The Icy Bite of POLARized Arguments

I recently read the last Chapter in Zimmerman's insightful book about culture wars in education, where he pointed out that, media headlines to the contrary, very few people are one-sided in the world views. Most at least understand the other side of the argument, and many possess seemingly incomensurable opinions simultaneously. Articles, investigative reporting, and conversations, however, often frame debates quite differently, for the sake of simplicity and perhaps clarity: There are two sides to this issue, and everyone falls on one or the other side.

This good/evil paradigm similarly surfaces in the technology debate, specifically the one that is raging regarding the impact of digital technologies on our brains, our students, our literacy skills, and our schools.

There are the Nicholas Carr's of the world that believe google is making us stupider, driving us away from contemplative, deep thinking and directly into dangerous, multi-tasking, "surfacey"utilitarian thinking. Among his ranks are people like the author of the article "First Church of Robotics", who fears that seeing computers as fellow creatures and not just tools causes us to view humans as mere computers. He calls the technology-enthused movement a new religion, one that demands faith in computers to even make aesthetic choices for us, such as which movie to rent or music to download. Then there's the author of "The End of Human Specialness", who proposes frighteningly that digitally charged mankind is suffering from a decay of belief in self, and calls for a break in tweeting and blogging so that we can "fully exist." It goes without thinking that these guys are the villains in the story. (I am, after all, enthusiastically blogging, aren't I?)

But there are good guys too. And they are the folks who created a new test to measure digital literacy, called iCritical Thinking Certification, a test that calls upon students to solve real problems using technology tools. There are the multitudinous PEW surveys that again and again hit home the point that technology-use is increasing, and perception of technology is overwhelmingly positive. Various reports cite statistics about teens as content creators and consumers, quotes from interviews affirming that social network sharing is here to stay, even quoting experts about how Internet is NOT making us stupid or negatively impacting our reading skills. And I can't forget to mention that nauseatingly (see previous post) optimistic authors of "Connecting the Digital Dots: Literacy of the 21st Century", who laud the deep critical skills inherent in today's call for digital and visual literacy.

But to tell you the truth, I'm left watching the battle wishing the two sides would just annhilate each other. Because technology talk, especially technology talk about education, needs to be more than just persuasive . . . it needs to be thoughtful. I get what Nicholas Carr is saying, and I think some of his cautions are essential to take into account. The cognitive overload I experience each day is palpable, and I often yearn for a time where my reading was limited to the books on a shelf in a library. And I've multitasked throughout this entire blog (I checked my email four times, called Uverse to get my VISA rewards card, worked on a schedule for my daughter's daycare, etc) and I definitely noticed the extra amount of energy it took to switch from task to task. And honestly, I couldn't stand "Connecting the Digital Dots" article, which was vague to a fault and blatantly over the top. And I'm not so sure that investing our time in creating a standard way to measure students' technology skills is the best use of our time, although it may be a realistic one.

All of this to say, all of us are large enough to hold paradoxical thoughts and understandings about technology. And, even if we aren't large enough, our world is certainly is.

The "It's All Starting to Sound the Same" Factor

There comes a time in every PhD student's life when reading the same research articles that used to WOW one into ecstasy start to bore one into a near-coma. The very same words that used to seem pumped full of new ideas and creative organizations of concepts seem to be just singing the same old tune, perhaps slightly faster or slower or in a different key, but the same tune, nonetheless. For me, that time is now.

Let me make this clear. I am by no means an expert into digital literacies or technology in the classroom. There is an overwhelming amount of work that is being done/has been done that I am totally clueless about. And don't even get me started on how clueless I am regarding my own personal uses of these technologies I have professed to be so interested in. I don't even Twitter or text, for goodness sake.

But if I hear/read/think the words "collective meaning making", "multi-tasking", "digital native" or the importance of "reflection" one more time, I could very well do something that would be quite shocking and inappropriate. (Such as only SKIM, rather than fully read the rest of the week's readings.)

I'm hoping my new cynical attitude can just be chalked up to sleep deprivation or being stuck in "summer mode". I'm hoping that I can regain my passion for reading theory, which by definition tends to be over-generalized, uncontextualized, and kind of presumptious. I'm hoping all of this, because the articles this week in class about New-Millennial/Web 2.0 Learners were good. Really good. I believe in the power of WHD's to promote fluency in multiple media, collective learning experiences, and reflection founded in experience. I'm glad to hear that, according to the Speak Up survey, principals and administrators are supportive about technology integration. (Where are these principals and administrators? I've certainly never worked under them.) And I agree that the "Net Generation" is unique, and am left wondering if I am part of this generation since I was born during 1982, not AFTER 1982.

