Digital Artefact - EDC MOOC

So, the final (in fact, only) assignment for the EDC MOOC was to design a digital artefact.

After much umming and ahhing, I finally decided to try and make sense of the MOOC input by putting it all together into a mind map, with links to the resources I'd drawn on. And so, that's what I did.

EDC MOOC Interactive Mind Map

Week 4 reflections #edcmooc

Week 4 of EDC MOOC looked at "Redefining the Human".

It started with two videos featuring (fictional!) sentient robots and asked us to consider what it is that makes a person human. If a robot can feel 'human' emotion, can love, follow a religion, miss home and feel regret about 'dying' then in what senses is (s)he not human?

Robbie, the robot in the first film was perhaps slightly separated from human society because he was a NASA robot, who (after some time) was sent into space. But in the second film, Gumdrop seemed completely embedded in 'human' society.

At first glance, it seems obvious that humans differ from robots because of our bodies and our brains. But the next short film challenged us to think about the extent to which human body parts can be replaced by technological solutions before we stop being human. A person with a prosthetic limb is clearly still human. A person with four prosthetic limbs is clearly still human. A person with a pacemaker is clearly still human. And if it were an artificial heart, nothing really changes.

So is the key the brain? But what about people on medication that alters their brain chemistry? They are clearly still human too. Yet a body with a computerised brain, for me, is not. Even if that 'brain' could still feel human emotion? I think so, but I'm starting to wonder...

The third film, 'True Skin' also challenged us to think about the nature of death. If a person's memories are transferred into a new body (presumably an 'artificial' one, or I dread to think...) then does that mean that the person is still alive? Is it your memory that makes you you? What about personality? Where does personality come from if your genetic inheritance is wiped out, if the nature v nurture balance no longer applies? Presumably from experience - from your memories - but then, does that not mean you have a different personality, that you will view those memories in a different way? And if that's the case, are you really still you? Does it matter if your personality changes with every shift of body? Surely it could make for some pretty messed up psychology - or perhaps not, if that gets programmed out of each new computerised brain.

At this point, my own brain was starting to feel in danger of short-circuiting, but there was more to come. Film number four, Avatar Days, showed gamers talking about their online personas - except that in the film their images had been replaced by their gaming avatars. This raised all sorts of new questions: is a gamer's avatar human? To what extent do they become a different person whilst gaming? Can you be two people at once?

Certainly the most thought-provoking week of the course for me. It's left me plenty to think about as I put together my digital artefact...

Week 3 - Reasserting the Human #edcmooc

Week three of EDCMOOC was all about "Reasserting the Human". 

The films, as ever, were thought provoking, particularly one that showed a man designing a world from scratch in just an hour. When time ran out, the world 'came to life' and a woman started to explore it, watched lovingly by the man - but without any contact between them. It made you wonder what on earth was going on - it seemed he had created this world for her, so why not share it with her? 

The film then went on to show her in a hospital bed in a holograph unit. So perhaps the husband had been allocated an hour to design a world for her to experience - however briefly - from within her unconscious state.

Is this the future of technology? Is this how we should be using technology - to reinforce our human relationships and interactions in new and innovative ways, to build on and extend the human? I would argue that it is. In an ever more connected, fast-moving world, human emotion, compassion and understanding becomes more important than ever.

The readings were equally thought provoking, especially one that argued we should first teach our children what it means to be human, how to relate to the world and to one another, before introducing them to technology. Whilst accepting the impossibility of winding back the clock the years to when the article was written, I have some sympathy with this view.

I think it is really important that we think about how we use technology in the future, particularly in education, that we make sure that we use technology in the best way for our learners and for society, not just for ourselves as teachers.

I explained what I meant by this in a discussion forum post:

To take the example of language teaching (which is what I do - not in a school but with private adult students) technology has been a huge boost. There are all sorts of podcasts, radio shows, videos, online articles, blogs and so on, not to mention apps that can help learners to develop their language skills and to see real-life language that is targeted at a native audience. It's great! But then there are online translation and interpretation tools.

Now, there's nothing wrong with online translation tools per se. For the traveller with no skills in the target language, they can be really helpful - and the chances are that if you look up "hotel", "pillow" or "shower" you'll get the right answer. But there are undeniable problems with them if you try to translate complex texts, and besides, as a language teacher I don't want to be teaching learners just to use online tools. I want them to learn vocabulary, to analyse texts, to be able to reason and argue in the foreign language, both as a means (to developing other life skills) and as an end in itself - the joy of natural, spontaneous, fluid communication.

Now, I'm not arguing that any language teacher would just teach their learners to use an online translation tool and leave it at that, any more than they would have taught a learner only to use a bilingual dictionary in the past. What I am saying is that there are creative ways of using technology and there are lazy ways of using it. The problem is not the technology itself and neither is the solution. In the end, a good teacher will select and use the right tools for the right job at the right time. 

This is what we need to strive for - not just relying on technology to hold all the answers, and certainly not just giving our learners a tablet and standing up at the front with a massive screen with a pre-programmed syllabus and expecting it to 'just work' without any human skill or input.

