal should help the student track their own learning process and to take control over it, rather than waiting for the teacher to orchestrate every aspect of the student’s learning. Journals should encourage students to think about themselves as being active learners.

Journal entries also help the teacher to understand how different students learn. Students should describe the questions that arise as they engage the content in the course and the steps they have taken to deepen their understanding of that content. They should especially write about the mistakes they have made or misimpressions they have had, and what they have learned in the process of correcting these errors. Often they will conclude that their assumptions were not entirely wrong, but that they were too limited. Writing journal entries can help a student understand the limitations of ideas that they might otherwise apply too broadly and uncritically.

When students have an opinion, or draw a conclusion, it is useful for them to take the time to use their journals to write about how they arrived at that opinion or conclusion. What did they base their conclusions on? What led them to their conclusion? What evidence, examples, or experiences played a role in their arriving at their conclusions? What doubts or caveats do they have about the conclusions they have drawn? All of these questions will lead to powerful material to explore in their journals.

Students will often find that ideas that bubble up in their journal will lead to better blog posts. They will also find that interaction on the discussion board will trigger thoughts that they want to explore more deeply in their journal.  The combination of journaling, blogging, and participation on the discussion board is an interactive process that allows ideas to feed off of one another.

One of the biggest criticisms of the use of online learning platforms for instruction, even when they are coupled with instruction in the classroom, is that they are impersonal and reduce the amount of human interaction in education. I see writing journal entries as being a way to counter this problem of impersonality. The communication between the teacher and the student, in the student’s journal, can be a highly intimate intellectual experience. The teacher can learn more about how much effort the student is putting into the course, and how well they understand the key concepts, than any activity in an actual classroom will reveal. Journaling can help the teacher to know the student on a deeper level. The feedback that the teacher provides to the student, through the student’s digital journal, can be highly personalized and can provide a strong vehicle for individualized instruction.

However, even though journaling should actually make it easier for students to do well in a course, and the activity is a highly effective method of studying, most students see journaling is simply being additional work they are required to do in order to get through the course. Because they may not, at first, be motivated to keep good online journals I typically assign a grade value and a “rubric” for journaling. It usually looks like this:

Journals will be graded based on (1) how well you identify what you didn't know; (2) the steps you have taken to learn more about what you didn't know; and (3) further questions that came to you as a result of the answers you have found. Basically, you should write about your learning activities as you go through the course. You should have at least one journal entry for each unit of instruction in this course -- each entry should address at least one of the three questions listed above. By the end of the course there should be at least one journal entry for each of those three questions.

I usually suggest that each journal entry should run approximately 500 words, but because the nature of journaling is exploratory it is not unusual for entries to be much longer – perhaps 1,000 words – as the student writes in order to figure out what they want to know, what they want to say, and how they want to say it.

Good journal entries will show that the student is thinking and will make me more sympathetic toward the other digital work they have done in the course.

Because journal entries are records of the internal process of learning, and they give me insight into the depth of student engagement, I generally assign 40% of the final grade to journal activity.

C. Matthew Hawkins

Three Touchstones of Academic Thinking and Writing

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Academic writing is not an objective in and of itself, it is product of careful thinking. Academic writing should show your reader how you came to your conclusions. When you examine how you came to your conclusions this helps you to become intellectually honest and self-reflective. Thinking about how you arrived at a conclusion is the very essence of "critical thinking". There are three touchstones that will help you to do this work: (1) Think about what brings you to the topic you are exploring; (2) think about different theoretical perspectives for exploring this topic; and (3) think about the source material you are working with.

1. Think About What Brings You To This Topic: 

Learning about a topic is a journey. Before you embark on this journey ask yourself this:

What makes you curious about this topic?

What problem(s) are you trying to solve?

What puzzles are you wrestling with?

How might your inquiry into this topic be useful to others?

Any journey of inquiry is motivated by a desire to know or understand something in your life and your surroundings. What is it that you desire to know or to understand? What originated this yearning? Take time to think and write about this. Once you have completed your journey, go back and think about why others might be interested in what you have learned. How might your journey be useful to others?

2. Think About How You Are Engaging Methods of Analysis and Interpretation (Theory):

Theoretical and methodological perspectives call our attention to things that we probably would overlook otherwise. There are many theoretical and methodological perspectives out there. You should be familiar with at least of few of them, and you should be able to distinguish between them.