I'm reminded of the feeling I had when I was in the first trimester, pregnant with my now two-year-old, and I saw a piece of chocolate cake or a doughnut. "I know I used to enjoy that immensely, that I used to eat these things constantly, but all I want to do when I smell them now is vomit." Perhaps not the best way to start to a semester (comparing the assigned articles to nausea-inducing subjects) but, then again, the first trimester isn't a great start to motherhood, and I'm pretty darn happy with it now: chocolate cake, toddler, and all.

Why I Shouldn't Be the Person to Write a Blog Entitled "How to Write a Blog"

So I'm teaching a new course this semester, one euphemistically entitled "The Culture of College", but one that could perhaps more accurately be called "I'm on Academic Probation and I Want to Get Out." And, of course, being the teacherly sadist that I am, I've made one of the requirements in the course to be the following: Create a blog. Some have met me with disbelief, others with death threats. Therefore, in a great outreaching of kindness and respect I'd like to offer an olive branch of help via this blog "How to write a blog."

Unfortunately, I am just so NOT the person to be writing this blog. I've blogged, what, like fifteen times my entire life, and each time was a designated class assignment, which really means, I've never blogged. Of course, I've always wished I WAS the type of cool, intellectual young adult, coffee-sipping, pop-cultue-spouting person that did this sort of thing effortlessly, but let's get real. I'm the mother of a 19 month old (FYI-mother's of toddlers don't have time to shower, let alone blog), who is getting so close to turning 30 that one of my biggest current life goals is to use the phrase "I'm in my twenties" at least five times a day.

There are other reasons, worse, deeper reasons that I'm not qualified to write a blog. I'm an English teacher, for instance, and this immediately qualifies me to write such award-winning essays such as "how to analyze Shakespeare" or "how to diagram sentences" but hardly qualifies me to write about an emerging, important, social-networking-medium that is actually relevant and accessible in REAL life.

So yeah, if I were to attempt to actually act like an expert on the topic, I'd probably be awarded something like "World's Biggest Hypocrite" or, well, you get the idea . . .

Instead, I'll just let them figure it out on their own. Student-centered teaching. All the teachers are doing it, after all . . .

My Schizophrenic Relationship With New Media

So, yeah, you know how Kylie said something about someone getting angry at the Bauerlein reading while running on the treadmill. Well, I was actually on an elliptical, but that was me. But I wasn't entirely angry just because of his impossibly flawed arguments. I was angry because some (very few, but some) of them made sense. And I was angry, because a ton of the things he was lamenting about young people nowadays were really true about me, although I never would have the audacity or stupidity to blame them on new media.

So, while I found Ito et al. to espouse everything I want to believe about new media, and all of the great, informal learning that goes on there, I found Bauerlein to point out all of things I want to ignore.

Which brings me to studio time last week. You know how a few blogs ago I whined about how noisy studio time was, how I couldn't get any "real" work done, how I hate constructionism and blah blah blah. Well, guess what. I've been born again. Because this past week, I had a plan to work that INVOLVED OTHER PEOPLE. I interviewed you guys. I got David to help me with Movie Maker, and Steve helped me when I couldn't find my video files because I'm, well, me. I was so durn productive, I got all but like 30 minutes of work done on my final studio project.

Which brings me to my last studio project. Finally, I found something that was easy, that was fun, that felt meaningful. Scratch was cool, but so demanding on my nonexistent skills. And computational textiles, well, that involved SEWING . . enough said. So to be able to use a tool that took little brain power, like a flip camera, and another tool that took just slightly more brain power, windows movie maker . . . it felt like vacation . . . it felt like oreos and milk . . . it felt like-- how everyone else has been feeling studio time all semester.

So, I hate to end on such an embarrassingly positive note, but I've got to. Because sometimes I love new media, and sometimes I hate it. And most of the time I recognize the tremedous help new media can be in accomplishing some pretty cool things. And I ALWAYS admire people that do these pretty cool things.

As for my little movie, I don't think I'd quite rank it as a pretty cool thing, but it's definitely closer to a pretty cool thing than my daughter's Halloween shirt with half a battery sewn in is. . .

And, no, I'm not going to post it. Premier showing this coming Tuesday, the 8th.

Don't miss it.

Shoulda Woulda Coulda

I can't help but think, as I delve into these readings with a Philly Cheese Steak in one hand and aching legs from walking around Philadelphia all day, that I might have actually liked art class, (pause for the two most bitter-filled words of the English language) . . . if only . . .

