[Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky

Sun Apr 8 15:29:28 PDT 2018

Thanks Bill,

So would I be right to say for you immersion is generally stable mobile technology?

So now I'm trying to get a handle on what you are trying to do. It seems to me every 'digital' innovation in education needs to answer a fundamental question,

Are you looking to use digital technologies to increase learning in a quantitative way or are you looking to use ideas on human learning to transform how and even why we educate in a qualitative way through the use of digital tools.

The first suggests emphasis on development of applications that address traditional learning outcomes. Personally I think there is often an almost messianic quality to this.  All we have to do is develop the right app. While I am impressed for instance by the organization you cited Learning Equality they seem to fall into this quality, and the little I know of Elliot Solloway (which isn't much and I may be wrong) he takes the same approach.

In the latter you start with a general framework for learning, what do you want to get to, what are the possibilities. There has been a tug in this direction since the Papert ideas you mention in the other message to Mike, but it is a difficult and frustrating project. You start with the ideas on how humans learn and then you move forward from there developing a curricula that takes advantages of the digital possibilities and then you work on platforms.  I think as you suggest the process needs to be flexible taking into account cultural, local and even teacher belief system.  I am figuring this is where you want to go with mongrel Vygotskianism (I have to admit I never heard that before). There are other possibilities like Pariticpatory Action Research which might have better results that Westernized ethnomethodology (might not).  

So I guess my question is how are you looking to pull your three 'teething rings' together.

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> On Behalf Of Bill Kerr
Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2018 5:13 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky

hi Michael Glassman,

I took my eye off the IT ball for a few years doing other things, getting back to it now. What I'm faced with really is too many balls to juggle on my own and so am looking around to recruit  team members.

By digital immersion I mean that the poor need their own hardware, you don't learn computing by visiting a lab twice a week. In practice this seems to have evolved into a situation where the computer they carry in their pocket (mobile phone) is forbidden in school and vanilla applications tediously rolled out (MS Office etc.). Many aboriginal Australians in central Australia don't have computers at home and their phone is shared.
Then groups setup to bridge the digital divide will bring ipads to them, do some training and then take them away. I see this as falling well short of what should be done.

>From my limited knowledge Apple has a big influence in Australia too
particularly through ipads. Quite a bit of my inspiration re open source and cheap hardware comes from American exemplars.

I mentioned Learning Equality  https://learningequality.org/ which is an American based group. So far their main work has been to combine the cheap hardware (raspberry pi, tablets etc.) with the Salman Khan Academy maths programs. I need to look more into what they are doing.

Elliot Soloway https://www.imlc.io/ (intergalactic mobile) has developed a suite of collaboration software to be run on device agnostic browser based BYOD. Scroll to the bottom of his FAQ page to read his position papers https://www.imlc.io/faq

Mark Guzdial has been talking up teaching computer science using cheap hardware approach on his blog for some time, eg.
https://computinged.wordpress.com/2017/06/14/using-tablets-to-broaden-access-to-computing-education-elliot-soloway-and-truly-making-cs-for-all/

Have I answered your questions?

On Sun, Apr 8, 2018 at 10:44 PM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
wrote:

> Hi Bill,
>
> Could you go a little deeper about what you mean about digital immersion.
> Here in the US it usually means immersive environment/platform like 
> Virtual Reality or Augmentative Reality.  Obviously that's not what 
> you mean as you rightly point out developing learning ecologies don't 
> have access to the necessary software (cost) or hardware (the level of 
> connectivity and support is just not available).
>
> Are you specifically talking using tablets and Open Source applications.
> Which ones? I know there are good ones out there.  The tablet research 
> has not been very successful so far, even in environments with a great 
> deal of resources.  It is also interesting that you use Android.  The 
> other day one of my students pointed out to me that many universities 
> in the US are developing through ios under Apple's influence, but much 
> of the rest of the world is focusing on Android technology. This might 
> create ugly chasms and isolate the US in terms of how we use digital 
> technology.  I don't know if anybody watched it but Tim Cook did a 
> Town Hall the first part of which he talked about education. Not 
> because it was good but because it was kind of scary.  Apple for 
> instance is pushing curricula in coding and giving free training.  
> From my own experience I would be you my last dollar that coding is in 
> ios, trying to make non-Apple technologies obsolete in the US.  It I believe is easier to do Android FOSS but not sure.
>
> Michael
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu 
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> On Behalf Of Bill Kerr
> Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2018 8:03 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky
>
> I'll put this up for discussion. It has been a twisted road for me to 
> get to this point. I had a fail with the Noel Pearson's Direct 
> Instruction approach near Cairns and have now moved to Alice Springs 
> as a good location for further action research into Australian indigenous issues.
>
> DIGITAL IMMERSION MONGREL VYGOTSKY
> - a contextual pathway to enable modern indigenous technology
>
> The origin of this was an exploration of an effective way 
> (pragmatically) to bring digital technology to indigenous people. This 
> turned into a hands on exploration of disparate fields which for 
> convenience can be organised under three sub-headings which can in turn be melded together:
>
> *Epistemology*: One interpretation of Vygotsky argues that all 
> knowledge is socially constructed and that ethnomethodology, paying 
> detailed attention in the now, is the best or only way of detecting 
> and evaluating what is going on (Wolff-Michael Roth). This world view 
> is critical of other learning theories be they behaviourist, cognitivist or constructivist.
>
> *Culture*: Martin Nakata’s (cultural interface) and Kwame Appiah’s
> (cosmopolitan) approach is that indigenous (and other) culture is 
> mongrel (no longer traditional), consisting of disparate, complex 
> threads created by the intermingling of the traditional with the 
> colonial. It follows from this that effective communication between 
> different cultures must be contextual based on paying detailed attention to the now.
>
> *Technology*: Taking a broad view there are many human technologies 
> originating from the hand and the word. Digital technology (moving 
> bits) is now replacing print as the dominant social medium. The only 
> effective way to master digital technology is through full immersion 
> in the medium. Some groups working with the Disadvantaged in the Third 
> World have understood this, eg. Learning Equality, and use affordable 
> hardware (Raspberry Pi and low-cost Android tablets), software (FOSS) 
> and infrastructure (sneakernet where internet connectivity is limited).
>
> Combining these approached leads to “Digital Immersion Mongrel Vygotsky”.
> The goal is to combine these three approaches to find the contextual 
> sweet spot in the middle of the teething rings.
>
> *Reference*:
> Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers
> (2007)
> Learning Equality https://learningequality.org/ Nakata, Martin.
> Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines (2007) Roth, 
> Wolff-Michael. The Mathematics of Mathematics: Thinking with the Late, 
> Spinozist Vygotsky (2017)
>
>