[Xmca-l] Re: digital immersion mongrel Vygotsky

[Bill Kerr]

hi Michael Glassman,

Ellliot Soloway's emphasis is using computers to enhance collaborative
learning. I'd see that as qualitative change.

Learning Equality has so far used mainly the Salman Khan Academy maths so
I'd see that as quantitative, tapping into third world aspirations to
duplicate what happens in western education (quite legitimate aspirations
IMO, part of the mongrelised culture)

Messianic attitude about the marriage of computing with education: I agree
that this can be a problem. I think Seymour did some epistemological
overreach (that logo could by the vehicle of a quiet revolution
overthrowing traditional school) and it happens all the time. On the other
hand I believe it is true that the computer tool can sometimes transform
learning qualitatively but you do need a teacher there who understands what
is happening. A computer has never taught a child how to read (pointed out
by Alan Kay at the start of the OLPC project)

Participatory Action Research: Not familar with that particular acronym,
correct me if I am wrong, it sounds like old wisdom in a new package. The
contextual emphasis is about doing a negotiation about what motivates the
participants and that can vary enormously.

Disclaimer: I've taught teenage kids from Aurukun, Doomadgee etc remote
communities whose initial interest was confined to using the computer to
visit their communities (they were boarders), find and print pictures. They
had difficulty navigating a keyboard, eg. had to be taught to press Shift
to type a capital etc. So take the example below with a grain of salt.
Initially a lot of time will need to be spent with some of these kids just
learning the user interface.

I have a few exemplars / ideas as follows. The first two use proprietary
hardware / software and so would be modified under my model

4.1

http://www.welcometocountry.mobi/

The Welcome to Country iPhone app. delivers a simple Welcome to Country
video introduction~ to Australian indigenous culture, including basic
cultural protocols that are tribal boundary geo-specific

4.2

https://irca.net.au/article/indigimob-supports-family-history-alice-springs-town-camps

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

The family history project provides an inclusive, and culturally and
socially meaningful pathway into digital literacy for community members.
The Tangentyere inDigiMob Digital Access Worker and Digital Mentors have
been supporting community members to undertake genealogy mapping using the
Mac genealogy software on iPads and computers. The family history project
has been running in five town camps in Alice Springs; Hidden Valley,
Larapinta Valley, Trucking Yards, Karnte and Charles Creek. The family
trees created with the software are extensive, with the genealogy chart at
Hidden Valley including over 300 people, and the printed descendent chart
at Trucking yards being longer than the community centre.

4.3 Game production with indigenous relevance

https://theconversation.com/video-games-encourage-indigenous-cultural-expression-74138

Elizabeth LaPensée: “As an Indigenous game developer and scholar of
Indigenous games
<https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/06/the-post-apocalyptic-dimensional-space-of-native-video-game-design/>,
I want to see more Indigenous people creating games that are simultaneously
engaging and informative. Above all else, I hope to see genuine
representations as well as compelling games with design inspired by
Indigenous ways of knowing”

4.4 Language learning

In trying to learn the Arrernte language I found there were insufficient or
hard to find resources on the web for relatively simple issues such as how
to pronounce important words. I thought this issue would be solvable with a
good tape recorder, web access and some organisation. Why hasn’t it beeen
done?

4.5

Language issues (English as a second language, poor communication between
teacher and learner due to language issues). Linguists and anthropologists
are the pioneers in building great communication between cultures, eg. Bob
Dixon, Peter Sutton. Libre Office enables importing of new language
dictionaries.

4.6

BBC micro:bit http://microbit.org/ is cheap ($20), you can do a lot with it
and the free online software developed by MicroSoft (sic)
https://makecode.microbit.org/# is user friendly, induced me to modify my
opinion of MS btw.

4.7 MIT app inventor for Android http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/

makes it relatively easy to write a phone app. eg. I did their tutorial
comparing speeches from Martin Luther King and Malcom X in less than an
hour. That is the first phone app I’ve written and I felt an ownership
feeling of taking back my phone once I had it installed.




On Mon, Apr 9, 2018 at 8:29 AM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
wrote:

> 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)
> >
> >
>
>