Tag Archives: activism

Scoping the relationships between social media and open education in the development of a resilient higher education


Posted by hallymk1

*Originally posted at Learning Exchanges on 14 June 2010

With Joss Winn, I have had a paper accepted for the Open Education 2010 conference. This paper begins to open up a space for us to discuss some of the revolutionary possibilities for open education, linked to the production and sharing of socially-useful open educational resources, upon what we might term the academic-social commons. I am pleased to note that the University of Utopia have also had a paper accepted on Opening Education beyond the property relation: from commons to communism. I can feel the unease and shifting in seats at the mention of the ‘c’ word. However, the UoU’s focus is political, based upon a discussion of openness in production and sharing as a site of resistance to individual alienation. The key is to develop a “critical social theory on which to build a really open society”.

Joss and my paper connects into these ideas of the political economy of openness to ask whether open education, or approaches to the production of open educational resources, can enable learners in higher education to overcome disruption. In engaging with this issue I have been reminded of my historical research into the place of commons, commoners and communities in the political world of the early eighteenth century, with a case study of Yorkshire electioneering.

In this, work on common right, enclosure and social change is important because common usage/sharing of resources was a form of social, and potentially political cement within and across communities, based upon local custom and which added to the difficulties and differences of political control. At this time, the commons were crucial for rearing sheep, oxen, horse and pigs, as well as providing thatch, bricks, and sundry extras which bolstered the local economy. Moreover, if the commons were crucial to the psychological and personal well-being of the individual and the community, then its defence was all-important no matter whom the attacker. The commons gave the individual and the community a chance to live of their own and to survive a dearth. They also gave the chance to have an economic independence that underpinned political autonomy.

I view the open education project in a similar light, as giving individuals-in-community a chance to share and to resist dominant and domineering discourses, notably around economic growth and the subservience of higher education’s social values and relationships to the invisible hand of the market. Perhaps its most important role is psychological, as the manufacture and sharing of resources for socially useful ends frames well-being and purposeful living.

Anyway, details of our paper follow…

140-character abstract

HE faces complex disruptions. Can open education and social media enable individuals-in-communities to develop resilience and overcome dislocation?

Proposal

Higher Education faces complex disruptions, from the growing threat of peak oil (The Oil Drum, 2010) and the impact that will have on our ability to consume/produce (Natural Environment Research Council, 2009), and from our need to own the carbon and energy we emit/use, in order to combat climate change. These problems are being amplified by energy availability and costs (The Guardian, 2009), public sector debt and the effects of a zero growth economy (new economics foundation, 2010).

One focus for response is the use of technology and its impact upon approaches to open education, in developing resilience. The Horizon Report 2010 (New Media Consortium, 2010) highlights the importance of openness but argues that learning and teaching practices need to be seen in light of civic engagement and complexity. Facer and Sandford (2010) ask critical questions of inevitable and universal futures, focused upon always-on technology, and participative, inclusive, democratic change. There is an ethical imperative to discuss the impacts of our use of technology on our wider communities and environment, and to define possible solutions.

Educational technology might be used to address some of these issues through the development of shared, humane values that are amplified by specific qualities of open education, including: relationships and power; anxiety and hope; and social enterprise and community-up provision. These areas are impacted by resilience, which is socially- and environmentally-situated, and denotes the ability of individuals and communities to learn and adapt, to mitigate risks, prepare for solutions to problems, respond to risks that are realised, and to recover from dislocations (Hopkins, 2009). This focuses upon defining problems and framing solutions contextually, around our abilities to develop adaptability to work virally and in ways that are open source and self-reliant. This means working at appropriate scale to take civil action, through diversity, modularity and feedback within communities.

The key for any debate on resilience linked to open education is in defining a curriculum that requires institutions to become less managerial and more open to the formation of devolved social enterprises. This demands the encouragement of what Gramsci (1971) called organic intellectuals, who can emerge from within communities to lead action. Learners and tutors may emerge as such organic intellectuals, working openly with communities in light of disruption. An important element here is what Davis (2007) terms “democratic ‘co-governance’” within civil action, but which might usefully be applied to education, in the form of co-governance of educational outputs. One key issue is how open education is (re)claimed by users and communities within specific contexts and curricula, in-line with personal integration and enquiry, within an uncertain world (Futurelab, 2009).

The following questions emerge, catalysed by open education.
1. What sorts of literacies of resilience do people as social agents need?

2. What sorts of knowledge/understanding do these learners need to be effective agents in society?

3. Are our extant modes of designing and delivering curricula meaningful or relevant?

This paper will address these questions by examining whether open education can enable individuals-in-communities to recover from dislocations.

