visitor vs resident & real life
I think this is a question that we should be asking ourselves – a couple of weeks ago I asked via twitter the following question “opinion please … can a tchr show/teach impact & innovation in ICT if it’s not an integral part of their life?”
Talking to a teacher who is taking a lead role in ICT at school this year about the definition of visitor vs resident she quickly said she was a visitor. (Logs in, does what she has to do and logs out.)
In the debates about computers, internet, ICT integration – how can a visitor understand the POV of a resident? Can they understand it?
I don’t know. I can’t approach it from the visitor perspective as I am a resident.
As are my two children (18 & 21). Computers, computing, internet, & other ICTs are all part of our lives – daily. My daughter is on Twitter (@spacegirlnz) and we talk to each other sometimes that way instead of texting (from our respective offices/desks in the house); my daughter decided she wanted to be able to do 2 things at once while studying for her uni exams – so she snagged our old PC monitor (which was attached to our storage computer!) and figured out how to attach it to her laptop and do the dual screen thing – now she can study and watch a movie, or study and chat with friends, or do some photoshop stuff and watch a movie … or whatever! We have 4 laptops and 1 PC between the 3 of us! Along with 2 smartphones (Nokia 6121s) and 1 other wireless device (iTouch) we’re all connected both online and offline. We’re residents. (Back in the day when we had an old 8088/80286/80386 both kids could execute typed dos commands to get to their games without adult help) (And this connectedness doesn’t mean we don’t do other stuff – we cycle together, sit around the house reading books together, go walking together, cook together – it’s just we’re also wired/wireless together as well)
So – visitor or resident?
A question I hear very often is “how can they be friends if they’ve never met in real life?” totally misses the point that the definition of “real life” has changed.
Are my online collegial relationships via Twitter less than those in person? I don’t think so. They’re different – we talk about different things – and sure there’s not a lot of classroom visiting happening – but there is a lot of talk – professional talk – and in fact I would say I’ve had more professional talk with some Twitter colleagues than I’ve had with colleagues here – because I have more in common with my online ones.
What about all the professional development that goes on via blogs? Is that less than “real life” professional development? As far as I’m concerned I learn more online than in “real life”. Where then is my “real life”?
I think my real life is everything that’s a part of me – online, offline where-ever!
Hi Dragonsinger,
This is an interesting argument for authority … who has the authority to teach with ICTs or who has the authority to rule or comment on the value of ICTs in schools …
If I read this right you are arguing that only people who are resident in virtual worlds can understand the value and use of virtuality ICTs etc in education…
I looked at something similar on Artichoke with respect to problem based learning … and who had the authority to write the scenarios …
But there is a weakness in arguing that you cannot understand/ represent something unless you are doing it …
The full thing is in the comments against the Artichoke PBL post but will paste in the bit that might fit below
There is an interesting post on Beattie’s Book Blog …that expresses the discomfort I feel about extending this line of argument … and Beattie does this more eloquently than I can
• In November, 2005, New Zealand artist Lyn Bergquist was shown the door. The Warkworth artist’s work, intended to be displayed at an Auckland gallery, was rejected by the gallery owner because… because it depicted Maori flags. Oedipus Rex Gallery director Jennifer Buckley told Radio New Zealand, “Flags are symbols and emblems of a very specific culture. And these are Maori flags. I would have the same issue with a Maori artist using my MacKenzie tartan.” Flags or tartans, art or literature, the issue is cultural appropriation. Of all the dumb ideas to come out of academia, cultural appropriation is just about my least favourite. Why? Oh, let me count the ways. The first and worst thing about it is this: the notion of appropriation strikes at the very heart of what artists — painters and sculptors, composers and lyricists, novelists and playwrights — do. We make things up. We make people up. We make up cultures and countries and tartans and flags. And the only limit we want applied to our characters is the limit of our imaginations. I’m writing a book with three main characters: a Jewish boy from New York, a Montana boy in trouble with the law and a Black girl who’s the catcher on a baseball team. If I took appropriation seriously, two of ‘em would have to go. Second, I firmly believe the world is a better place for “appropriation.” If Annie Proulx hadn’t written about Newfoundland because she was an American, Shipping News would never have won all those awards. If Ted Dawe hadn’t written about living rough because he’s not a street kid, a member of the young urban tribe, K. Road would never have been published. And, really, if Paula Morris hadn’t written Trendy But Causal, I wouldn’t have spent half an hour rolling around in bed, laughing my socks off. All three books reveal the world, perhaps all the better because the authors viewed the place they were writing about with the fresh eyes of someone from a distance. Third, if appropriation is damaging to writers, it’s just as damaging to other arts. Would the world be as rich, would women be better served, if Reubens didn’t paint their likeness? If Picasso had limited his art to white European males? If Titian, if Rodin, if most of the visual artists of our millennium hadn’t followed their own admiring vision? Fourth, and for now, finally, when academic voices call for an end to appropriation as a protection of minority culture, they pose the greatest danger to… minority artists. Why should Black artists be limited to painting Black subjects? Jewish women to writing about Jewish women? Ngai Tahu writing poems about Ngai Tahu and not Ngati Mahuta, Ngai Wai, or white settlers from Dalmatia? Would New Zealand really be better off in Hone Tuwhare only wrote from a Maori perspective, and only about Maori subjects?
Great argument! Thanks for that. I don’t disagree.
But can I say HOWEVER?
However, if the people making the ICT decisions, doing the ICT research @ school at the same ones who won’t look beyond what they are comfortable with, who roll their eyes at the thought that cell phones could actually be used in a classroom (I teach younger children so it’s not really an issue for me in my classroom).
I really believe that until people come to the ‘lightbulb’ point of realising that ICT is a tool/integral part of many people’s lives and they need to approach from that POV in order to ignite them, then there’s not a lot of useful stuff going to happen ICT-wise in the classrooms.
Our senior classrooms are still using computers mainly for word-processing.
When I had computers in my classroom (I trialled a box system – 1 box/4 monitors – for a term) I used them for all sorts of things – anything I could think of – and I have tons more ideas of how I could use them now (when/if they come back).
You can say “however”
… so much of what we interrogate in the landscapes of edu_speak would be enhanced by the “however”
Check out the alignmnent of ICTs against student learning outcomes resources (pdf downloads) on the ICT interventions page of the HOT wikispace
It has made a huge difference to the uptake of ICTs by teachers in the clusters we facilitate