That Vision Thing

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The need for a new dynamic sector to generate an economic recovery is a perfect opportunity to promote high-speed rail and alternative energy research (and in far greater quantities than the Obama administration is proposing). Our banking system is being rescued with public money. Why shouldn’t the public get something in return for that, like publicly or cooperatively owned financial institutions that could provide customers with low-cost services and communities with economic development funds? And with the housing market not likely to recover for at least several years, why not experiment with different models of ownership? For example, instead of foreclosing on houses, why not turn them into limited-equity co-ops, which take the speculative motive out of that essential of life? These things won’t happen spontaneously; they need state action, prodded by organized and thoughtful activism. The public isn’t with us yet, but we’re a long way from the days when The Market seemed like a fresh idea.

A Post-Capitalist Future is Possible, Reimagining Socialism: A Nation Forum; Doug Henwood

Doug Henwood has a good sense of the timidity of the Obama administration. I think he’s right, too, the the problems is a lack of comprehensive vision on the left. It’s the same frustrations I have with academia. We should do more than create open source textbooks; we need to challenge the education industry.

It may be that too many people feel they have too much invested in the current system. I think, though, that any comprehensive vision of a post-capitalist system should begin with the work-week. That should be the strategic focus. We need a step by step plan to go from 40 to 35 to 30 hours.

I think that freedom from capitalism, to the extent it is possible, begins with a shortened work week and longer vacations. The goal ought to be the creation of a post-capitalist culture; literally, we need people who have better things to do. As long as we all running on the rat-wheel, we can hardly think, much less act.

Posted in: Composition, Language, Writing

Ignore That White Elephant, It’s Just the Textbook Industry

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Technology is changing the way students learn. Is it changing the way colleges teach?

Not enough, says George Siemens, associate director of research and development at the University of Manitoba’s Learning Technologies Centre.

While colleges and universities have been “fairly aggressive” in adapting their curricula to the changing world, Mr. Siemens told The Chronicle, “What we haven’t done very well in the last few decades is altering our pedagogy.”

To help get colleges thinking about how they might adapt their teaching styles to the new ways students absorb and process information, Mr. Siemens and Peter Tittenberger, director of the center, have created a Web-based guide, called the Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning.

The Wired Campus, March 19, 2009

I don’t want to imply in any way that I think this is a bad idea. On the contrary, I think that this kind of this project and others, such as the Writing Spaces composition textbook initiative, are fundamental to the future of education in a democratic culture. They represent yet another moment in the ongoing triumph of the collective, open knowledge process.

What fascinates me about these sorts of projects is the timidity of their rhetoric. Perhaps this is simply the natural humility of some parts of academic culture, or perhaps it’s a hesitancy born out of a kind of Utopian burn out. After all, about every six months something or other– some technology, I should say– comes along claiming to be revolutionary.

Alongside this timidity seems to be an unwillingness to directly challenge the powers-that-really-be in academia, such as the textbook publishers. Of course, these sorts of project are pretty obviously ringing the death-knell for those $300 chemistry textbooks now haunting our campuses. But these projects don’t try to justify themselves in that fashion.

I guess we shouldn’t complain too much if this anti-corporate push never quite takes on an anti-corporate rhetoric; it may well be the best way to fly under the radar, as it were. One day the textbook publishers will wake up to find that collaboratively authored, profession-wide textbooks have completely taken their place. Another major loss for the old property regime.

Posted in: Professional, Writing

Wikipedia Wins Again!

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And what has been surprising in students’ attitudes toward Wikipedia? Though my evidence is anecdotal, in the years of teaching with Wikipedia I have found almost no difference in the range of opinions about Wikipedia held by student writers and those held by their – mostly – older teachers. I find that roughly the same proportion of people have concerns about reliability, open access, and information literacy among students and faculty, just as I find roughly the same number of enthusiastic adopters among teachers and students. But when I query reluctant students about how and where they formed their negative opinions about Wikipedia, they usually point to a classroom environment where they were penalized for using it as a source. They almost never have had an experience which encouraged them to move from simply using Wikipedia to writing for it. As we move from seeing Wikipedia as only a resource to an online intellectual community, students are more than ready to accompany us.

Are We Ready to Use Wikipedia to Teach Writing?, March 12, 2009, Robert E. Cummings

The case against Wikipedia, like too many things in academia, is more than a little specious, often dependent on a kind of willful ignorance. I knew a professor once who hated Wikipedia so much that he learned to post to it, just so that he could put in false information.

He’d then give his students a simple research task, knowing that most would go to Wikipedia and get the false information he had planted. When they told him what they had found, he’d go, “A HA! You went to Wikipedia didn’t you!” He had nothing to teach, just “don’t use Wikipedia.”

Cummings presents a clear outline of why this sort of thing– besides the ethical implications– represents a wasted opportunity in several directions. Most importantly, it misses a chance to teach students about writing, the production of knowledge, and audiences, among other things.

It also misses the opportunity to continue to develop Wikipedia as both an source of knowledge and a community of writers and knowledge builders. I think some students might find this process so compelling they would become committed Wikipedians. That’s a social good in itself.

I think, though, that Cummings (and the rest of us technology and writing lovers) have to go further than developing arguments in favor of new writing forms. We need an entire range of critical judgments that would allow us to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I think someone like Cummings should write a piece called, “Why I Don’t Have Students Compose Videos in First Year Writing,” or “Why I Don’t Think Twitter is Appropriate in Advanced Composition.” We don’t have to agree on every point, of course, but we need the debate if we are ever going to defeat the Luddites.

Posted in: Composition, Professional, Writing