Dr. Watwood warned, in his opening video post, that this course could be "transformational." I have to confess, from interacting with the course materials, reflecting on them, and conversing both here in our class-related blogs, and with colleagues in my own non-virtual context (that I've heard referenced, in cyber-parlance, as "meatspace,") about them, I have had some of my basic, foundational assumptions tested. It's not that I was unaware of, or unenthusiastic about, the tremendous opportunities (and challenges, and threats) that evolving technologies have brought and continue to bring, to my field of education and to the world at large. It is more that I have just not taken the time to intentionally pause, until now, and deeply and carefully consider their awesome scope.
Over the past couple of years, I have spent considerable time reflecting on the structures, functions, and relationships that comprise my current (large, established, essentially hierarchical, admittedly bureaucratic, nobly purposed, rapidly changing) organization. I have come to a deeper understanding, over the past couple of weeks, that the specific challenges we have been encountering and experiencing are not at all unique to our organization, or even to the institution of education. Instead, they are driven by a much bigger societal change tied to an internet-related communications revolution. The combination of ubiquitous access to information, and ubiquitous access to one another, globally, ushers a foundational change in the way in which humans interact with one another that is patently unprecedented in scope. As Shirky (2009) pointed out, the resultant means, not only for collaborative production, but for collective action (choose your word, here, depending on your disposition and outlook: promises / threatens) to fundamentally redefine our organizations, our institutions, and our society at large. "Social architect" Jon Husband described this phenomenon as the ascendance of "wirearchy," with a "champion and challenge" leadership dynamic, as it supplants our familiar Industrial Age hierarchical "command and control" dynamic.
This week, I am encouraged. I am awed, and a little bit frightened, and daunted, but on the whole encouraged. These big ideas reinforce the thinking and teaching of 21st century education thought leaders like Sir Ken Robinson, and Tony Wagner (both of whose messages have resonated with, and influenced me), and the leadership implications align favorably with my own leadership biases, preferences, and style. Maybe, just maybe, I have something to offer in this fundamentally different future.
It's not that change is coming; it's here. As individuals, and as organizations, we are faced not so much with a choice of whether to embrace or resist, like or dislike. I see it more like a tidal wave: we can let it crash on us, or we can figure out how to surf it.
Fellow educators, and those in other fields, I invite you to help expand this list, as we all think about that.
Strengths/Opportunities: connectivity, access to curriculum, access, in fact to all kinds and all levels of information, ability to team and collaborate (as teachers, but more importantly as students) globally, access to experts, ability to own/self-pace learning, ability to publish, to create an authentic product...
Weaknesses/Threats: connectivity (to the wrong things, and the wrong people...), privacy and safety concerns, loss of attention to human, non-virtual interaction (I'm thinking of a recent trip to a fast food restaurant where I saw four teenage students sit down in a booth together, pull out smart phones, and begin interacting--with their devices, not with one another, and it went on like that), information overload stemming from an inability to effectively filter, uncharted copyright, intellectual property, licensing and distribution issues...
Shirky, C. (2009). Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations. New York: Penguin.
Patrick, a very thoughtful post. Good start on the SWOT analysis.
ReplyDeleteAround minute 4:00 in Mike Wesch's video - The Machine is Us/ing Us - http://youtu.be/NLlGopyXT_g - Mike notes that because of the web, we will need to rethink:
- copyright
- authorship
- identity
- ethics
- aesthetics
- rhetoric
- governance
- privacy
- commerce
- love
- family
- ourselves
I have been doing a lot of rethinking recently. In my blog the past couple of weeks, I have been doing a thought experiment with a colleague (who does the same in his blog). What we are doing is raising questions each day on rethinking education. Lots of metaphors rise - I was on a bird kick this week!
So, I am trying to hang ten with the best of them as I ride this tidal wave!
Yes, indeed! Britt, I have been reading your blog, and enjoying the metaphors and the provocation of thought. I just had not commented there, yet.
DeleteYou are undoubtedly more familiar than most, in fact, with the DoD's position on data, and security. As an entity within that department, but one that is at the same time charged to be at the forefront of 21st century public education, you might imagine that in my organization we live in a continual detente between sharing and protecting (data/information/knowledge). You would be right.
Personally, while I have had a digital presence since relatively early on in this revolution, I have (maybe until receiving the kick in the pants that this course is turning out to be--which, by the way I have decided should probably be part of the core curriculum, if anyone is asking me) moved from being a relative bellwether, to hanging near the middle-back of the flock (I'm adding sheep to our set of metaphors, at risk that they might drown in all the water...), as I work to come to terms with some of the downsides--privacy risks, liabilities, copyright and ethics concerns, etc..