Painting is scary, because you paint a stroke, and it's just kinda stuck there on the paper, and you're stuck with either painting over it, keeping it, or starting over. Drawing with pencil is scary, because I can't seem to ever recreate the cool ideas I have in my mind, and the amount of erasures I make usually create a rip or hole in the paper. Sitting there is intimidating, because the teacher wants me to stay pretty quiet, so getting help from a friend or socializing is somewhat diallowed. So my options: do it yourself, or bring it to the teacher so she/he can do it for you. I usually brought it the teacher.

I embraced abstract art with the enthusiasm of a kid at a candy store. Unfortunately, we never actually tried our hand at this type in class. Class time was for refining your artistic skills. Painting with a paint brush. Threading strands of paper together. Molding slimy clay. I longed for the safety of being allowed to make a mess on paper, and then be able to use language to BS your way out of the mess into something profound and deep. Sadly, no amount of BS could save my realistic bird blobs and landscape scenes . ..

So the vision of new media art seems promising in a lot of ways. The vision of "visual culture inquiry" (Freedman and Stuhr) could have transformed my art-class-taking-bad-attitude from "this is pointless" to "this is the point." Being encouraged to work collaboratively could have removed the discomfort I felt in the silent, whisper-filled classrooms and the feeling that "I was doing this whole thing on my own." Relying on technology art tools beyond my amazingly-stupid/rebellious hands and fingers seems like a dream come true.

No time machine, yet. But I'm pretty sure, if I happened to have one parked in my garage, I'd throw the key in the ignition and hop right on over to 1993, 6th grade art class, Mr. Hadley. I would hand him these articles, pat him encouragingly on the shoulder, and be on my merry way, with an artistic swagger to my step . . .

Trumpets and Paintbrushes

Here's the thing.
I got out my trumpet yesterday.
I'm not claiming to have read all (or any) of the readings on Art for next week.
But I did get out my trumpet yesterday.

So I have a few thoughts about art. Some pre-emptive thoughts . . .

-Art can happen when I play my trumpet.
-Art can totally NOT happen when I play my trumpet.
-For me, it happens best when I don't have any music in front of me.
-For some, it happens best when they do.
-Art involves dynamics.
-Art feels good.
-Art is very linked to originality/improvisation/individual stamp stuff.
-Art is created by being exposed to other art first; it arises from past experience.
-Art can be really satisfying when you are doing it for a huge crowd, and it can be really satisfying when it is just you, your trumpet, and nobody.
-Art happens less when there is a functional purpose to what I am doing. (AKA warming up or warming down)

Anybody have any more pre-thoughts about art??

NO BOYS ALLOWED!

Okay, so despite the title, this blog ISN'T in reference to the fabulous gender discussion going on in Jenna's blog. (I just now noticed it, and felt like it was way to late to drop my 2-5 cents in, but wow is it interesting, so if you are reading THIS and you haven't read THAT, I recommend you drop this immediately and go read it.) It is, of course, in reference to the club Stephanie Doll, Laurie Russel, and Tara Black, and I formed on the jungle gym in the third grade. It goes without saying that the club was totally, ridiculously awesome, and we did all sorts of really cool third grade club things (aka created a secret language, gossipped about Abby, the pretty girl, etc).

More than that, though, it's about the world of exclusivity, the gains and losses that we get by sequestering ourselves into groups of common interests, and the fact that, although I KNOW that everyone is equally important and valid, I couldn't help but continually hierarchize IT folks above creative artist folks as I read this week's articles.

Yes, I know this is the wrong answer. I know the POINT of this week was to enlighten us in the amazing innovation that can result from the blend of design and computer technology, and even to point out that, in a very real sense, computer IS mud. (A deliciously messy metaphor.) But all I kept thinking was, yes I love art, and I love looking at cool things, but I love function even more. I want computers to make stuff easier, and more entertaining, and not only by creating crazy-brilliant abstract art.

So the Mitchell et al piece gave some great examples of collaborations that HAVE contributed amazing (dare I say FUNCTIONAL) things: architecture, movies, video games. I certainly see the value in those blending of the lines. But when Mitchell bemoans the evil biases that draw fewer IT folks to art and design than vice versa, I just have to stop and scratch my head. (figuratively of course) When he mentions, significantly, that "there seem to be more resources offering IT skills training and tools than offering arts education," I think, equally significantly, OF COURSE. THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE.

I also take issue with the idea that creativity is in no way directly connected to IT, that in order for creativity to be involved, we have to add in art/design people and add a few letters to the acronym . . . ITCP.

My feeling is that we should certainly celebrate collaboration and diverse perspectives, as they can enrich any field, but I'm not so sure that ITCP, in the form Mitchell is purporting, is the most important wave in the future.

(This, from one who got a B- in art class, so, really no surprise.)