How would different theoretical lenses (different ways of thinking) approach this phenomenon differently? Contrast and compare them. It is useful to take the examples, given by a source with one theoretical perspective, and examine that same case using a different theoretical perspective. How do your conclusions, using one approach, differ from those that you would arrive at using a different approach? What rival hypotheses can you come up with to interpret what the author observed and recorded? What interpretation of behavior, other than those used by the author, seem plausible to you? In order to do these exercises you first have to understand the theoretical perspective, interpretation and analysis that the author used.

What does this method of thought and observation prime you to look for and pay attention to? If you take one method of analysis or interpretation, how might this approach change what you pay attention to and observe when you go out into the field or you observe raw data?

What are the truth-claims of this particular method of analysis or interpretation? How do these truth-claims differ from those of another method of analysis or interpretation? Some research is intended to discover things that hold true for most cases, most of the time. This kind of research is intended to explain social or personal phenomena. Other research is intended to describe or explore an experience or meaning that a person or group of people construct. It may also be used to explore a theoretical perspective and to examine how this perspective plays out through particular examples. A case study is an example of this. The difference between the two approaches is that one claims to give you information so that you will know about a topic, and you may be able to use that knowledge for operational purposes (you can manipulate and change things in your environment); the other claims to explore ideas and meanings constructed in the minds of subjects under investigation. This approach claims to help you to understand the dynamics of the group or individual and their environment. The first approach claims to enable you to know; the second approach claims to enable you to understand.

3. Think About the Sources You Are Working With:

What is the difference between different types of sources? Is this an academic source, a journalistic source, or a public relations piece from an organization, institution or agency? Is it a blog or opinion piece; and, if so, what is this person's particular experience or expertise that makes us interested in what this person has to say? Why should we care about what this person says? Do they have the power to change things? Do they have the power to influence other people's opinions? Have they done careful and systematic research on this topic? Can they provide us with a first-had account of how people are affected by what we are studying?

Is this a primary source or is it a secondary source? Is it raw, first hand, material from which we can form our opinion or is a secondary source that has processed the raw material and is presenting us with the author's summary or perspective on it? A transcript, unedited footage, or an actual research report are all primary sources. A newspaper clipping or blog post is usually a secondary source. A lot of what is "primary" or "secondary" depends on what you are using it for. For example, if you are writing about the kinds of letters that migrant workers sent to their loved ones back home then the actual letters of migrant workers would become primary source material. If you are trying to understand how bloggers or news reporters are writing about a particular event then these resources, which are otherwise secondary sources, become primary sources because they are raw data, not about the actual event but about what people are saying about it. In this sense they would be raw data for what you are trying to understand.

What is the difference between sources in terms of the style of its presentation? Is it formal or informal? Is it dry and academic or is it conversational? Was this source subjected to professional peer review? What experts or professionals reviewed this source and checked it for accuracy?

What is the difference between sources in terms of the degree of their partisanship? What is the degree of the source's objectivity or subjectivity? An academic study is usually more objective than a newspaper article. A newspaper article is usually more objective than literature published by an organization about itself. Is the producer of the source an advocate for a particular cause, interest or point-of-view? Is the source an artifact from a particular interest group? If the source is from an interest group it can help us to understand how that group is trying to frame the discussion, but we should also ask what kind of information opposing groups are circulating.

How does this source attempt to appeal to your emotions as opposed to your reasoning? What emotive language do the producers of this source use? What logic or reasoning do they use? What kinds of evidence do they provide and work with?

What kinds of metaphors are the authors using? What is implied by these metaphors? What alternative metaphors can you come up with that might have different implications for how we think about the topic? People think metaphorically but usually we don't take time to examine the metaphors we are using. If we examine our metaphors we can more easily trace and understand our patterns of thought. This is useful because it helps us to identify unexamined assumptions and to think of alternative ways of approaching and thinking about the situation. When we examine our metaphors we become more self-reflective about our thought patterns and this helps us deepen our skills of observation and our thinking.

What is the difference between sources in terms of letting you know how the authors know what they know? To what degree do they discuss how they arrived at their conclusions? To what degree do they discuss the sources they draw on? To what degree do they discuss the limitations of their knowledge? To what degree does the source entertain other points-of-view and attempt to provide balance, context, and nuance?

These three touchstones (what brings you to the topic, what theoretical perspectives you are working with, and what sources you are working with) will help you to think and write more deeply about any topic that you want to explore.

What is the "Double-Bind" that Makes Schooling an Obstacle to Learning?

Image Credit: Gardner Campbell

In his keynote address at the Open Ed conference in Vancouver, in 2012, Gardner Campbell discussed the need to create "Ecologies of Yearning", a vague concept which we recognize only when we experience it.