I was hesitant to get my first cell phone, in 2004. I did not want to be that accessible. Now. like so many of my peers, I feel uneasy without it. While very enthusiastic about Web 2.0 (before it was called that, in the 1990s, creating HTML web pages with and for my students, and publishing their work), I was hesitant and a relatively late adopter (from among my demographic) of Facebook (around 2009). I created a Twitter account just a couple of weeks ago (you were one of my first "follows.") and have yet to tweet. Yet, I feel that developing and maintaining an appropriate social media presence is an increasingly important part of both my personal and my professional life.
But I'm sticking with my metaphor this week. For all of us, lots of re-thinking (ongoing and ceaseless contemplation-in-action, in fact) on both a professional and a personal level, is indicated. Because it's not a matter of liking, or choosing whether to accept, with an incoming tidal wave. It's a matter of choosing how to react--whether to surf, run, hide, or be swept away (and battered) by the current.
For example, if we are going to continue to interact, to transact business, or engage in correspondence, conversation and recreation--as society's activities increasingly actually occur, or are at least reflected in, digital media, I think we are going to have to learn to be comfortable with significantly less privacy. To be comfortable with an increased melding of our public and private lives. To be comfortable with increased transparency, in all of our transactions, and to be more accountable. We are going to have to become less judgmental, and more tolerant of diversity. Maybe we will become better people, as a result. I've heard it said that character is what you do when no one is watching. What if someone were always watching? I know, yikes, shades of Orwell.... But what if that someone was not a (malevolent or benevolent is irrelevant) power oligarchy, but instead a genuine, collaboratively created (i.e., ala github) democratic societal consensus? Might it not set a higher mean standard of behavior, and might that not be a good thing?
I'm not saying that as one who is at all keen to blithely give away civil liberties, or as one who at all approves of some of the kinds of data mining and analysis that have been instigated by corporate and government interests alike. I'm just saying it as an optimist looking to drop in to this tidal wave, and hang ten as well. And, maybe just to stir the pot a bit.
Regardless, surf's up.
Hmmm…with “Noah” the #1 movie across the country, perhaps the water metaphor is appropriate…after all, we are talking about a data flood of unequaled magnitude.
ReplyDeleteThe coming tidal wave of data is likely to sweep away old perceptions and practices, leaving many of us floundering, wondering what happened, and (perhaps) profoundly disconnected in a connected world.
This is the somewhat apocalyptic vision of Stephen Brobst, CTO of data warehousing firm Teradata. You may think he would say that, wouldn't he? There is nothing like a little fear, uncertainty and doubt to boost sales of Teradata's systems for sifting and sorting petabytes of data.
All metaphors aside; the last few weeks of this course has been about the geography of technology and data across the globe. While the earth isn’t ‘flat’, it IS flattening. While there isn’t quite the level of openness and transparency within governments and the media; there are holes being poked into those arenas by those who seek to make the world a more open and transparent place – by any means necessary at times – or so it seems.
I am all for the good aspects of this tidal wave but I have a lot of trepidation and concern. In looking at the SWOT analysis you started, already there are more Weaknesses/Threats that have been identified than Strengths/Opportunities. It may be that it’s just easier to identify the Weaknesses/Threats than the Strengths/Opportunities or it may be that there really are a lot more negatives than positives at this point. Perhaps because so much is still unknown and perhaps because many people fear or have apprehension for the unknown as opposed to embracing and celebrating it.
With all of this discussion around the topic, both in class and across the globe, it may be that we are going about this in the right way; to plan and shape this nebulous data and internet driven future. However, to do it on a global scale, all the countries involved would have to get together and map out a plan, a roadmap for access that all can agree upon.
This is where I think things may get a bit sticky because the idea of ‘open’ and ‘transparency’ do not usually reside harmoniously alongside the idea of leadership.
The Economist Intelligence Unit's recently published annual report on the state of global democracy for 2012 stated that: "In 2012 global democracy was at a standstill in the sense that there was neither significant progress nor regression in levels of democracy worldwide."
ReplyDeleteThe Democracy Index analyzes 165 independent countries and two territories to show the status of regional and worldwide democracy. The index uses five criteria: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Each nation is categorized across gradient levels of regimes: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian regimes.
Overall, half of the world lives under a democracy of some form. However, only 15 percent of countries enjoy full democracy and nearly a third of the world's nations are ruled by authoritarian regimes.
Freedom House's annual Freedom on the Net report is out, and like in most such reports, the actual rankings are largely unsurprising. Iceland, the frozen whistleblower nirvana, ranked first, and second was Estonia, the tiny Baltic country that gave us Skype. China, Cuba, and Iran came in last, obviously.
