[iDC] Undermining open source: iTunes U

[John Hopkins]

hallo idc'ers:

Some practical and impractical thoughts...

>Thanks, Trebor, for the good, practical thoughts.  I agree that 
>courses have to be concept driven and have to confess that I 
>probably wouldn't be able to teach a software driven class if I had 
>to (too boring!), but I do think we have a responsibility to make 
>sure students have the ability to do what they want with the 
>software.  Students who have computer experience prior to entering 
>college aren't the issue, it's the ones without the experience 
>(immigrant populations, students from underfunded grade and high 
>schools, etc.) that worry me.  Programming of course is key, that's 
>something I've been focusing on with students for a long time, and 
>something I think should be core knowledge in public k-12 education. 
>It's a literacy issue, those with the knowledge of programming not 
>only have the ability to succeed professionally (including starting 
>businesses), but like reading and writing, have the ability to 
>express themselves and be active social and political actors.  I've 
>been teaching for a while so I've had the pleasure to see students 
>transcend social and economic class by gaining a high level of 
>programming skill and creativity.

I believe it is important to remember that a transcendent experience 
in the classroom (however one defines that term) happens relatively 
independent of the subject material.  Otherwise, how to explain that 
different people may get 'turned on' in every imaginable type 
classroom (or turned off as well...).

I conclude that it is dependent on what one might call the structural 
characteristics of that extended learning space -- I use the term 
meta-characteristics -- that most affect the experience.  These would 
include factors like grading (which deeply informs the 
teacher-student relationship by institutionally defining the social 
power base of that relationship); the physical characteristics of the 
space (bad lighting, inadequate devices, the ventilation, 
intimidating arrangement of furniture), the over-riding social 
mandate governing the actual presence of both student and teacher 
(why get a degree?  why choose this subject?  why work at that 
school?  why teach? etc); the relationships or lack thereof between 
the students, and so on...

All these characteristics inform the presence or lack of an 
atmosphere of fear.  When a dominant social agenda over-rides the 
general atmosphere by instilling a fear (of failure, of 
non-acceptance, of rejection), little or no learning may take place. 
If the teacher gains the trust of the students (and vice-versa), 
powerful and fearless forces for facing the unknown and assimilating 
that unknown as a learning experience thrive.

A teacher approaching these questions has first to have an 
understanding of what the meta-characteristics are, and then to have 
strategies for how to shift those characteristics in such a way that 
they serve the goal of creative engagement and learning.

Coming to the issue of software vs hardware vs art, if the previous 
general conditions are not met, there is little hope of a 
transcendent learning experience, so a discussion is pointless.  If 
the conditions are met to one degree or another, then one can 
consider these material issues -- as they affect the full set of 
meta-characteristics of the situation.

Coming to more media-specific issues -- which totally depend on the 
local program -- making any generalizations problematic to begin 
with, but:

However, stressing to the student that the process is a 
learning-how-to-learn about software and hardware.  Many will still 
feel cheated when they arrive at the end of the semester without 
mastering a single chunk of software.  If there is a new software 
that it seems necessary to learn, I generally deploy several small 
groups with different tasks to implement, mixing nerds with 
non-nerds, and have them play for some days until they make 
presentations to the class on what they did and how they did it...

Patrick brings up the issue of choosing platform (Linux), and so on 
-- which is fine when there is proper tech support (for the faculty 
member).  And unless there is decent support or the faculty want to 
take on lab-maintenance along with 3- or 4-class semesters, what 
choice is there?  Personally, I prefer a lab that I manage myself, as 
long as I have complete freedom (and budget) to choose platform & 
software.  And then there is the issue of the sysadmins of the 
greater institutional infrastructure.  I make sure to make contact 
with the functional sysadmins, rather than the IT managers.  As much 
of my work revolves around the actual functional dynamics of the 
local network and how it interacts with the greater internet, I have 
many many stories of both success and conflict over firewalls and 
other security measures.

Encouraging and facilitating student's use of their own machines in 
class, rather than relying fully on the generally 'canned' machines 
that the IT infrastructure provides.  This allows the student to have 
a stake in actively engaging the important process of maintaining 
their own machine as a production platform -- something that is 
missed entirely when students use machines that are maintained as 
'black boxes' which either run or don't run.