Digital technology and social networking tools create the potential for wide-ranging student interaction across vast distances. They also give students access to information and other learning resources that would have been unimaginable 25 years ago, and yet, even as universities adapt digital learning platforms as part of their instruction, students seem to feel more boxed-in than ever rather than feeling as though they are part of an ever-expending, alive and vibrant massive network of learning. Why is that happening?

Digital technology and social networking tools also create the potential for students to participate in project-based learning and to create digital artifacts that should unleash the process of discovery and and stimulate their creative juices, yet students feel constricted by the process, as if they were in a strait-jacket. How are we to understand what blocks this process of creativity and discovery?

Gardner Campbell draws from Gregory Bateson's Steps to an Ecology of Mind to explore the nature of the "double-bind". An application of the double-bind is when it occurs as the requirement to implement conventional modes of course organization and assessment of student learning meet the emerging creative and discovery potential of digital technology. It is akin to saying, "Be spontaneous, but within this rubric."

In order to identify this double-bind we must develop skills recognizing meta-messaging, the meta-context in which we are thinking, meta-contextual perspective, and transcontextual syndromes. To get a handle on these $50 words, watch the lecture. It is essential in order for us to even begin to work our way through this puzzle.

How do we break out of this double-bind so that the minds of students will be freed and authentic learning will take place? Campbell argues that learning begins with yearning; the challenge is how we create educational environments that place yearning at the center of the process of education.

What is the Future of Online Learning Platforms for Education?

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The New York Times highlights the problems and limitations of online learning

On February 18th, The New York Times published an editorial titled "The Trouble with Online College". In it, the Times editorial board said that Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which are non-credit classes with hundreds of thousands of students per class, are not very good models for online classes that are offered for standard college instruction.

The Times warns that "College administrators who dream of emulating this strategy for classes ... would be irresponsible not to consider two serious issues." The two issues they cite are: high student attrition rates among online learners, and lack of assistance for students who are not highly motivated and who lack strong learning skills.

The editorial notes that there is very little interaction between instructors and students in online courses, and that students who are already low-performers fall even further behind. This is based on a study done by Columbia University's Community College Research Center.

Additionally, a five-year study of Washington state students at community or technical colleges, the editorial said, indicated that many students who enroll in these schools lack basic academic and time-management skills. Online courses, the editorial argues, makes them sitting ducks for failure.

The Times editorial sensibly recommends that students first demonstrate competency in traditional classes before being allowed to enroll in online courses. The Times also sensibly recommended that hybrid courses, mixing online learning platforms with in-class instruction, produces outcomes that are comparable to traditional classroom instruction.

What are the problems, and the potential, of digital learning?

Letters to the editor, in response to the editorial, helped to present the other side of the picture.  

Duke University sophomore Aaron B. Krolick says that one of the benefits of online learning platforms is that they enable teachers to get immediate feedback on their teaching so that they can make adaptations as they go along.

I particularly like the way Krolick describes teaching -- including teaching that uses digital technology -- as being an "art" that is in the process of becoming. We have to give this art of teaching time to develop, and to learn from initial errors.

Steven Mintz, founding director of the University of Texas' Systems Institute for Transformational Learning notes that "A 2010 Department of Education review found that 'students in online learning conditions performed modestly better than those receiving face-to-face instruction," and asks how this could be. 

His answer is that lecture classes are less engaging for students than instructional methods that can be used with online learning platforms. Most face-to-face classes for undergraduates, he argues, are lecture-based; online courses, on the other hand, can engage more of the tactile and kinetic modes of learning.

Mintz lays out some of the strengths in digital instruction in order to engage students: "Online courses can enhance learning opportunities for nontraditional students and those not well served by lecture classes. High-quality, next-generation online courses incorporate personalized adaptive learning, problem-solving activities, interactive laboratories, animations, simulations, educational gaming, virtual reality environments, social networking and data analytics," he says.

Mitchell Stevens, associate professor of education at Stanford notes that face-to-face instruction is not always everything that it is cracked up to be in the first place. It is, he notes, "always of uneven quality". There is no guarantee that a student will receive good instruction just because that instruction is formatted face-to-face.

Similarly to Aaron Krolick, Stevens calls for giving the art of digital education more time to develop before we judge it.

As Stevens points out the fallacy of assuming that face-to-face instruction necessarily means higher quality instruction, Lawrence Lipsitz, editor of Educational Technology Magazine, notes that incidents of poorly designed digital instruction does not mean that digital instruction must, of necessity, be poorly designed. Moreover, any course that fails to engage its students may be poorly designed, whether the class is digital or it is face-to-face.

Lipsitz also notes that many faculty members are poorly trained and are not prepared for online instruction. 