What is surprising though, are the three countries who had the largest declines in internet freedom: India, Brazil, and the United States.
India
Along with stepping up surveillance, last year Indian authorities arrested at least 11 people for doing things like tagging and liking social media posts within closed groups.
At various points, the Indian government also blocked multiple web sites it deemed religiously inflammatory, including access to the "Innocence of Muslims" clip and multiple Twitter handles.
"In 2012, the government ordered ISPs to block hundreds of websites in an effort to minimize religious unrest," Ashley Greco-Stoner from Freedom House explained to me in an email. "In some cases, the blocks affected entire platforms."
Brazil
Brazil has an electoral law that would be unthinkable for a typical American election season: It bans any campaign ads or videos that "offend the dignity or decorum" of a candidate—including satire.
When one Brazilian published a YouTube video calling a local mayoral candidate an "idiot," in September of last year Brazilian courts ordered the arrests of Google's top two executives in the country for not removing the clip from YouTube.
But that's not all that's happened, unfortunately. Greco-Stoner writes:
Violence against online journalists and bloggers has also been on the rise in Brazil. In February 2012, Mario Randolfo Marques Lopes, editor-in-chief of news website Vassouras na Net, was kidnapped and murdered. In late April 2012, Décio Sá, a longtime political journalist and blogger who wrote for the newspaper O Estado do Maranhão and ran a blog by the name of Blog do Décio, was shot to death while sitting in a bar. In November 2012, Eduardo Carvalho, owner and editor of the Ultima Hora News website, was murdered in connection with his online work. In December 2012, the home of Antonio Fabiano Portilho Coene, owner of the Portal i9 website, was attacked by unidentified gunmen who threw a Molotov cocktail into the courtyard and fired shots on the house.
U.S.
America's drop was attributed to, as one might expect, the PRISM/NSA revelations. But interestingly, on Freedom House's overall rank, the U.S. still places fourth, just under Germany but above Australia and France. It'll be interesting to see if our ranking slips further in the case of future revelations about online data monitoring. In any case, declines in Internet freedom are never good, particularly not when it puts us in the company of countries that arrest dissenters or restrict access to the web.
The relationship between society and technology has always been fraught. The ability to control and apply technology has always lent power to he who has it. So what is the socially acceptable role for this truly awesome ability to collect, analyze and act on data?
ReplyDeleteWe know the downside. World War Two records showed the use of systems to collect and process information that helped to manage the mass murder of Jews and others deemed unfit by the Nazis.
Brobst says, "Transparency drives better behavior." But behind that assertion is a concern that perhaps the balance is tilting, where there is too much data, where irresponsible or unaccountable access to it is too free.
How do we assure that the balance stays on the positive side and how do we prevent irresponsible or unaccountable use that may do more harm than good?
References:
http://www.computerweekly.com/news/1280097237/Tidal-wave-of-data-is-heading-our-way
http://cpj.org/reports/2012/05/10-most-censored-countries.php
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/10/here-are-the-countries-where-internet-freedom-has-declined-most/280243/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/21/democracy-index-2013-economist-intelligence-unit_n_2909619.html
Wow, Patrick, and Britt! Your analyses and extensions have added breadth, depth and some compelling statistics to my reflection (maybe like when expert editors come in to contribute to a Wikipedia stub). My intellectual/emotional reaction provides a case in point illustrative of much of our discourse, about the "flood." There are so many points I would like to pursue, as fascinating, compelling, timely, important, and worthy. Yet, I must choose (filter) based on available time and capacity. I was interested, and accessed some of the references you listed, and then, each of course had commentary, and related links, and background, also of interest (I really thought I had thought about, grappled with, reflected upon information age and technology growth implications before, but somehow this class has really grabbed a hold off me).
ReplyDeleteI remember as a kid, enjoying the pastime of reading the dictionary (OK, so I was a weird kid). What would happen is I would look up a word (remember, we used to use dictionaries for that), and then another would catch my eye, or there would be an unfamiliar word in the definition itself, so I would look the new word up, and so forth, until I remembered to get back to my homework. I retain a fascination with words and etymology, and also a proclivity for following one source to another via hyperlinks. The difference is that the dictionary was contained and finite. The internet (or rather, the data and information on the internet) is expanding at a rate that exceeds the ability of an individual to consume extant information even on any single, arcane topic!
With respect to the questions we are all raising, I’m not sure we are going to come up with answers. I am confident, though, that successfully navigating the flood, or surfing the tidal wave, will be centered on hope, openness, collaboration, creativity and at the very center positive values such as those that this program embodies (a focus on individual worth, on compassion, on social justice, and on the relentless pursuit of excellence for the greater good.