And to Patrick's comment on the technical/conceptual split.  hmmm. 
sounds like the historical discussion about "photography as art."  Or 
the contemporary art:science split.   And at any rate, this issue is 
very curriculum-dependent.  If everybody accepts that the courses are 
about learning software, then why go to any effort at all to change 
it?  It'll simply drain the spirit. Better to go to a program that 
recognizes that the issue is creative engagement of the world by the 
student (and the teacher together).  This goal melds any material 
concerns into a deeper foundation which accepts that ANY material 
(technology) used for creative action has limits.  Once this is 
accepted, then it is interesting to look at those limits, try to 
circumscribe them, and move on to the possibilities.  The ensuing 
exploration is somewhat defined by those limits, and the process of 
pushing  the limits.  This process can be undertaken regardless of 
the material technology (hardware or software) be it MicroSoft or 
OpenSource.

The Academy (read: any institution) is always, as a social unit, 
defined by its need for self-determined or imposed structure. 
Anything else is a threat.  Although stasis is the reward for 
clinging to same-ness; social structures tend to resist change 
because change means a migration of power to different sets of 
relation.  This generates the fear of change.  This is the same for 
the university, industry, academy, military, whatever social 
structure.

In a way, a traditional educational institution may be compared to 
Microsoft (monolithic, limited, rigid, static), and OpenSource can be 
compared to the chaos of real life (dynamic, plural, fluid, changing).

Realizing all this, the radical/transformative learning experience is 
a unique instance, not limited by time or situation.  It can be 
microscopic (to the larger social structure) -- i.e. an individual 
"ahah! so that's how the world works!" to the larger-scale of social 
renewal / revolution.  But it is characterized by change -- it does 
not persist because it is impossible for any social configuration to 
maintain presence at the edge of the unknown.  Humans have a limited 
capacity for for facing that unknown.  It is a burst of freedom, 
followed by consolidation.  And, having said that, it can occur 
anywhere at any time within any social structure.

This is a general call for each teacher to look at the immediate 
situation and see a pathway to change on any scale: take the 
opportunity.  This can mean getting a technophobic student to play 
with the color palette in Photoshop or a nerd to write a poem in 
code.  Or for a whole group to decide to cook dinner together, sit 
down at a common table and enjoy one another's presence.

As for worrying about savvy and less-than-savvy computer users -- I 
find that generally there are fundamental problems with both sets of 
students.  The savvy ones often have no clue as to creative social 
uses of the machine -- and instead of exploring the possibilities 
they stick closely to their known.  The less-than-savvy ones often 
have a phobia for the machine.  A broad digital literacy is 
problematic for both.  And again, unless one may provide a fearless 
context for exploration, little will happen.  Having tech-savvy 
students act as consultants or collaborators for the less-savvy 
students quickly highlights their real knowledge-base and can 
glaringly illustrate that tech-knowledge is not enough, and the 
painting student who barely does email can intensively influence the 
creative project assignment.  Of course, this issue of the range of 
knowledge-bases among a typical group of students is always 
problematic and has to be solved on an individual and per-class basis.

In the end, for the students to be 'active social and political 
actors' a teacher must focus on facilitating an active social 
atmosphere that supports fearless (radical) explorations.  This has 
little to do with the material status of the physical classroom.

Every different class group is different in this respect, and the 
teacher should not rely too much on canned solutions or else the 
students feel too restricted by operating to someone else's standards.

Of course, the fundamental issue with software/hardware choices is 
the surfacing of a much broader social principle -- to conform or not 
to the social structure that one is embedded in.  Conformity 
guarantees social rewards.  Unconformity risks losing those rewards 
at least, and at most, entirely losing ones identity and viability 
with-in the social system.  Why wouldn't a student curse the course 
that did not prepare him or her for getting that nice comfortable job 
-- a reward for conforming to the educational system whose goal is to 
fill those nice comfortable jobs with nicely 'knowledged' and 
compliant young people who will not ask difficult questions...

Okay, enough for a Tuesday evening.

Cheers & thanks for the stimulus...
John

PS -- reflecting on Trebor's comment in his fibreculture article "In 
addition, it is an almost impossible challenge for a single human 
being to keep up with all technological advances."

I think one VERY DEEP problem among a majority of new media educators 
is a serious lack of understanding, from a fundamental level, of 
engineering, science, and technology.   Just as engineers are often 
completely ignorant of cultural issues, so are art educators of the 
"other culture" of science.  Back to C.P. Snow's laments...  But, 
with a fundamental background in engineering principles, one CAN keep 
up with those advances.  But without knowing 'how things work' 
advances don't seem logical or incremental...