From my own experiences, I found out how difficult it is for faculty members to get depth of assistance in finding creative and engaging ways to use online learning platforms. I have used these platforms at three universities and found it very difficult to get anything beyond the most superficial training to adapt the technology to the demands of the various disciplines I was teaching. This was so, despite the fact that two of these universities had fairly large and well-funded digital instruction centers. 

The digital instruction centers had been taught a narrow range of canned methods of instruction. They understood their job to be to pass on these "fool-proof" canned methods of instruction on to professors. Any attempt to think outside of the box was usually met with comments such as, "Nobody ever uses that function," or "nobody has ever asked that before." There was little experience I could draw on for guidance. I had to find my own way through many trials and many errors.

Lipsitz says that MOOCs are certainly not his idea of of well-designed courses, but my experiences have led me to the opposite conclusion -- it is through MOOCs that I am picking up the most useful and meaningful ways to engage students through digital instruction. In MOOCS, I am seeing the potential of digital instruction being modeled every day. 

I am learning a lot, not only by taking MOOCs, as a student, but also by reverse-engineering them, in order to find out how they work so that I can use this information effectively in my role as a faculty member.

But Harry Wyatt, emeritus teaching professor at SUNY, has another opinion on all of this. Wyatt calls distance learning and online education a "pipe dream" and says they are "O.K. for learning more about something we already know, but they are not much use in the beginning stages [of learning]." He goes on to say that "humans are not designed to get their basics from computers..."

Really? I would think that human beings can get their basics from a rock, if they curious and attentive enough -- that is, if they are patient, motivated and open to learning.

So, what are sensible uses for digital technology in the classroom?

Kathy Cassidy, writing in Primary Preoccupation, outlines the uses the abuses of technology in the classroom, has shared her principles for the sensible use of technology in the classroom. Although she writes from the standpoint of elementary education, the principles she outlines are just as relevant for higher education.

Cassidy makes the point that the idea of using online learning platforms in (and outside of) the classroom should not simply be to use technology for technology's sake (it should not be the sense that "now that we have all this neat stuff we have to use it"), rather it should be to bring content to the classroom that was previously inaccessible; to provide students with choices in their style of learning and their method of sharing what they have learned; it should be a means of connecting classrooms, and disciplines, so that we don't treat them as separate silos of learning; and it should enable students to showcase what they have learned with an audience that extends well beyond the classroom, through blogs, digital portfolios, videos, and other digital artifacts.

The New York Times editorial was focused on standard academic courses and traditional methods of instruction; for me, the point of using digital technology and online learning platforms is to push beyond traditional methods of instruction; it is to find new ways of teaching, and maybe even new ways of thinking about education.

Kathy Cassidy's main point comes down to this, "Technology should not just allow us to do traditional [instruction and learning] in a different way; it should allow us to do things that we thought were not possible [in the classroom]." In other words, technology should not just create digitized versions of older styles of instruction;  it should open up opportunities for whole new styles of instruction and learning.

#EDCMOOC

What is Creativity and Self-Expression in the Digital Age? #EDCMOOC

Image credit: Brain Pickings

Maria Popova reviews Kenneth Goldsmith's "Uncreative Writing" in her literary website Brain Pickings. I know, from my own teaching experiences, that the digital revolution has made plagiarism easier for students, and -- having grown up in the age of cutting and pasting, sampling and re-purposing -- many of my students don't seem to have ethical qualms about doing this.

The surprising thing is that there is even a debate about whether or not the standards and the ethics around plagiarism should change. At first glance, the idea of the legitimacy of plagiarism seems to be a huge concession to dishonesty and intellectual laziness. The argument that students don't know the difference between plagiarism and their own creative work seems almost condescending. The notion that the technology has changed our ethical and intellectual standards seems to yield too much to technological determinism.

But Goldsmith seems to be making the argument that one cannot avoid self-expression, even when appropriating someone else's words -- or images or sounds. He argues that one expresses oneself, even in how one selects and reassembles content that others have created. One cannot avoid self-expression when one is working with, and processing, text.

Digital postings are rife with mash-ups and sampling in newer and more creative ways, unintended and unanticipated by the original creators of content. Goldsmith argues that this has always been the case, even with the analogue technology the predated the digital age. But digitized content pushes this trend into hyper-drive.

Goldsmith's book suggests that the change we are seeing, facilitated by digital technology, is not a change in ethical standards so much as it is a change in how we understand the notion of "creativity" and whether or not "originality" is as rare, and as difficult to achieve, as we once thought it was. It raises the question as to whether or not, in the past, we have over-emphasized the notion of creating text from scratch as the only form of creativity and originality in the process of self-expression. It suggests that appropriation of content, re-purposed, is a legitimate form of self-expression, and that the very act of selecting content and re-working it, is unavoidably self-expressive.