References

The Oil Drum 2010. http://www.theoildrum.com/


Educational futures, educational technology and digital social media


Posted by hallymk1

*Originally posted at Learning Exchanges on 7 July 2010.

The application of Futures’ planning and thinking in the development of higher education is receiving more attention, and in particular is catalysing researchers and practitioners to discuss frames of reference, methods, and ethics for thinking about futures’ planning. The work of FutureLab on Beyond Current Horizons, was synthesised by Facer and Sandford in addressing technology futures. They critiqued much that was taken-for-granted in the use of educational technology, noting that (p. 75): “the ‘imaginary’ upon which future-oriented projects are premised often takes for granted the contemporary existence of and continued progress towards a universal, technologically-rich, global ‘knowledge economy’, the so-called ‘flat world’ of neo-liberal rhetoric”. As I noted elsewhere in challenging positivist views of technology, Facer and Sandford ‘ask much more critical questions of “the chronological imperialism of accounts of inevitable and universal futures”. This accepts the complexity of the use of technology, of societal development, and of political economy, and asks us to consider some of the ethical imperatives. In addressing these we have a chance to re-think our values.’

Our humane values are critical in defining the theory, methods and ethics of futures-oriented research in education. In the introduction to his latest e-book, The Biggest Wake-Up Call in History, Richard Slaughter highlights the values-driven, hopeful opportunities that underpin an integral approach. An integral approach might enable societies to take a respectful and generous stance to the interpretation of and engagement with the “‘signals’ that are being constantly generated within the global system, [and therefore] as we become aware of their import and actively respond to them, then a deeper, richer, understanding emerges”. Slaughter’s work is important for education, and those who work with technology, because his integral approach highlights the importance of taking a proactive role in critique and action, around transitions to new ways of being and living, in the face of climate change, peak oil and the dominant, neoliberal ideology of political economy. Education has to work with these external issues in planning its possible futures. One strand of this that needs greater critique is technology and digital social media.

Slaughter asks two important questions in addressing these issues.

  1. How can so many contributions fit together within a coherent whole?
  2. How can many different kinds of truth be honoured and adjudicated?

In respecting complexity, pluralism and difference, the onus is on us all to look at ways of planning for transitions rather than waiting to adapt to shock. This may involve taking on-board relevant historical lessons, in order to stand for a position of “Science and technology + foresight + moral courage”. This interrelationship of science and technology, humanism and the liberal arts is critical in any approach to futures’ thinking, in particular because difficult, inclusive, ethical decisions need to be made around the pressures of population, affluence and the environment, and the possibilities of technology.

One of the questions with which I have come away is how are those of us involved in educational technology and digital social media actively engaged in futures work? Is there a sense in which these communities are futures literate? How do these communities of practice enable the critique of technology and the possibilities for the uses of educational technology, in both the process of creating the future and the outcomes of those processes [what is actually done as well as how this happens]? In engaging with social media and in touting personalisation, how are we looking at values and customs in common?

I return to this issue of values because it is important and is one that technologists ought to address, especially in underpinning our activity and what we do in the world. In part, this reflects Holloway’s “power-to”, and his focus on doing as an emancipatory activity, in direct opposition to others’ “power-over” us and our labour. Doing and activity are crucial, but need to be seen in light of our shared humanity. Dowrick reminds us that the ways in which we live our lives should be driven by humane values that can help us overcome disruption, namely: courage; fidelity; restraint; generosity; tolerance; and forgiveness. Those of us who drive forward the use of technology has a duty to foreground these issues in ensuring that we do not contribute to individual alienation, the taylorisation of work, or the fetishisation of tools.

In engaging with technology and social media, I see decisions being made to enact our values. In this way there is space for activism, and the creation of pedagogies of excess, supported by the use of technology and social media. However, we need to ask more often what do “we” want to be and why? Why do we want to do what we do with technology? How does, for example, Twitter enable our shared humane values? How do we allow Facebook’s form and function to (de-)humanise us? Who is marginalised/empowered on-line in a virtual learning environment, and what does this outcome say about us? Do we allow mobile technologies to enable or prevent us from doing and creating? How does our understanding of the present and our work with educational technology in the present enable us to plan for the future? My use of “we” and “our” and “shared” is critical.

Analysing the present is an important issue. Do we properly understand why and how technology and social media are being (ab)used in the present, and how and why they help us to act/react now? Or are we simply accepting dominant hegemonic positions about the use of technology in education? When we make statements about engagement, participation, marginalisation do we critique those statements? How do we use those statements, and our approaches and needs, underwritten by our core, humane values, to help communities of practice to develop their own solutions to problems? I see this as a starting point for enabling a discussion about futures that utilises technology to enhance our humanity, and to move us from the fetishisation of the digital towards communal solutions to significant problems.