I'm not trying to suggest that teachers do, or would want to take the easy route. But technology doesn't sit still and constantly developing new teaching methods and materials takes time and effort - time and effort that is not always as well rewarded as we would wish it to be. If teachers are to maintain this level of commitment, they must be supported by educational leaders and communities. They must be allowed to do their job and they must be rewarded for doing it well.

Fortunately, technology can help us to build those communities and to share ideas, materials and so on. The future is bright as long as those in authority recognise the importance of the human element of education - even education enhanced by technology.

Holiday time #edcmooc

I was away on holiday last week, which is relevant for two reasons. Firstly, it explains why I'm late posting any comment on the Week 2 material. Secondly, for big chunks of the week, I had no internet connection. I won't claim that I wasn't using technology at all - I read my Kindle for long periods and was travelling around in a camper van, complete with sat nav. But I didn't take my laptop with me and even on days when we did have internet access, I found myself quite content not to check my emails until the end of the day if at all, whereas when I'm at home, it's one of the first things I do in the morning. And as for Facebook, well, it barely crossed my mind.

Relevant? Well, sort of. You see, one of the short films we were asked to watch in Week 2, A Digital Tomorrow, shows a girl using all sorts of futuristic technology - or at least trying to use it. Her car initially refuses to let her in, as it doesn't recognise her palm print, then it refuses to start until she puts her make-up on. She tries to phone her friend (boyfriend?) and the voice recognition doesn't recognise the way she pronounces his name. Then they meet up and sit in a bar and barely talk to one another as they're so busy using their tech.

I enjoyed this film because of the way it gently pokes fun at technology, at the way things we think will make our lives easier actually make them more complicated, at the way we upgrade to new technologies even before the wrinkles have been ironed out, at the way we know the technologies we use aren't up to scratch but we use them anyway.

And that brings me back to my holiday. Or rather, to the way that, despite having enjoyed a break from Facebook, from email, from being a slave to the screen, I spent my first day back battling against a slow broadband connection whilst attempting to watch catch-up TV, catch up on my MOOCs, upload my holiday photos, and see what my friends have been up to on Facebook.

The irony is that the input in my other current MOOC (Inspiring Leadership through Emotional Intelligence) was all about stress and renewal. I know what causes stress and I know what it does to me. And yet I subject myself to this battle of wills with inanimate objects anyway.

Thank goodness for holidays.

Utopias and Dystopias #edcmooc

In week one of the EDC MOOC, we've been given four short films to watch, under the theme Utopias and Dystopias. 

I'm not going to go into the films in depth as I imagine that pretty much anyone who finds their way to my blog is going to have come from the MOOC, but they were pretty deep and overall pretty dystopian. 

This was a real departure from the other MOOCs I've done so far - there was no 'taught' input as such, no video lectures, just the films and some readings. The learning goes on through the analysis of the films and readings, discussions in the forums and by reading and engaging with each other's blogs and online spaces. (Better hope nobody has come here with high expectations of learning much about technological determinism!)

Although I had to work a lot harder to learn from these videos than from the lectures in other MOOCs, I think there was a lot to get out of the films and it really made me think about the place of technology in our society and whether we've got the balance right. There's a moment in Thursday when a man pulls the blind down to block out the sun so he can see his screen better - it's such a simple action and one we've all done, but suddenly in the context of this film it somehow brought me up short.

We were then asked to think about utopian and dystopian stories about technology in film and television. This set me off on a chain of thought that went from The Matrix (although I fell asleep watching that particular film on more than one occasion, so not sure I ever really grasped what happens in it!) to Inception, The Island and finally Enemy of the State.

Enemy of the State seems a particularly interesting example to me. It's one of my favourite films, clearly showing the dangers of a surveillance society and the fact it's very hard to maintain one's privacy in today's digital world. Cameras are everywhere. Our online interactions are logged and monitored. Our cars can be tracked, as can our purchases. Telephone calls are logged, heck, our phones don't even need to be turned on for our location to be traced. And it's all down to technology.

But the thing about this film, as opposed to the others, is that it isn't set in some dystopian future. It's set right now (or actually some fifteen years ago now). It's real. It could happen. So, dystopian then? Well, that depends on which definition you use. It's not an imagined future, but it is an imagined state of things, and definitely a bad state of affairs for the main character in the film, if not for society as a whole. Or is it just that most citizens are oblivious to the state of affairs? 

But perhaps the most interesting thing this week hasn't been the input itself, but seeing how the films, readings, discussions and web chat have been used to deliver a unit of learning.

New MOOC - E-learning and digital cultures #edcmooc

A few months ago, I took my first MOOC: Fundamentos de la escritura en español. I loved it and soon signed up for another: Social Psychology. And then for Learning to Teach Online, The Science of Happiness, Inspiring Leadership through Emotional Intelligence and most recently, for E-Learning and Digital Cultures (EDCMOOC). Every time I finish a MOOC, I get recommendations for others - and it seems to me there are just so many interesting courses out there, so many brilliant instructors willing to share their knowledge and love of their subject - free of charge, no less - it's hard to say no.

The difference with EDC MOOC is that it actually asks you to engage in the course material not only by reading, watching course videos and joining in with the discussion forums, but to blog it as well. And so here I am, looking forward to what the next five weeks have to bring.