Has our understanding of plagiarism changed in the digital culture? If it has, did digital technology make this change inevitable, or would this change have occurred even without digital technology? Here are several different views on audio sampling, which is a forerunner of current arguments about "plagiarism."

Digital Technology and Our Utopian / Dystopian Future: Democracy or Mob Mentality?

Image Credit:  STCroiss. Creative Commons 

I am currently taking a Coursera course on "E-learning and Digital Cultures". This course is taught by a team of teachers from the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland. One of the initial questions in the course is whether or not our outlook on information and communication technology is essentially Utopian or Dystopian.

The Utopian claims, according to M. Hand and B. Sandywell, in their book "E-topia as Cosmopolis or Citedal" (2002), are that digital and internet information technology inherently have a democratizing effect. The technology itself is neutral but its application is such that it democratizes the power of speech and access to information. Cyber-politics, under the Utopian vision, focuses on maximizing public access to digital technology hardware and software so that more people will be empowered.

Dystopian claims, according to Hand and Sandywell, are that the technology is inherently de-democratizing. Again, dystopians acknowledge that the technology, itself, is neutral but ownership of digital hardware and software, which determines access to dissemination of content, allows the technology to be controlled by anti-democratic forces. Cyber-politics, under this dystopian vision, focuses on resisting anti-democratic attempts to control and limit who gets heard and who has access to information.

Both Utopian and Dystopian views tend to be technologically deterministic to the extent that they argue that technology is destiny -- for better or for worse. The deterministic perspective minimizes the significance of human agency. They minimize the degree to which the online experience is created through the interaction between human beings and technology use. They under-emphasize the degree to which human beings create meaning and shape their own experiences through the use of this technology.

I don't subscribe to technological determinism, in any form, because I have seen people use technology in ways that were not anticipated by its creators, just as they have with other artifacts in the social environment. The entire premise of Hip Hop culture, for example, arose from sampling from all forms of popular culture and transforming the meaning of these signs in ways the signifiers had not originally intended. This is something that human beings tend to do with all forms of popular culture; they take what is given and they adapt it in ways that transform the original context and make it their own.

Anti-democratic forces are, no doubt, trying to use digital technology in ways that are dis-empowering, but the nature of the technology is such that it gives more people opportunities to document and share their thoughts, creations, and experiences, and to network with others they would never have had the opportunity to interact with in "real" space.

That is my Utopian side talking.

My Dystopian side is impressed (and not in a positive way) with how people are using this technology to lower the bar of social and political discourse. My Dystopian side points to the way people create their own "facts" to re-enforce what they already want to believe, and it points to how people post content on the internet that is incendiary, just because they can get away with posting it, without being held accountable for what they post.

Quotes, of questionable authenticity, are widely circulated on the internet and people use social networks to re-enforce each other's biases and to insult those who do not agree with them, rather than taking advantage of the opportunity to consider new perspectives on things. The illusion of anonymity on the internet often brings out the worst in people, "freeing" them to engage in hate speech on a level they would never even consider in a face-to-face encounter.

My Utopian side is glad that unpopular ideas have the chance to be expressed, weighed, and considered by a larger audience. This side of me is excited by the possibilities of having speech without self-censorship, or censorship that is externally imposed. My Utopian side is also thrilled with the idea that corporate media are less able to shape the consciousness of individuals who can now more easily curate the content they consume and decide for themselves what is important and what is not. Information is no longer so easily prioritized by a few publishers and media networks.

My Dystopian side is concerned about the potential for this technology to strengthen ignorance and the mob mentality of mindless movements, which are antithetical to the deliberative process. My Dystopian side is concerned that the internet is being used to feed the passions of people who are not interested in hearing all sides of an issue, but are only interested in looking for someone to fear or something to torch.

Digital technology can create the conditions for greater and more meaningful social interaction and engagement, but it can also encourage the tendency of people to isolate themselves and wallow unchallenged narratives that circulate among those who share their narrow exposure and biases.

I see both tendencies occurring. Part of this excites me, while the other part frightens me. It is not technology that will determine our destiny -- our destiny will be determined through our interaction with technology as it shapes us, even as we are finding new ways to apply it and give it meaning.

What's Missing From Discussions On The Economy and Social Policy?

In the same spirit as the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, a group of young Americans (both documented and undocumented) are determined to "change the debate" on national public policy. They are calling themselves the “Dream Defenders”.