LOL interestingly enough - or perhaps not that interesting - we share a couple of traits, the most important of which is that we were 'weird kids'. I also used to love the dictionary (and the Encyclopedias Britannica) and for me the internet is truly a vast dictionary with hyperlinks that I access ALL the time, my own personal 'megalexico'.
DeleteI too, am hopeful that at the end of this flood, there will be a rainbow...
As I mentioned in a previous post to one of our colleagues. I do not believe this seemingly newfound interconnectedness is all that new. In my humble opinion we have always been interconnected. It is just now I can email/Facetime/Skype my friend in Tokyo and connect with him instantaneously.
ReplyDeleteGreat post!
Robert
I love the tidal wave metaphor. As Brit and you both recognize the changes that are taking place. In higher education, I had a somewhat transformation change as you described in your beginning paragraphs. As a teacher, I have always discouraged students referencing Wikipedia. However, after the Clay Shirkey book, Here Comes Everybody, I knew my viewpoints were outdated.
ReplyDeleteThe Harvard article, What's Wrong with Wikipedia, explains that though Wikipedia has errors, it is a good starting point. I also appreciate Wikipedia more if we teach students the "publish and then filter" concept. For topics they find on Wikipedia, they can cross reference the material with the academic library at our college and start looking at the reference list for more direction. At this point, I think banning Wikipedia was a very old solution to a problem of yesterday.
Reference
http://usingsources.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&pageid=icb.page346376
I personally use Wikipedia frequently. While there are plenty of flaws, there is also a list of references and sources--often really good ones--following a reasonable overview. I think we should be acknowledging and validating our students use of resources...when they use them in the right way.
DeleteOur connectivity facilitates access to the multiple sources necessary to get a reasonable picture of any (thing, topic, idea, phenomenon, point of study); multiple views are key to understanding, as Hokusai famously illustrated in getting an artistic handle on Mt Fiji. (Wikipedia citation to reinforce my point: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-six_Views_of_Mount_Fuji).
Anyway, like you, as a teacher my position has evolved and continues to evolve, most definitely. Thanks for your comment and interesting article to add perspective to our conversation.
Er...Mt. Fuji, that is. Darn that iPad data entry.
DeleteFunny, I have heard bad info regarding wikipedia for several years now. But, I love wikipedia! I think its an overrated source. Nice to see you and Shirkey show it some love. :)
ReplyDeleteRobert
This is a comment from Paolo, who contacted me from within Blueline because for some reason it did not seem to come through, here (nor did it appear in my queue for moderation via my Blogger dashboard). I am pasting it here so it can be part of our conversation together:
ReplyDeleteExcellent post and I like your analogy about waves. I also like the list discussing the negatives and positives that are challenges for leaders.
But let me play devil's advocate. What if Shirky was wrong? What if we are putting way to much emphasis on the Web and as a result not truly preparing our students/children to be compete in the new economy? After all, Big Data has been discussed since 2006 primarily as a way for marketers and companies to have more data about customers so that they can deliver the right products and services. The wave of data and information is already here and the Web economy is fairly mature.
Shirky, in his Ted Talk also illustrated a point that really made me think. In his talk, he said that the printing press delivered us the scientific journal 100 years after it delivered us the first printed erotica. What if Shirky (and us) are focused on the edges? Facebook, Twitter, all the collaborating technologies are really erotica and the scientific journal is still to come.
My challenge to leaders is to not just be aware and harness the technology of today but to look ahead and see what's coming that will truly revolutionize our economy. What technologies do you see in the horizon and how do you think we should be prepared as leaders to be proactive versus reactive to that technology?
I did not get a chance to get back in ... but some great conversation this week in your blog. You and your classmates probably have more sway with Isabelle on this being part of the core curriculum...but I agree. Be sure to note that in the end of term course eval! :-)
ReplyDeleteThis is a fascinating subject not only for educators but for those of us who are writing papers every week and working to uphold the values and ethics of our academic institution. However, I have to say that sometimes the educator has to take responsibility not to enable students to cheat. Case in point was two years ago my son was in an advance chemistry class. He was struggling and we were working hard to help tutor him through this course to keep him eligible for his athletics. He came home one day upset and said he figured out how the other football guys were passing, as he knew they were not smarter then him and they struggled in class but always got the assignments and tests right. It seems their teacher was teaching off an internet site and not the book. So he was pulling assignments and tests off this site. The site also contained the answers. These students were pulling the answers and thus good grades. I am proud to say my son never used the information to cheat, and he did convince one of the boys to come clean before the teacher found out.
ReplyDelete