Digital Wisdom, Digital Education, Digital Exhaustion

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Digital technology, I believe, can be used to make us not just smarter but truly wiser. Digital wisdom is a twofold concept, referring both to wisdom arising from the use of digital technology to access cognitive power beyond our innate capacity and to wisdom in the prudent use of technology to enhance our capabilities. Because of technology, wisdom seekers in the future will benefit from unprecedented, instant access to ongoing worldwide discussions, all of recorded history, everything ever written, massive libraries of case studies and collected data, and highly realistic simulated experiences equivalent to years or even centuries of actual experience. How and how much they make use of these resources, how they filter through them to find what they need, and how technology aids them will certainly play an important role in determining the wisdom of their decisions and judgments. Technology alone will not replace intuition, good judgment, problem-solving abilities, and a clear moral compass. But in an unimaginably complex future, the digitally unenhanced person, however wise, will not be able to access the tools of wisdom that will be available to even the least wise digitally enhanced human.

H. Sapiens Digital:From Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom, Marc Prensky

I don’t mean to be glib or anything, and I certainly like the idea of promoting wisdom over “mere cleverness” as Prensky suggests, but this piece makes me tired. There are lots of good ideas here, but it’s the Utopian vision of an ambitious professional more than a near-future prognosis.

One way to get at what I mean is to think about the “we” that Prensky uses throughout the essay. It’s certainly true that cell phones and notebook computers extend our cognitive abilities in a helpful way. Everything he says “we” will do or will need to do, however, is dependent on higher education.

Prensky wants us to assume that access to these tools will be more or less universal. It’s easier to imagine a world in which the vast majority of people have very limited computers or cell phones (like the so-called $100 laptop or my TracFone) while a small minority use more sophisticated versions.

There are already two very different systems of health care in U.S., for example, and nothing inherent in the technology will ensure that there won’t be two (or more) Internets, one that works via a simple search interface (for example) and one that works through more complex information aggregation.

Technology can’t trump class. It’s no substitute for all the messy work necessary to make sure that a majority of people have the education they need to use the new tools. I think Prensky misses something else: we won’t just need the tools, we will need the tools to help us escape, if only for a moment, from the world.

Posted in: Economics, Professional, Writing

American Watch

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US labor law currently permits a wide range of employer conduct that interferes with worker organizing. Enforcement delays are endemic, regularly denying aggrieved workers their right to an “effective remedy.” Sanctions for illegal conduct are too feeble to adequately discourage employer law breaking, breaching the international law requirement that penalties be “sufficiently dissuasive” to deter violations.

Unfair union election rules allow employers to engage in one-sided, aggressive anti-union campaigning while denying union advocates a similar chance to respond and banning union organizers from the workplace or even from distributing information on company property. If confronted with clear evidence of employee support for a union, employers can force a formal election and manipulate the often lengthy pre-election period to pound their anti-union drumbeat and, in many cases, violate US labor laws, confident that any penalties will be minimal and long delayed.

Workers who overcome these obstacles and successfully form a union may still be unable to conclude a collective agreement, in large part because weak US labor law provisions fail to meaningfully punish illegal employer bad-faith negotiating or to adequately define good-faith bargaining requirements.

Human Rights Watch: The Employee Free Choice Act, A Human Rights Imperative

Nothing spooks the U.S. managerial cadres more than unions. I have always been surprised, for example, at the money universities spend to prevent unionization or to fight an existing union. Administrators would cut their own salaries before they would stop paying a retainer to their union fighting law firm.

If you have never been around contract negotiations, or an organizing drive, you probably think this is just one of those lefty myths about the big bad Capital wolf waiting at our door. If you want a feel for the reality of the paranoia, though, you just have to do a quick search on the act. It’s very real.

What’s so interesting is that all of the fear assumes that people don’t really want unions. The law, then, won’t make it easier for people to make a decision about unions, it will make it easier for unions to manipulate people. Because, of course, no one in their right mind wants a union. I bet those law firms know better.

Posted in: Economics, Language, Professional, Union, War, Writing

The Mystery of the Disappearing Student

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Among online students who dropped out of their degree or certificate programs, 40 percent failed to seek any help or resources before abandoning their programs, according to a recent EducationDynamics survey. Conducted in November 2008 among about 150 respondents who visited EducationDynamics’ sites eLearners.com and EarnMyDegree.com, the survey was designed to identify students’ motivations for deserting their online degree or certificate programs.

Financial challenges (41 percent) proved to be the main contributor to student attrition, followed by life events (32 percent), health issues (23 percent), lack of personal motivation (21 percent), and lack of faculty interaction (21 percent). Nearly half (47 percent) of students who dropped out did so even before completing one online course.

Survey Reports Many Online Learners Never Seek Help Before Dropping Out, Dian Schaffhauser, 1/09/09

This is one of those studies that seems to confirm the obvious and to deepen a kind of mystery. As an online teacher, I see this phenomena all of the time. Students sign up but don’t show up. They start a class but don’t finish. At one online school, I had classes in which almost half of all students routinely disappeared.

Most often they do this without any notification to me, although in some cases I know they have spoken to advisers or financial aid administrators. I’m certain this has to do with class, both economically and culturally. As the survey notes, money is the most important reason, followed closely by life events.

Almost all of these problems, though, suggest that many online students lack the cultural capital that middle class students take for granted. The one that strikes me as most important is the sense that a professor is someone you can talk to if you have problems. Professors often don’t feel approachable, even when they work at it.

My dad had a college degree, but my mom didn’t; when I first went to college I have never seen a campus before, and certainly never met a professor. Like a lot of people, I had professors who went out of their way to be helpful and friendly. Still, it took years before I felt comfortable enough to talk to them.

I am not sure how we can fix this in an online classroom, although calling students at the start of the session seems to help. Somehow, though, we have to encourage students to see us as allies rather than arbitrary authorities. It’s a particular challenge in a writing class because students are also dealing with criticism, often for the first time.

Posted in: Autobiographical, Composition, Economics, Professional