 The Dream Defenders point out that the topics that have been debated, thus far, have been too narrow and have been tailored in a way that excludes too many Americans.

 As we have discussed in class, there was plenty of talk about restoring lost American dreams of the middle-class, but what about Americans who never had access to that dream in the first place? What about people who could not lose what they never had? Why aren't we talking about the elusiveness of the American dream as well as the loss of it?

 We hear some, but not enough, about middle-class homeowners who are struggling to hold onto their homes; but we hear even less about the increasingly unbearable burden of student loans, especially in an economy of low wages and few jobs.

 Candidates, of course, give young people their good wishes and say they want them to have jobs, few address the problem of a minimum wage that has failed to keep pace with the rate of inflation over the past 40 years, and is now sharply below the level that would constitute a livable wage for a full-time worker.

One of the things I am most impressed with, about these young activists, is that they are distinguishing between merely touching on an issue, as part of a talking point, as opposed to actually discussing the issue at-length. These days, too many of us settle for touching on topics, but lack the attention-span to examine these topics at length.

 You can read more about the Dream Defenders on Truthout

 Or on Twitter and other social media: #ChangeTheDebate

Focus on the Public Discourse

Image credit: Center for Human Studies at George Mason University

One of the biggest challenges facing people who teach history, public policy, and social science is that many of our students aren't really following the news in any systematic way.

When I ask students how they keep up with current events, most give me blank stares. Those who do follow current events usually admit that most of what they know comes from the introductory monologues of  late night television, or from comedic entertainment, such as Jon Stewart or the Colbert Report.

Many schools require that their social policy courses include detailed analysis of a political issue or a particular piece of legislation. I think this is a bit too ambitious and prevents us from seizing an opportunity to give students an academic experience that will really be meaningful to them, and is more likely to stay with them for the rest of their lives.

It seems to me that our objective in these courses should be introduce students to the world of current events, and sources one uses to weigh and consider historical developments. I think it is a waste of time to have students write complicated policy papers if they haven't first had the opportunity to discover and appreciate the public discourse surrounding those policies and how they are affected by all of this.

I believe we are doing well if, during the course of a semester, we teach students how to find, interpret, and evaluate information content in newspapers and over the internet. An informed and intelligent citizenry begins with being aware of the public discourse, and being in a position where they can contrast and compare opinions, and evaluate how policy makers and "talking heads" arrived at their particular point-of-view.

Immersing students in news sources and news content, before moving on to more complicated policy papers, is a demanding task and should not be lightly dismissed. If students become thoroughly familiar with public policy discourse in non-academic and non-specialist publications they will develop a sense of what it will take for them to meaningfully contribute to, and influence, public opinion when they become professionals.

One step at a time. Save the policy analysis papers for more advanced courses. Our first task is to expose students to the world of current events and the discourse of public opinion. In fact, our first task is to fire their imaginations about these things. Our first task is to create assignments that immerse students in the world of blogs, newspapers, magazines, and other popular media so that they begin to evaluate the content of these sources in creative and critical ways.  This will help them to develop skills that will more likely be meaningful to them for the rest of their lives.

C. Matthew Hawkins

Wikis, Discussion Boards, Journals and Blogs

Image credit:  Gilles Tran & Jaime Vives Piqueres 

As I have mentioned in other locations, the process of dynamic learning takes place by using four interactive tools: wikis, discussion boards, journals, and blogs.

Wikis can be used for brainstorming, generating ideas and share links to content in other locations on the web. This content may be interesting to others (teachers and students) in the course. The Wiki is also a great place to post your class notes and get others to respond to them.

Discussion Boards are great places to sound off on topics and themes in the course, to test ideas and see how others react to them. The discussion board is a great place to float ideas.

Journals are effective tools to think through the problem-solving process. You will want to use your journal to raise questions for further exploration, summarize what you think you already know, and discuss how you have found, or plan to find, answers to your questions. Journals should reflect your problem-solving process.

Blogs are great places to share ideas and sources in a more structured and formal way than you did on the discussion board and the wiki. With blogs you can curate content, but you want to provide your own comments, analysis or syntheses -- so that you are not merely duplicating the work of others. Your blog should have your own voice and provide your own unique point of view on the topics and themes in the course.

Two things tend to produce strong blogs: (1) you respond to the ideas and information you have gotten from others (this means you have cite and acknowledge the source in some way, usually through links to that source -- it also means you have to accurately summarize, interpret or paraphrase what they have said) and (2) you have to provide your own original content (your own perspective and ideas) in your own voice.

This is how Wikis, writing journals, posting blogs, and participating on discussion boards go together.

For more information see: The Four Arrows of Project Based Learning,  Journals, and Essentials of Project-Based Instruction

C. Matthew Hawkins

Project-Based Instruction

Image credit: GRDC publishers

Project-Based Instruction

For students in my history and social work classes I am increasingly using project-based instruction. The idea behind project-based instruction is that students now have access to a plethora of information over the internet. Although it is still important for instructors to help students gather, filter and evaluation information, the biggest challenge is no longer getting access to information, but what students will do with that information once they get it.

In addition to having greater access to greater amounts of information, everyone now has the power to produce and publish content, and to distribute it to the general public. This means that students no longer have to be merely consumers of knowledge, they now have it within their power to become producers of new information and to add to the overall body of knowledge. This is another  good reason for project-based instruction. Students who have taken the time and effort to read the literature on their topic, and to follow the discourse on it, will be in a position to add their voice, in meaningful ways, to topics they are interested in.

A third reason for using project-based instruction is that teaching is the best way to learn. When we teach others what we have studied, we learn to anticipate questions that others might have. We also learn how to put our thoughts into words and express those thoughts in a way that makes sense to others. Teaching what we have studied helps us to identify the gaps in our knowledge so that we can strengthen areas where we are weak. Project-based instruction turns students into teachers, which deepens their base of knowledge and their capacity to learn.

Project-based learning is important for future professionals. Increasingly professionals are discovering the benefits of blogging in order to reach more clients, customers and constituents. The most successful blogs and websites are not self-promotional; they focus on sharing information for free in order to build trust and credibility. Students, and even seasoned professionals, who develop the habit of blogging and creating websites to share information, will find that they have acquired a valuable tool for social networking, not only online, but also in their immediate environment.

One other thing; as a historian I am keenly aware of how difficult it is to re-construct much of  history because so few people, other than the elites, left records of their thoughts and experiences. Social science also tends to speak for populations, rather than allowing them to speak for themselves. Many people have been put in the position of being consumers of other people's interpretation of their lives and experiences, rather than having the power to generate their own accounts and interpretations. Project-based learning has the potential of getting more and more people in the habit of carefully formulating their thoughts so that their voices will be heard, remembered, and taken seriously in the public arena.

Using a Journal to Track Your Learning Process

The projects that I have my students work on result in "artifacts of learning," in other words, the evidence of their learning is in what they have produced by the end of the course. Usually this takes the form of creating and maintaining a public blog or a website. There is also a corresponding assignment, such as maintaining a journal, to document what they are learning as they work on their project for the course. Typically, journaling will focus on how they came across their sources, how they selected them, and choices they had to make about how to interpret these sources.

The early part of the journal will typically discuss what it is they think they know about the topic, and what they expect to find in their research. As they work on their project for awhile, the journal will begin to discuss some of the surprises, mistakes or difficulties they have encountered along the way. The final chapters of the journal should discuss what they have learned from the whole process.

Project-based instruction, which combines the process of creating an artifact of learning with the activity of keeping a self-reflective journal, can be a powerful way for students to learn by teaching and increase students' awareness of their process of learning. This empowers students to take ownership of their process of learning and contribute to the overall body of knowledge for others to sift through, evaluate and use in the future.

See also: How Teachers Teach and Students Learn , The Four Arrows of Project-Based Learning and Wikis, Discussion Boards, Journals, and Blogs

C. Matthew Hawkins

Social Work: What's In It For Me?

Image credit: College Online.com

I am reminded that there are many motives for entering the social work profession. If you ask a person why they became a social worker they will usually say, "because I wanted to help other people," but a student addressed an interesting question to our class the other day: "Did you enter social work mostly to help other people (maximize their potential) or did you do it to (actualize) yourself?"

It was a good question. I can hear the chorus of denials from many social workers, that they are thoroughly altruistic and there is nothing in it for themselves in the least. I'm not sure that this is the healthiest way to think about social work.

It's fairly obvious that most social workers don't want to come off as being someone who promotes themselves at the expense of others -- or they don't want to acknowledge it if this is what they are doing. A social worker would violate the code of ethics if they deliberately fostered client dependency, and if their driving motivation was to boost their own self-esteem, by becoming important in someone else's eyes. But there is another form of self-interest that is not dysfunctional -- in fact, one can argue that it is essential in order to be a good social worker; the quality of solidarity with the human condition -- particularly in their loneliness and suffering. It's easy to share their joys; the real test is whether or not we have time for them when they are suffering.

I am reminded of a poster I saw in a soup kitchen once. I was working as a volunteer; the poster quoted Lilla Watson, "If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come here because you understand that your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." We work for the liberation of others, not out of pity or condescension, but because we are all bound up together in this struggle for a better life.

When we acknowledge that our liberation is bound to the liberation of other people -- and this liberation can be psychological, spiritual, emotional, economic, or political -- then this would be a healthy form of self-interest.

Pope Benedict, XVI argued, in his encyclical on Love, that when one is afraid, or feels vulnerable, that is not a good time to turn inward in a vain attempt to protect oneself. The cure for fear and weakness is to give yourself, selflessly, to others. The cure for fear and weakness is to reach out, to transcend yourself.

A healthy sense of self-interest, for the social worker, would occur when their practice links them to a larger community rather than continuing to live in fear and isolation, cut off from the experiences of the rest of humanity.

C. Matthew Hawkins

The Social Worker in an Age of Alienation

Earth Grid World Sphere
Image credit: Earth Acupuncture 

Have Systems Grown Too Large for People to Matter?

In yesterday's class we talked about the sense of alienation that many people experience in modern (and postmodern) society. The most common complaint I hear about the government and the political process is that people don't believe they have a voice in it any more. They say, "It's supposed to be a democracy, but how do I get to participate? I get the sense that my voice won't be heard and that nothing I can do really matters."

With the candidates of the two major parties for president of the United States, in 2012, raising nearly $1 billion to promote themselves -- not counting the money that is raised by outside sources -- it is not surprising when people ask, "What can I do to have any impact on the political process? I don't have any money to put into a political campaign."

I have circulated petitions to get candidates on the ballot during several elections. This is a normal part of the political process; all campaigns must do this. I went door-to-door to get the petition signed, precisely because this is the political process. I was surprised by how many people would not sign the petition because they had never been asked to do this before. They had been buffered from a fundamental step in the democratic process. Usually petitions are circulated and signed by political insiders; the general public does not engage in politics on this level. They are only brought in later, as spectators, to watch political ads and to cast their vote for the candidates who survive the initial rounds of vetting, including fund raising and petition signing.

And what chance does an ordinary person have of being heard above the din of special interests after an expensive campaign? For many people it feels as though the two major parties are only paying attention to the top 20% of income brackets, and some would say they only pay attention to the top 1%.

When people are uncertain about how to participate in the political process they become alienated from politics altogether. They suspect they won't be heard above the lobbyists. Those who are motivated enough, or sufficiently angry, take to the streets to call attention to their pain. In the past four years we have seen the rise of the Tea Party movement, on the right of the political spectrum, and Occupy Wall Street on the left. While the political agenda of the two groups is very different, the underlying concerns of the two groups are not. Both protest movements are reactions to the sense that policy is made by elites who are insensitive to the suffering or ordinary people. There is a sense that nobody at the top is listening, and nobody cares anymore. People are being crushed under the burden of student loans they can never repay, mortgages they can't afford, medical bills that are forcing them into bankruptcy -- yet the party continues at top, whether Democrats or Republicans are in power. Some of the newer grassroots political movements are reactions against the apparent deafness and complacency of political and economic elites.

This alienation leads people to distrust conventional institutions that used to be able to form social consensus. There was a time when people thought they could rely on mainstream media to find out what was going on in the world; these days the relevance and credibility of major news outlets is practically a joke. The kindest label attached to the mainstream news is that it is merely there to entertain us. Darker visions see it in conspiratorial tones. Increasingly, people treat the conspiratorial narratives of the blogosphere and online videos as being more credible than conventional sources. At least the blogosphere speaks to people's frustrations and pain, while mainstream media are busy trying to sell them products they can no longer afford.

I have felt, for some time, that if there is a role for social workers to play in the 21st century it is to contribute to the restoration of social networking and the sense of community. The role of the 21st century social worker should be to make the legal and medical systems -- two professional and economic mammoths in American society today -- accessible and comprehensible to people in the bottom 20 to 40% of income brackets. The role of the social worker may be to give a human face to otherwise impersonal social systems -- above all, it may be to make those systems more responsive to people without financial resources and professional social contacts.

On the other hand, the internet is also very good at giving lay people access to professional insiders and linking people in virtual communities -- and it is good at mobilizing real people in real time for events, and potentially for collective action.

Budget cutters will no doubt be tempted to ask, "Why do we still need to fund social workers when people can empower themselves through the internet?" Social workers better have a convincing response to this question. If they don't become more than just dispensers of information and providers of referral services they may soon be relegated to the category of irrelevance along with other aspects of social life from the last century.

C. Matthew Hawkins